“The Department’s purported justification for (dropping the charges) does not hold up to scrutiny, given the ample evidence that the investigation was well-founded and — more importantly — the fact that Flynn admitted under oath and in open court that he told material lies to the FBI in violation of longstanding federal law,” former officials said in the letter.
"If any of us, or anyone reading this statement who is not a friend of the President, were to lie to federal investigators in the course of a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation, and admit we did so under oath, we would be prosecuted for it."
Former officials called on Congress to hold Barr accountable, saying that the attorney general has “left Congress with no choice.”
"Our democracy depends on a Department of Justice that acts as an independent arbiter of equal justice, not as an arm of the president’s political apparatus," the letter said.
The message marked at least the second time that a group of former DOJ officials have called on Barr to resign from office in recent months. In February, hundreds of former DOJ employees signed a letter calling for Barr to leave office after he intervened in the sentencing of Trump ally Roger Stone, who was convicted of several charges connected to the Russia investigation. Prosecutors resigned from the case after the Justice Department lowered the proposed sentence for Stone, claiming the one prosecutors initially asked for had been too high.
The letter was published days after the Justice Department moved to drop the case against Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling.
In 2017, Trump wrote in a tweet that "had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," but he later reversed course, painting Flynn as an innocent man who pleaded guilty under the pressure of Mueller's investigation. Trump has frequently slammed Mueller's probe as a "witch hunt" meant to damage his presidency.
Officials with the DOJ said Barr was troubled by what he considered to be irregularities in the FBI's 2017 interview of Flynn, according to The Associated Press.
The Justice Department now says there was no basis to question Flynn, especially since agents were prepared to close their investigation into him weeks earlier after finding nothing to suggest he had committed a crime.
The department also suggests the FBI erred by not advising Flynn that it was a crime to lie, even though the agency said less than two years ago it wasn’t required.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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