Two US prosecutors are set to testify on Wednesday that politics drove Department of Justice decisions in cases linked to Donald Trump.
The prepared testimony released on Tuesday includes a claim that a senior official at the justice department pushed for less jail time for Roger Stone, an ally of Mr Trump, because he was “afraid of the president”.
The claims also concern the antitrust division, where political leadership allegedly ordered an investigation of carmakers that had agreed emissions reductions with California just a day after Mr Trump had publicly criticised the companies.
The written testimony was released ahead of a House of Representatives judiciary committee hearing on Wednesday about the “improper politicisation” of the justice department under William Barr, the attorney-general, and Mr Trump.
It comes just days after a furore over Mr Barr’s sudden ousting of the Manhattan US attorney at the weekend. Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney, had overseen politically sensitive investigations of allies of the president.
Mr Barr has also faced claims he improperly moved to dismiss a case against Michael Flynn, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser. A court is currently weighing whether to grant the dismissal.
Aaron Zelinsky, one of the prosecutors set to testify on Wednesday, helped secure the conviction at trial of Mr Stone for lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election.
Earlier this year Mr Barr intervened to reverse the initial sentencing recommendation filed by Mr Zelinsky and three colleagues for 87-108 months in jail. Mr Stone was ultimately sentenced to 40 months.
A spokeswoman for Mr Barr said on Tuesday that he had viewed the original sentencing recommendation as “excessive and inconsistent with similar cases”. She said Mr Zelinsky’s account was based on “his own interpretation of events and hearsay (at best)”, rather than on discussions with Mr Barr or other top officials.
She added Mr Barr was committed “to the rule of law and the fair and impartial administration of justice”.
Also on Tuesday, Mr Stone asked the judge overseeing his case to allow him to delay reporting to prison from June 30 to September 3, citing the coronavirus pandemic. The justice department did not oppose the motion.
Mr Zelinsky and two of the other prosecutors quit the case after Mr Barr intervened, while a fourth, Jonathan Kravis, resigned from the department entirely in protest.
In his written testimony, Mr Zelinsky detailed the events surrounding Mr Stone’s sentencing in February. He said a supervisor in the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia had initially praised the sentencing recommendation he and the other career prosecutors drafted.
But within days, he said, top officials began “exerting significant pressure” on his team “to water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in [Mr Stone’s] trial and the criminal conduct that gave rise to his conviction”.
Mr Zelinsky claimed he was told by supervisors that the pressure was for political reasons and that then-acting US attorney Timothy Shea, a former aide to Mr Barr who is now acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, was trying to go easy on Mr Stone because he was “afraid of the president”.
The DEA declined to comment.
The second prosecutor, John Elias, works in the antitrust division and had previously been chief of staff to Makan Delrahim, the Trump appointee who heads the division.
Mr Elias said in his written testimony that on August 22 2019, the political leadership of the antitrust division ordered an investigation of four carmakers — Ford, Volkswagen, Honda and BMW — just a day after Mr Trump tweeted about them.
The president had criticised the companies for agreeing to emissions reductions with California that were stricter than rules his administration was attempting to push through at the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The memo opening the inquiry had no staff recommendation, stating instead that the division “would like to open an investigation”, and was generated by policy lawyers at the division, rather than enforcement attorneys as would be typical, Mr Elias said.
“Here, in its opening memorandum, staff acknowledged that it had not fully examined the public record,” he said. When the investigation passed to enforcement staff, they “expressed concerns about the legal and factual basis” and asked to delay “going overt with the investigation”.
“The investigation proceeded anyway, with [Mr] Delrahim personally writing [to] the automakers to inform them that the division had decided to examine the arrangement with California,” Mr Elias said. The inquiry was ultimately closed in February with no action taken.
Honda said: “As this matter is closed, we have nothing further to add.” Ford, Volkswagen and BMW also declined to comment on the allegations.
Mr Elias also alleged in his testimony that Mr Barr had ordered the division to review mergers in the cannabis industry because “he did not like the nature of their underlying business”, despite the view of staff attorneys that the deals posed no competition concerns.
He said the reviews were “not investigations of potential violations of federal drug law”, which still outlaws cannabis despite it being legal to some extent in many US states.
One of the investigations involved a proposed deal between MedMen and PharmaCann, according to Mr Elias. He said staff had judged it lawful, but were ordered by Mr Barr to conduct an extensive review.
The antitrust division “negotiated subpoena compliance with the companies, obtaining 1.3m documents from the files of 40 employees. The investigation confirmed that the markets at issue were ‘unconcentrated’ and closed in September 2019 without any enforcement action.”
Mr Elias added: “The merger collapsed nonetheless, with MedMen citing unexpected delays in obtaining regulatory approval.”
MedMen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PharmaCann could not be immediately reached.
Mr Elias also said there were nine other investigations of cannabis deals driven by the political leadership at the antitrust division. He said staff were ordered not to interview customers or competitors, as normal “in any bona fide antitrust investigation”, so as not to draw attention.
In fiscal year 2019, in-depth reviews of cannabis mergers accounted for 29 per cent of all such deep dives, he wrote.
A spokeswoman for the antitrust division said the reviews of marijuana industry mergers had already been reviewed by the justice department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, “which determined that the division acted reasonably and appropriately”.
She said the OPR’s investigation came after a whistleblower filed a complaint and found “that the cannabis industry provided a unique challenge to federal and state regulators alike, and it was reasonable for [the antitrust division] to seek additional information from the industry through its [in-depth review] process”.
She added that the carmakers’ investigation “was entirely consistent with established policies and not the result of any influence from outside the department. Mr Elias’s testimony rests entirely upon his opinion and provides no evidence to the contrary.”
Morgan Fox, a spokesperson for the National Cannabis Industry Association, said it was “inexcusable for DoJ leadership to waste much-needed resources to harass [cannabis businesses], especially over the objections of their own staff”.
