WASHINGTON – The Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday advanced an effort to expand the power of the Justice Department’s independent watchdog to investigate allegations of ethical violations and professional misconduct by department attorneys, overriding the prosecutor’s objections. General William P. Barr.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 21 to 1 to approve the bipartisan measure, which unanimously passed the House last year. He would shift the responsibility for investigating the misconduct of an office attorney under Mr. Barr’s supervision to the department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz.
“The negative ramifications of protecting the attorney’s misconduct from the inspector’s general scrutiny and ultimately public scrutiny are not hypothetical,” said Senator Mike Lee, Utah Republican and lead author of the bill. He cited the fact that prosecutors failed to release mitigating evidence in former Senator Ted Stevens’ corruption trial in 2008 and the limits that were placed on Mr. Horowitz while examining the FBI investigation in Russia.
“This is a problem that Congress should want to solve,” added Lee.
Lawmakers’ drive to expand the department’s jurisdiction and powers is before the Trump administration, but its progress is particularly notable at a time when Barr is already under intense scrutiny over prosecution and personnel decisions that Critics say they are politically motivated. This week, two department attorneys accused Mr. Barr and other department leaders of politicizing criminal and antitrust cases, matters that, according to Democrats, should be under the jurisdiction of the inspector general.
It also coincides with a broad campaign by Mr. Trump to impose greater political control over independent inspectors general, including a series of layoffs and demotions and the unprecedented decision to install, as acting substitutes, political appointments that remain under the control of the heads of the agency. They are supposed to watch.
Barr said he had not politicized the department to benefit the president. “I would say it is a media narrative,” Barr said in an interview with NPR. “The things that happen all the time at the Justice Department are misrepresented to the public and considered suspicious in some way.”
Attorneys general on both sides have opposed giving the inspector general the authority to investigate allegations of misconduct and ethical violations by department attorneys. One of the concerns is that there would be pressure to open investigations into every decision the Justice Department makes on politically charged issues, inhibiting its legitimate authority to exercise procedural discretion.
In recent weeks, Mr. Barr and Jeffrey A. Rosen, the Assistant Attorney General, have personally pressured Mr. Lee and Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and the committee chairman, while staff members at The department’s Legislative Affairs and Legal Policy Offices worked to persuade other committee members to modify it, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.
Mr. Barr argued that no bill should allow the inspector general to replace his existing powers and that the attorney general should be fully responsible for all investigations and allegations, according to several people informed of the talks. Their own engagement suggestions were rejected, they said.
The department was unsuccessful. The senators on the panel almost unanimously supported the bill and opposed an amendment by Mr. Graham that would have given Mr. Barr the authority to veto the investigations proposed by the inspector general that he considered inappropriate to guess the acts of fiscal discretion.
Mr. Barr will now have to persuade Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Majority Leader, to not allow a final vote, which will likely result in a veto-proof bipartisan majority, or package the measure with an approval. separately. bill.
Mr. Barr is not entirely opposed to giving the inspector general the power to investigate the department. Last week, it gave Mr. Horowitz the authority to investigate any allegations of unethical interventions in the work of federal prosecutors in Manhattan, a move aimed at allaying the suspicions that Mr. Barr had sought last week to expel the former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, because the office is investigating people associated with Mr. Trump.
Graham said before Thursday’s vote that he had worked to try to find a compromise without success. His proposed amendment would have allowed the attorney general to veto the inspector’s general investigations into the lawyers’ alleged professional misconduct, although such a dispute would have to be reported to Congress. But Mr. Barr still resisted, he said.
“This is what I have concluded after two weeks of dealing with this: You will never find anything acceptable to the Department of Justice,” Graham said.
Republican colleagues led the charge in defeating Graham’s proposed change. Mr. Lee said he would practically give the attorney general “ample, almost unlimited discretion to reject” the investigations proposed by the inspector general.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said he saw no need to give the attorney general any veto power.
“Sensitive investigations happen every day,” he said. “IGs are capable of handling this.”
Republicans said they were supporting the legislation despite their great respect for Mr. Barr. Democrats described it as a tool that could help have a attorney general who they believe is wrongly and corruptly deforming the justice system for Trump’s political gain.
“The developments of the past week, especially the firing of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, make it even clearer how much this legislation is needed,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
Inspectors general examine attorneys from other departments and agencies that carry out significant law enforcement activities, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. The exception in the Justice Department dates back to the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, when the department created an internal office, the leader of which reports to the attorney general, police ethics violations and other professional misconduct.
In 1978, when Congress created the system of inspectors general, it did not create one for the Department of Justice because it already had that office. But 10 years later, Congress created a limited Justice Department inspector general, and in 2002 lawmakers expanded its mandate to cover allegations of misconduct by FBI agents and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
That left only the professional misconduct of attorneys exempt from the inspector general’s mandate, except on rare occasions when the attorney general asks the office to investigate something. In 2008, the House voted to close that gap, but the reform died in the Senate. Proponents of the idea tried again during the Obama administration, but again fell short.
