Attorney General William Barr stepping forward on Tuesday to declare his eagerness to merge his role into that of Donald Trump’s personal attorney wasn’t the only signal of the utter collapse of the Justice Department. Neither was the mass resignation of an entire team of veteran U.S. attorneys in an overt protest of Barr’s manipulation of sentencing in the case of Roger Stone. Neither was Trump’s nighttime series of rants spent mocking, accusing, and threatening career prosecutors.
The other alarm that sounded on Tuesday might not seem quite as alarming. In fact, Trump withdrawing former U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu as a candidate for undersecretary of the Treasury Department might seem like sort of an “inside baseball” event. But the reason that Trump pulled Liu’s name wasn’t that the former prosecutor had lost interest, or that something previously unknown had appeared in her background. It was absolutely another example of just how far Trump is willing to go to punish someone, even if that someone is an ally, for failing to be sufficiently corrupt. And it demonstrates how far Trump will go to extend his cover-up.
Liu’s story should be a huge warning to everyone in Washington who feels as if they’re comfortably on Team Trump. As The Washington Post reports, Liu was nominated for the Treasury post after spending the first three years of Trump’s reign as a U.S. attorney. She was a member of Trump’s transition team, met with Trump personally before her appointment, and was one of the first choices he made after ousting attorneys who had served under President Obama. She apparently made a good enough impression in her personal visits with Trump that he not only made her attorney general for the District of Columbia, but also intended to reward her with a promotion to the undersecretary position.
But, as it happens, Liu’s role as a U.S. attorney involved cases in court. That included the case of Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Trump’s deputy campaign chair, Rick Gates. In the case of Stone, Liu served as the supervisor to the four attorneys who resigned on Tuesday. In the cases of Gates and Flynn, Liu inherited them from the special counsel team after Robert Mueller announced the completion of his investigation and closed his office.
So the real problem with Liu seems to be that she was there when federal prosecutors convicted Roger Stone and when they recommended sentencing for Flynn. Two weeks ago, Liu left her position. Since then, the Department of Justice—and William Barr personally—have intervened in both cases. The attorney who had been responsible for Flynn’s sentencing was replaced, and the new attorney in charge of the case completely reversed previous language in the sentencing suggestions to praise Flynn and recommend no more than probation. On Tuesday, all four prosecutors involved in the Stone case resigned in protest after Barr inserted himself to make it clear that the DOJ would overrule their sentencing suggestions—even though Stone had made death threats against a judge and even threatened to kill a witness’ dog to keep him silent.
As NBC News made clear, withdrawing the position for Liu was direct punishment for her not forcing an easier sentence for Stone, even though Liu had left her position before that sentencing recommendation was handed over to the judge. Liu has made it clear that she had not seen the sentencing and had no role in its preparation. That doesn’t seem to matter.
On the Flynn side, Liu was the target of complaints from Republican Senate staffer Barbara Ledeen, whose husband co-wrote a book with Flynn. Ledeen actually appears in the Mueller report as someone Flynn worked with in trying to steal private emails from Hillary Clinton.
And here’s where the final nail likely went into Liu’s political coffin: Appointment as undersecretary of the Treasury requires Senate approval. That means that in the process of being approved for the position, Liu could be asked questions, not just about her her new role, but also about the Flynn case. About the Stone case. About what she thought of Barr stepping in to overrule everyone who had worked for her. She could be asked her opinion of the four career attorneys who resigned, and whom Trump has since been ridiculing and threatening on Twitter.
Pulling Liu’s name from the nomination to the Treasury position doesn’t just punish her for failing to give Trump’s associates the kid-glove treatment they deserved. Pulling her name also keeps her from giving public testimony, either on the kind of sentence Stone and Flynn deserved or on how she feels about the actions that have been taken toward her former office and former colleagues.
Silencing and punishing—that’s what Trump considers a win-win—even when the person being silenced was one of his own handpicked instruments.
And there was one more strike against Liu: She was also in charge of the investigation of former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. That investigation ended without charges, despite Trump’s repeated demands that McCabe go to prison. Expect that problem to be addressed by Barr. Personally.
