Attorney General William P. Barr has installed a new top deputy over the federal prosecutor’s office for Washington, raising concerns that a key U.S. attorney’s office handling multiple investigations of interest to President Trump is becoming further politicized.
The arrival of Associate Deputy Attorney General Michael R. Sherwin — who won the conviction of a Chinese trespasser at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida in September — has triggered new accusations that Justice Department leaders are bypassing career prosecutors in the office and intervening in cases favoring the president’s allies, current and former federal prosecutors in the office said.
Barr’s actions in cases handed off by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia probe and “packing” of senior supervisory positions with close associates “seriously undermines the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C.’s … long-standing reputation for independence from political influence,” said Charles R. Work, a former office prosecutor, Republican Justice Department political appointee and president of the D.C. Bar.
