It looks like Trump now has a leading candidate for Attorney General to replace Jeff Sessions, and the man he’s eyeballing has done it before:
THE HILL – Former Attorney General William Barr is President Trump’s top prospect to be nominated as attorney general, multiple people familiar with the discussions told The Washington Post.
Barr, 68, led the Justice Department (DOJ) from 1991-1993 under President George H.W. Bush and has the support of several White House officials, including a number of senior lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, according to the Post.
The Post notes that the decision is not yet final and Trump could change his mind on the matter. Officials said an announcement could be made in the coming days.
“He’s a serious guy,” one source told the paper of Barr. “The president is very, very focused on [a candidate] looking the part, and having credentials consistent with the part.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
A confirmation vote on Barr could take months, leaving acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker at Justice Department’s helm.
People familiar with the process told the Post that Barr, having led the department before, isn’t particularly eyeing the role, but said the former top DOJ official feels a sense of duty to take the job if it were offered to him.
According to the Pots, administration officials have said Barr would be a welcome choice of Republicans who admire his experience and by Democrats who could see his past tenure as evidence that he has no personal loyalty to Trump.
In case you don’t remember Barr from back in the day, I’ve managed to find one interview from May 2017 where he’s weighing in on Comey being fired by Trump on Cavuto. You can get some sense of the man from watching it, and he doesn’t seem like a Trump loyalist type at all:
Now remember, that’s May of 2017 when everyone still liked Rosenstein. But he does sound to me like a straight up and down kinda guy when it comes to the law. Much like Sessions actually. And the fact that he’s been confirmed by the Senate before, for this same exact job, bodes well in his favor.
Without knowing more about him and kinda off the cuff, I think this sounds like a potentially great pick for Trump as it relates to Trump’s critics and the Russia investigation.
But we’ll see how it goes. We’ve seen these reports before and they’ve been wrong, so take this with a grain of salt.