Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley today joined their Democratic colleagues in calling for U.S. Attorney General William Barr to resign immediately.
In a letter addressed to Barr, the senators expressed alarm at, and opposition to, unethical political intervention of senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in the case of Roger Stone, a former campaign insider and adviser to Donald Trump. Mr. Stone was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation, lying to Congress and tampering with a witness in connection with the investigation of Russian intervention into the 2016 presidential election.
“This is an extraordinary turn of events: it appears to show that you and other top DOJ officials intervened in a clearly political fashion to undermine the administration of justice at the President’s behest in order to protect a well-connected political ally who committed a ‘direct and brazen attack on the rule of law,’” the senators wrote. “It demonstrates that you lied to Congress during your confirmation hearing when you stated that you would ‘keep the enforcement process sacrosanct from political influence,’ and it reveals your unwillingness or inability to maintain the integrity of the DOJ and to uphold justice and the rule of law.”
“While you asserted yesterday in an interview with ABC News that you were ‘not going to be … influenced by anybody,’ this statement is simply not credible given that it is sharply at odds with the behavior of top DOJ officials and the comments of the President over the past 72 hours,” the senators continued.
Wyden and Merkley were joined by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.
A digital copy of the letter is available here.
A web version of this release is available here.
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