The recommendation was firmly within Justice Department guidelines, and yet was still excessive, treating Stone as if he were a mobster or gangbanger instead of a kooky 67-year-old with no history of violent crime. The recommendation also apparently wasn’t what Bill Barr, by his own account, had expected. In his ABC interview, the attorney general said he had already decided to revise the recommendation when Trump began tweeting his outrage at the handling of the case, creating the inevitable impression that the president had intervened in a criminal matter to help a friend.
Trump’s tweets aren’t very careful as a general matter, but the subcategory of tweets about pending investigations and cases is particularly problematic. This isn’t the first time that Trump has unwisely commented on such matters, apparently oblivious that his words now carry much more weight than they did when he was the host of Celebrity Apprentice.
Barr’s harsh words about the tweets are welcome. One can only hope that the president heeds them, although nothing has been able to get between his thumbs and his Twitter account to this point. Barr is an able and experienced public servant who deserves better, and so — needless to say — does the reputation of our system of justice.
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