Trump AG Barr ran afoul of DOJ policy over handling of 2020 discarded ballot probe: Watchdog
(WASHINGTON) — A Justice Department watchdog on Thursday found that former Attorney General Bill Barr and a Trump-appointed former U.S. Attorney ran afoul of Justice Department policy in their “unusual” handling of a criminal investigation of mail-in ballots during the 2020 election.
Trump later amplified the investigation to support his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
In an 82-page report, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was highly critical of the steps taken by Barr and former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania David Freed to amplify the otherwise-minor incident involving discarded ballots.
DOJ officials quickly determined the incident was likely a mistake by a mentally-impaired individual, however, those details they refused to make public until well after the election, the report said.
Horowitz also specifically noted he was “troubled” by the way Barr personally briefed Trump on the matter before public details of the investigation had come to light.
While Horowitz ultimately didn’t conclude either Barr or Freed engaged in “misconduct,” he used the report to urge the DOJ to implement a series of reforms that would clarify and tighten certain policies related to the issuing of public statements surrounding criminal investigations as well as contacts with the White House.
The investigation centered on an incident in September 2020, where the FBI had been told by the District Attorney’s Office in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, about an employee of a local elections office who allegedly discarded nine mail-in ballots.
Days after the matter was referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Freed issued a public statement on the investigation that stated all nine ballots were cast for Trump, only to later issue a corrected statement that stated seven were cast for Trump while the other two were unknown.
Additionally, Freed’s office took the unusual step of making public a letter he had sent to the Luzerne County Board of Elections that provided additional information on the early stages of their investigation that suggested potential criminal culpability by the individual who discarded the ballots.
“The selective details about the investigation included in the initial MDPA statement and the letter suggested that the actions of the individual who engaged in the conduct were intentional and likely chargeable criminally,” the report states.
“However, even at that early stage of the investigation, Department leadership was aware of information that substantially undercut this narrative—including that the subject of the investigation was mentally impaired, appeared to have discarded the ballots by mistake, and would likely not be criminally charged,” the report added.
And while DOJ quickly determined prior to Election Day that no charges were warranted in the matter, the office declined to issue a statement until Jan. 15, 2021, weeks after Freed resigned from office.
The IG’s investigation found Barr was “personally involved” in the events, and that he “encouraged and authorized” Freed to issue the initial statement that mentioned the ballots were cast for Trump.
“Our investigation also found that Barr briefed President Trump about the Luzerne County investigation the day before the statements were issued and specifically disclosed to the President that the recovered ballots were “marked for Trump,” information that was not public at that time and that Trump revealed on a national radio show the next morning,” the report states.
“Other than Freed and the OPA Director, nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed— both career employees and Trump Administration political appointees—emphasized how ‘unusual’ it would be for the Department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed.”
(WASHINGTON) — In the hours after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, allies of former President Donald Trump rushed to denigrate the Minnesota Democrat, seizing on criticism of his handling of the riots in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.
“He allowed rioters to burn down the streets of Minneapolis,” Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, said Tuesday.
But at the time, Trump expressed support for Walz’s handling of the protests, according to a recording of a phone call obtained by ABC News — telling a group of governors that Walz “dominated,” and praising his leadership as an example for other states to follow.
“I know Gov. Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days,” Trump told a group of governors on June 1, 2020, according to a recording of the call, in which he also called Walz an “excellent guy.”
“I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim,” Trump continued. “You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins.”
Trump also suggested on the call that it was his encouragement that sparked Walz to call in the National Guard: “I said, you got to use the National Guard in big numbers,” Trump said. A spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign said Wednesday that was untrue.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said Trump lauded Walz only after the governor heeded his advice to enlist support from the National Guard.
“Governor Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn for days, despite President Trump’s offer to deploy soldiers and cries for help from the liberal Mayor of Minneapolis,” Leavitt said in a statement to ABC News. “In this daily briefing phone call with Governors on June 1, days after the riots began, President Trump acknowledged Governor Walz for FINALLY taking action to deploy the National Guard to end the violence in the city.”
Trump’s contemporaneous approval of Walz’s decision-making in the wake of George Floyd’s murder undermines one of Republicans’ most vocal lines of attack against the vice presidential nominee. Critics have accused Walz of stalling the mobilization of the National Guard to quell rioters who set fire to 1,500 buildings, caused some $500 million in property damage, and were linked to at least three deaths.
Walz, himself a 24-year veteran of the National Guard, ultimately summoned more than 7,000 guardsmen to the Twin Cities. But that decision came 18 hours after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey initially asked the governor to activate military personnel.
“This hesitation cost Minnesotans their lives, communities, and livelihoods,” according to an investigative report compiled by Republicans in the state Senate.
At the time, Walz condemned the Republicans’ report — which was published just weeks before his 2022 reelection — as a political hit job that was “unhelpful.” More recently, Walz brushed aside scrutiny of his handling of the protests.
“It is what it is,” he recently told reporters. “And I simply believe that we try to do the best we can.”
Inside the aftermath
In the days after the murder of George Floyd, as agitators set fires and laid siege to a police precinct, city officials scrambled to contain the unrest.
Floyd, a Black man, was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin on Monday, May 25, 2020. By Wednesday evening, the city’s police “had expended all available resources,” according to a copy of the written request for the National Guard prepared by police officials.
At 6:29 p.m. that Wednesday, Frey called Walz to request the National Guard, he later told the Star-Tribune. That verbal communication was followed up hours later, at 9:11 p.m., with a written request from city police officials. A copy of the written request obtained by state senators indicated that the city would need 600 guardsmen to help with area security, transportation assistance and logistical support.
