It appears Trump found a way to get the news away from Mueller today:
TPM has the story:
President Trump announced Friday his intention to nominate William Barr to be attorney general, according to the White House pool.
“He was my first choice since day one,” Trump said. “He’ll be nominated.”
Barr previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. If confirmed, he would replace acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who was named to the role after Trump fired former Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month.
While he has an extremely conservative record, Barr would also bring to the role seasoned experience and is well regarded in the legal community. While some Democrats have already said they’d oppose Barr — who the Washington Post reported Thursday was the front-runner for the nomination — others signaled their openness to him. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a former Judiciary chairman who remains on the committee suggested Thursday that Barr would get bipartisan support in the Senate.
Regardless, Barr’s confirmation process is likely to take months.
President Trump insisted when he made Matthew G. Whitaker his acting attorney general that he wasn’t familiar with Whitaker’s past commentary critical of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe.
But now it might be happening again.
Former attorney general William Barr has emerged as Trump’s top pick to be the nominee for the full-time AG job, The Washington Post is reporting. Picking former president George H.W. Bush’s AG would seem a pretty safe and confirmable pick, on its surface.
But much like Whitaker, Barr’s past commentary has played down the severity of the allegations against Trump — on both the collusion and obstruction-of-justice fronts — and he has also suggested the Clintons should be in more trouble.
In fact, in November 2017, Barr told the New York Times that there was actually more basis to investigate Hillary Clinton for the Uranium One deal than there is to investigate Trump for potential collusion with Russia. He went so far as to say the Justice Department was wrong to give Clinton a pass.
"To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” he said.