Barr’s internal reviews and re-investigations feed resentment, suspicion inside DOJ

The Justice Department in the Trump era has repeatedly tasked U.S. attorneys from far-flung offices to parachute into politically explosive cases in Washington, raising concerns among current and former officials that agency leaders are trying to please the president by reviewing and reinvestigating cases in which he is personally or politically invested…

“The power to investigate is the power to destroy,” said Gregory A. Brower, a former U.S. attorney and former senior FBI official. The current approach to sensitive cases, he said, “gives the appearance of politics coming into play whenever the president has a perceived political enemy. . . . The ability to simply point to a pending investigation against a person can have devastating effects on that person and can have a potential political benefit to the person orchestrating the investigation.”…

“If this Justice Department had done it once, you might understand, but they have done it over and over, and it’s only ever to re-examine an outcome that the president didn’t like,” said Matthew Miller, a former spokesman for Holder, who said the practice does “enormous harm” to the department’s reputation. “When you are constantly launching politically motivated probes, the public can’t tell which investigations are legitimate and which are political, and ultimately they question everything. And that is clearly part of the goal.”