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Barr says to have considered resigning over Trump tweets

19 February 2020 09:53 (UTC +04:00)

Attorney General William Barr told people close to President Donald Trump on Tuesday that he considered resigning over the president's continued messages on Twitter about the Justice Department, according to an administration official, APA reports citing Euronews.

However, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday night that "the attorney general has no plans to resign."

One official said Barr's statement of concern was as much a reflection of his thinking earlier in the day as it was an effort to persuade the president to cut down on his Twitter messages about legal matters.

Before leaving the White House for California on Tuesday, Trump said he realized his tweets about the Justice Department make Barr's job harder. "I do agree with that," he said. "I think it's true."

After directing a new filing recommending a less harsh sentence for former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone, Barr said he "a problem" with some of the president's Twitter messages.

"To have public statements and tweets made about the department, about our people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases, make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we're doing our work with integrity."