Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor’s Code and Corrupted the Justice Department

CNN legal analyst Honig debuts with a sharp-edged account of how former attorney general William Barr violated Justice Department norms to benefit President Trump, wage war against the “evils of secularism,” and “implement [Barr’s] extreme view of executive authority.” Expressing regret for his initial positive comments about Barr’s appointment in 2019, Honig accuses Barr of deliberately distorting the conclusions of the Mueller Report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, and intervening on behalf of Trump loyalists Michael Flynn and Roger Stone to overrule charging and sentencing decisions authorized by Justice Department lawyers. Honig also delves into Barr’s controversial ouster of the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, whose office was reportedly investigating Rudy Giuliani’s “business interests in Ukraine and other shady financial dealings.” Throughout, Honig draws on his own career as a federal and state prosecutor to make clear the extent of Barr’s violations, and he offers a list of useful reforms, including explicit limits on communications between the Justice Department and the White House. Though Honig doesn’t break much new ground, this is a comprehensive indictment of one of the most controversial figures of the Trump administration. (July)