That evening, Frey’s office crafted a draft press release announcing that the National Guard had been called in, but did not disseminate it, according to records released by the city and reported by local outlets. Instead, city aides would have to wait another 15 hours before Walz would formally mobilize the National Guard.
In text messages released by the city, a member of the mayor’s staff asked, “What’s happening? As far as the Guard,” around 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday night. Another staffer replied that Frey “said Walz was hesitating.”
“According to Minneapolis officials, the governor’s office responded that they would consider the request, but the city did not receive any follow-up until much later,” according to an after-action report commissioned by the state.
On Thursday afternoon, Walz imposed a curfew on city residents and formally mobilized the National Guard. The first troops arrived within hours, and by that weekend, the unrest had largely been quelled.
On Friday, Walz told reporters he had spoken with Trump the day before and that Trump had “pledged his support in terms of anything we need in terms of supplies to get to us.”
Days later, on the June 1 phone call with governors, Walz thanked Trump and accepted his praise before making comments of his own — expressing support for peaceful protesters and suggesting that governors who might otherwise hesitate to call in the National Guard could do so delicately, and frame them as “not an occupying force,” but instead as “neighbors, teachers, business owners.”
“That’s a really effective method,” Walz said.
Trump agreed, but added his own spin on the role of guardsmen.
“It got so bad a few nights ago that the people wouldn’t have minded an occupying force,” Trump said. “I wish we had an occupying force in there.”
An ‘unproductive’ spat
A pair of after-action reports commissioned by the city and state cited private miscommunications and public disputes between Walz and Frey as impediments to effectively handling the protests. At one point, Walz characterized the city’s response as an “abject failure.”
“Several interviewees blamed the Mayor and Governor for their public disagreements about the response to the protests and expressed that this was unproductive,” according to the report commissioned by the city, which was released in March 2022.
The state-commissioned report arrived at a similar conclusion: “Other state officials claim that the request became complicated when elected officials became involved (i.e., the Minneapolis mayor, the governor’s office).”
Another complicating factor, those after-action reports indicated, was the failure of city officials to articulate their needs. The requests made on May 27 “initially lacked clarity and that more information and time was needed for [the state’s emergency management office] to develop the necessary details of the mission to activate the Minnesota Guard,” one report said.
For his part, Walz initially argued that mobilizing thousands of National Guardsmen requires time.
“The average person maybe assumes that there’s soldiers waiting in helicopters to drop in like they do in movies,” Walz said that Tuesday, May 26. “Actually, they’re band teachers and small business owners. They’re folks working in a garage in Fergus Falls who get a call that says you’ve got 12 hours to report to your armory.”
Days later, however, Walz told a reporter that “if the issue was that the state should have moved faster, that is on me.”
Lt. Gen. Jon Jensen, the director of the Minnesota National Guard at the time, later testified before state senators that, had the National Guard been deployed sooner, the protests might not have been so destructive.
“If we had done things differently on Tuesday, as it relates to numbers, as it relates to tactics, could we have avoided some of this? My unprofessional opinion as it relates to law enforcement is ‘yes,'” Jensen said. “My professional military opinion is ‘yes.'”
(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith has charged former President Donald Trump in a superseding indictment in his federal election interference case.
“Today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment, ECF No. 226, charging the defendant with the same criminal offenses that were charged in the original indictment,” a Justice Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions,” the spokesperson said.
Trump last August pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election to remain in power. Last month, in a blockbuster decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office, and sent the case back to the trial court to sort out which charges against him can stand.
The superseding indictment retains the four original charges against Trump from the special counsel’s original indictment — but is pared down to adjust to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
While the original indictment laid out five ways Trump allegedly obstructed the function of the federal government — having state election officials change electoral votes, arranging fraudulent slates of electors, using the Department of Justice to conduct “sham” investigations, enlisting the Vice President to obstruct the certification of the election, and exploiting the chaos of the Jan. 6 riot — the new indictment removes mention of his use of the Department of Justice, which was explicitly mentioned in the Supreme Court’s ruling as falling within his official duties.
While the original indictment mentions the Justice Department on over 30 occasions, the new indictment makes no mention of the DOJ. It also reframes the portion of the original indictment outlining that Trump allegedly knew his claims of election fraud were false.
The superseding indictment identifies Trump as “a candidate for President of the United States … who was also the incumbent President” and says that he “had no officials responsibilities related to any state’s certification of the election results.”
The new indictment is 36 pages, while the original indictment was 45.
It comes just days after Smith, in a filing, urged the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a federal judge’s surprise dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will not take part in any more debates ahead of the 2024 election.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump argued that Vice President Kamala Harris could’ve accepted an offer to debate on Fox News on Sept. 4, or could’ve negotiated a second debate before the ABC News debate.
“She was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS. KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” Trump posted on his social media platform. ” Trump wrote.
Harris had challenged Trump to another showdown immediately after Tuesday’s matchup in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Harris took the stage at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, just after Trump’s announcement. Although she did not cite Trump’s social media post, Harris said he and she “owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate, and I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate,” Harris said. “Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to families across America, like bringing down the cost of living, investing in America’s small businesses, protecting reproductive freedom and keeping our nation safe and secure.”
“But that’s not what we heard from Donald Trump,” she continued. “Instead, it was the same old show, that same tired playbook that we have heard for years, with no plans for how he would address the needs of the American people because, you know, it’s all about him, it’s not about you. Well, folks, I said it then, I say it now, it’s time to turn the page.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.