Investigations Into 2020 Candidates Must Be Cleared by Top Justice Dept. Officials – The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr issued new restrictions on Wednesday over the opening of politically sensitive investigations, an effort meant to avoid upending the presidential election as the F.B.I. inadvertently did in 2016 when its campaign inquiries shaped the outcome of the race.

The order by Mr. Barr, announced in a memo reviewed by The New York Times, comes after a scathing report by the inspector general that showed how F.B.I. agents did not follow protocols and falsified information in their bid to investigate Carter Page, a former Trump campaign associate.

The memo, which said the Justice Department had a duty to ensure that elections are “free from improper activity or influences,” was issued on the same day that President Trump was acquitted on charges that he had abused his office to push a foreign power to publicly announce investigations into his political rivals. The memo said that the F.B.I. and all other divisions under the department’s purview must get Mr. Barr’s approval before investigating any of the 2020 presidential candidates.

The attorney general has long expressed skepticism about the F.B.I.’s decision to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in 2016, and he has tapped a top prosecutor to begin a criminal investigation into the origins of that inquiry. He has also criticized the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey for publicly discussing the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server without approval from Justice Department officials.

“In certain cases, the existence of a federal criminal or counterintelligence investigation, if it becomes known to the public, may have unintended effects on our elections,” Mr. Barr wrote.

Those concerns, combined with the inspector general’s findings, seemed to underpin Mr. Barr’s memo to top Justice Department officials.

While the department must respond “swiftly and decisively” to credible threats to the electoral process, “we also must be sensitive to safeguarding the department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship,” he wrote.

He previewed the new policy at a news conference in January, when he said his approval would be required in future investigations involving presidential candidates or campaigns.

In the memo, Mr. Barr established a series of requirements governing whether investigators could open preliminary or full “politically sensitive” criminal and counterintelligence investigations into candidates or their donors.

No investigation into a presidential or vice-presidential candidate — or their senior campaign staff or advisers — can begin without written notification to the Justice Department and the written approval of Mr. Barr.

The F.B.I. must also notify and consult with the relevant leaders at the department — like the heads of the criminal division, the national security division or a United States attorney’s office — before investigating Senate or House candidates or their campaigns, or opening an inquiry related to “illegal contributions, donations or expenditures by foreign nationals to a presidential or congressional campaign.”

Past attorneys general have said that the department must take extra care with politically sensitive campaign-related investigations in an election year. But Mr. Barr is the first to require that the F.B.I. consult with the Justice Department before opening politically charged investigations.

Since he took office, he has handled a seemingly endless series of politically charged investigations and their aftermaths, and he has drawn rebukes for how he has done so.

Mr. Barr faced withering criticism over his delivery of the Mueller report to Congress. While he allowed the report to be made available to the public with only light redactions, Democrats and some centrist Republicans accused him of playing down the severity of the findings.

The attorney general is also overseeing a criminal inquiry into the decision to open the investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Under Mr. Barr’s watch, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged two Soviet-born businessmen — who were also associates of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — with violating campaign finance laws multiple times. And prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating Mr. Giuliani himself for potentially violating foreign influence laws.

In December, Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, issued a 400-plus page report that found F.B.I. officials engaged in a dysfunctional and error-ridden process as they sought to obtain and renew warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Mr. Page.

Those errors — including material omissions and false or misleading statements in application materials that went to the court — gave fuel to both Democrats and Republicans who have accused the F.B.I. of overreach or abuse of its authority when it has investigated citizens. Justice Department officials pointed to that report to support worries that Mr. Barr expressed last year that the Trump campaign had been unlawfully or improperly “spied upon.”

In his memo, Mr. Barr said that “it is often good practice” to notify the deputy attorney general of any delicate or high-profile investigation and provide that office with regular updates. He also said that the memo should be “broadly construed” to ensure that department leaders knew of any matters that could potentially disrupt the election.

Mr. Barr directed all department divisions and law enforcement agencies to review their existing policies regarding how they work with top Justice Department officials on politically sensitive investigations, and to submit a report by April to the deputy attorney general.

The requirements in the memo are to remain in effect through the 2020 elections. After that, the department will study whether the changes were necessary.