Read the transcript of Attorney General Bill Barr's exclusive interview with ABC News:
The issue then became the sentencing. A new U.S. attorney had just started in Washington D.C. and the week before the filing, he engaged in conversations with senior staff here who raised some questions about the sentencing because he was concerned that the so called guidelines, the sentencing guideline formula, was indicating a sentence between 7 and 9 years.
And there was a brief discussion of that. I was under the impression that what was going to happen was very much what I had suggested, which is deferring to the judge and then pointing out the various factors and circumstances. On Monday night, when I first saw the news reports, I said, “Gee, the news is spinning this. This is not what we were going to do.”THOMAS: So you were surprised?
And I'm happy to say that, in fact the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case. However, 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.
THOMAS: Why does it make it so difficult for you to do your job and if he keeps doing it, what are you prepared to do?BARR: Well again if some examples would be if you tweet something about, someone should be investigated for this or someone should go to jail and it turns out you are investigating them at that point, let's say, this is a hypothetical, then what do you do? Because people might think that if you proceed with the investigation, it was prompted by the tweet.
And as I say, I could not support the 7 to the 9 year- and I didn't need anybody to tell me that 7 to 9 years was an excessive sentence. You think I need the president's tweet to tell me that 7 to 9 years is excessive? That was the reaction of you know the senior staff here that, you know, there's not really a comparable situation where that kind of sentence has been used.
THOMAS: I just wanted to go back to the 4 prosecutors who resigned. Were you surprised that they stepped away from the case, including one who quit the department altogether? At the same time, when people are working on one case, and devoting a lot to it, they can sometimes lose perspective. And that's exactly why we have a, a system of checks and balances within the department with multiple level of reviews that fan out with people with broader and broader responsibility. And most cases don't come up to the attorney general, because people are doing a great job in the department.
THOMAS: And do you expect any other resignations, are you getting any hint of any other resignations in regard to this case? People tied to the case?MORE: William Barr: Everything you need to know about Trump's controversial attorney general BARR: I would say that- that is not a valid conclusion, obviously the whole point of the Muller exercise was to determine if there was collusion. There wasn't. And frankly I think you recognize, having looked at the material directly, that I didn't mislead anyone about Mueller's conclusions, but in terms of the Durham effort, which is to take a look at what happened that's a legitimate area of investigation.
THOMAS: Were you surprised when the president mentioned you on the -- when you heard that he mentioned you on the July 25th call and he did so 5 times and kind of created the impression that you were working with Guiliani?BARR: I was a bit irritated by it. But, you know, the conversation jumped around, so, I'm not sure what he meant by some of what he was saying.
But he worked with two men to get this information who currently under indictment in the Southern District. Can you ensure- can you ensure that to the American public that the Justice Department is not going to be used as a weapon in a highly charged political season?
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