U.S. Attorney Investigating “Unmaskings,” Discussed on Hill Yesterday, Has Blatant Conflict of Interest
U.S. Attorney Chosen by Barr to Investigate “Unmaskings” Has Blatant Conflict of Interest
U.S. Attorney John Bash, Discussed In House Judiciary Committee Hearing Yesterday, Is Part Of Barr’s Partisan Effort To Help Re-Elect Trump
At yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General William Barr testified that he had assigned Texas U.S. Attorney John F. Bash to specifically investigate “unmaskings” in the Obama Administration.
In response to a question from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Barr stated that he appointed Bash to look into “the high number of unmaskings, and some that do not readily appear to have been in the line of normal business.”
According to earlier reports, Bash was appointed “to scrutinize Obama-era officials who sought to identify anonymized names in government documents that turned out to be people connected to then-President-elect Trump.”
“Democracy 21 filed a complaint at the Justice Department in June against Barr and Bash that challenges Bash’s blatant conflict of interest in conducting this investigation,” according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer.
“Bash, a former Special Assistant to and Associate White House Counsel for President Trump, is the last person who should have been given this assignment, which reeks of a pure partisan effort by Barr to help re-elect Trump,” Wertheimer said.
“Barr never should have made this appointment, and Bash should have immediately recused himself from accepting this obvious political assignment,” Wertheimer said.
Democracy 21 filed a complaint on June 11, 2020 with the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department challenging Bash’s appointment.
According to the complaint:
John Bash is the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas. He was nominated by President Trump and sworn into that position on December 11, 2017. Prior to his appointment, Bash served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Trump and Associate White House Counsel.
An individual who has worked as a Trump Special Assistant and White House Counsel has no public credibility to head a criminal investigation about the “unmasking” of Michael Flynn by Obama Administration officials. President Trump has been attacking the “unmasking” as part of his undefined and unexplained assertions about “Obamagate,” which appears to be nothing more than a label created for the purpose of damaging his presidential opponent, Joe Biden, who served as Vice President in the Obama Administration.
It is plainly inappropriate to name a former Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to Trump to conduct this politicized investigation, all the more so just months before a presidential election in which Trump is a candidate.
The full complaint can be found here.
###
