by political appointees who have come into doj with this administration. i still talk with a lot of the career folks in the department. they have their heads down. they are doing their job. if anything what this will do is it will reinforce how important it is that doj remain strictly apolitical. but the problem here is that in the short term the agency will take some hits. we have the president and people around him not complying with subpoenas. so why should the average american who receives one comply? and calle can i follow up, though, joyce? sure. our colleagues reported that the cia have sort of forwarded a criminal referral to the justice department. you don t think that barr s political enthusiasm, his sort of way out in front aggressive posture of defending donald trump has any influence anywhere in the building when they consider a criminal referral? so, we are all, you know, grownups and we know that people
allies. according to reporting by the wall street journal, it already is. mr. barr has stirred up domestic politics in some of the countries he has tapped for assistance. and just who are those countries he is stirring up? well, no surprise. they re some of our strongest allies. countries like italy, australia, and the u.k. joining our conversation former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. joyce, i m sure that asking you what else the attorney general could be doing is that your dog? [ laughter ] we heard a dog bark. that s my sweet german shepherd puppy. i love it. i feel him. but, you know, look, beto o rourke cautioned all of us against asking the questions we know the answer to. so i m not going to ask you why he s doing this. but i m going to ask you what could go wrong. what couldn t go wrong here?
this is such an unprecedented investment of time and resources for an attorney general to engage in. you know, the attorney general has an enormously full plate across a number of different areas. and here we have an attorney general who s not just meeting, not just being briefed on progress in an investigation but instead he s jetting all around the world spending that time to focus on an investigation that s really only notable because it s a vehicle for the president to seek political revenge on his enemies. and there are ways that doj handles international investigations. there s an entire office in the criminal division that helps u.s. attorneys and people in main justice who need assistance from foreign countries. there is a process known as the mlap process for accessing some of this information. apparently barr has bypassed all of that. and for what? because when you think about it, his justice department still has
you re choosing to hopefully william barr will. you re making a choice not to believe the investigations that have taken place. no. i m trying to get to the truth. that was senator ryan johnson, sitting chairman of the homeland security committee casting doubt on the integrity of the entire fbi, the entire cia. this is scary stuff. i mean, it s funny because it s so stupid. it s like indiscernible now from sean hannity s opening monologue. we used to have people like that in the conservative coalition, and we would mock them. they were called the black helicopter crowd. the tin foil hat now, they now they run stuff. they run stuff. really scary. the question for me, when did that switch flip for ron johnson? did you always feel that way or was it just in the latter half of the obama administration or was it because these people were in the obama administration?
pending indictments against russians, both individuals and companies, who we know who both doj and the intelligence community concluded are the people responsible for the hack. so whatever barr finds, it won t change that conclusion that s implemented in those indictments. it really looks like a wild goose chase that could only sour relationships both political and law enforcement relationships with some of our closest allies. and phil rucker, you and your colleagues basically report on exactly that. that the reaction from our allies is basically what s going on here. yeah. and that s the problem for the administration. but we should also think about the impact it has on our own federal law enforcement community because you have here the attorney general traveling around the world to dig up dirt to find incriminating information to show that there was corruption inside the very agency that he leads, the department of justice. unbelievable. and it completely undermines the work