NYT: After Stone Case, Prosecutors Say They Fear Pressure From Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/us/politics/justice-department-roger-stone-sentencing.html
By Katie Benner, Charlie Savage, Sharon LaFraniere and Ben Protess
Feb. 12, 2020, 9:25 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON For decades after Watergate, the White House treated the Justice Department with the softest of gloves, fearful that any appearance of political interference would resurrect the specter of Attorney General John Mitchell helping President Richard M. Nixon carry out a criminal conspiracy for political ends.
In 2001, William P. Barr, describing his first stint as attorney general, under President George Bush, spoke of the departments protected status in the post-Watergate era. You didnt mess around with it, didnt intervene, you didnt interfere, he recalled in an oral history.
Fast forward to 2020, and Mr. Barr is attorney general once more. But President Trumps ground-shaking conduct has demolished those once-sacrosanct guardrails. Mr. Barrs intervention to lessen a prison sentencing recommendation for the presidents convicted friend Roger J. Stone Jr. prompted all four career prosecutors handling the matter to quit the case.
To career prosecutors around the country, the Stone case raised new fears of what is to come. Until now, according to conversations with more than a dozen career lawyers in some of the 93 U.S. attorneys offices, they had watched other divisions in the Justice Department execute significant shifts in response to Mr. Trump while the work of prosecuting crimes was largely unaffected by the politics of the moment. Now career prosecutors said they worried they might face more pressure.
</snip>