President Trump has repeatedly derided prosecutors investigating potential coordination between his presidential campaign and Russia as angry Democrats, pointing to their past political donations as proof of bias.
But William P. Barr, Trumps nominee to lead the Justice Department and oversee the Russia investigation, would be by far the most prolific political donor to step into the countrys top law enforcement post in at least a quarter-century, according to a Washington Post analysis. Barr has donated more than $567,000 in the past two decades, nearly all to GOP candidates and groups, federal records show. His wife, Christine Barr, gave more than $220,000 over that time, records show.
Before he was nominated to be attorney general, Barr criticized past donations by prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
In my view, prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party, Barr told The Post last year. I would have liked [Mueller] to have more balance on this group.
Barr did not respond to messages and emails.
A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly said on the condition of anonymity that it is absurd for critics to focus on financial support he provided to his party, which is consistent with what attorneys general have done previously. The official also drew a distinction between contributions from political appointees and those from career prosecutors.
Previous attorneys general have donated to politicians before landing at the Justice Department, but none since Barr first served as attorney general, in the early 1990s, have given on the same scale. The closest, Eric Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, gave about $37,000 to Democrats before he took office in 2009, records show. Holder was also a campaign bundler for Obama, raising at least $50,000. The Post analysis looked at contributions dating to the earliest available online records, in 1980.
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit group that works to limit money in politics, said in a statement that the nomination of Barr shows that Trumps attacks are hypocritical as well as bogus.
Under the Trump bias standard, Barr must be biased in favor of Republicans and therefore should not oversee the Justice Department investigation of Trump or any other Republican, Wertheimer said.
Barr, 68, was attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. He later became an in-house corporate attorney for telecommunications companies. For the past decade, as a lawyer with the firm Kirkland & Ellis, he has represented major corporations on government enforcement actions. Christine Barr has been a homemaker and librarian.