California Rep. Devin Nunes defended President Trump’s use of Twitter after AG Bill Barr voiced his frustration with the President’s commentary about the Justice Department.
After some leading Republicans voiced support for AG Barr in regards to his social media complaint, Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee ranking member, argued that President Trump should continue tweeting to speak directly to his supporters.
“I think what the attorney general said was very clear, that the president should be careful making comments about criminal investigations,” Nunes said Sunday on Fox News.
“The attorney general didn’t say to stop tweeting because the fact of the matter is this: With 90% of the media being hard Left and really just working for the Democratic Party, the president has to be able to tweet,” Nunes continued. “He’s built a powerful tool reaching millions of Americans, millions of people around the globe, so the president has to tweet.”
Last week, the DOJ intervened in the case of GOP operative Roger Stone, scrapping the sentencing recommendation of the federal prosecutors assigned to work the case in favor of a lighter one.
Although the move appeared to come after Trump tweeted his dismay with the recommended penalty, AG Barr claimed the decision to scale it back was made before the president slammed the guidance.
Still, President Trump’s tweet praised AG Barr for “taking charge” of the case, riling Democrats who expressed alarm about the possibility Trump ordered the intervention as a political favor for Stone, his longtime friend.
On Thursday, AG Barr told ABC News that Trump’s constant public commentary on the Justice Department makes “it impossible for me to do my job” and claimed that his work would remain independent from the president’s political desires.
The White House said that President Trump “wasn’t bothered” by AG Barr condemning his tweets, but the president tweeted about Barr the very next day.
“‘The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,'” Trump said Friday on Twitter, quoting Barr. “This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!”
