Thursday 28 March 2019
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William Barr’s backing of Donald Trump sets up showdown with Congress Democrats focus ire on attorney-general’s move to clear president of obstruction of justice KADHIM SHUBBER
W
hen William Barr c l e a re d D o n a l d Trump on obstruction of justice on Su n d ay , t h e U S attorney-general held true to a long-held and expansive view of presidential authority — and set himself up for a showdown with Congress. Mr Barr, a veteran Republican lawyer, oversaw the end of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and possible obstruction of justice by Mr Trump. On collusion, Mr Mueller said there was no case to be brought, according to Mr Barr’s summary of the special counsel’s final report that has not been published openly. On obstruction, however, the special counsel declined to offer a definitive judgment. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mr Mueller wrote. Mr Barr stepped in and told Congress the president was in the clear, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove that obstruction had occurred. “Barr went where Mueller decided not to go,” said David Kris, a former head of the justice department’s national security division. That decision is now the subject of fierce controversy, as Democratic lawmakers focus their ire on Mr Barr in the absence of a finding of criminal conspiracy by Mr Mueller, who
spent almost two years investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election. Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives judiciary committee, has promised to haul Mr Barr in to testify about his declaration that Mr Trump did not obstruct justice. “His conclusions raise more questions than they answer given the fact that Mueller uncovered evidence that in his own words does not exonerate the president,” he said at a press conference on Sunday. Mr Barr returned to head up the Department of Justice in February after more than two decades in the private sector. His last stint in government culminated in him serving as attorney-general under George HW Bush in the early 1990s. He was part of a wave of conservative lawyers who sought to bolster the power of the presidency, which had waned relative to Congress in the post-Watergate era. The attorney-general’s views on presidential authority were on display in a 2018 memo he wrote about the Mueller investigation before rejoining government. Mr Barr shared it with the justice department and the president’s lawyers. Mr Barr argued forcefully against prosecuting Mr Trump for obstruction in connection with acts authorised by the constitution, as opposed to actions such as destroying documents. He said that the president, as head of the executive branch, had the right to ask James Comey, the then FBI director, to go easy on
US attorney-general William Barr, above, controversially ‘went where [Robert] Mueller decided not to go’ on the issue of obstruction of justice following the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election © Getty
Michael Flynn, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser who lied about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, and to subsequently fire Mr Comey. Even if a president terminated an investigation of himself, that would not be obstruction of justice, Mr Barr argued. “There is no legal prohibition — as opposed [to] a political constraint — against the president acting on a matter in which he has a personal stake,” he wrote. Mr Barr said in his letter on Sunday that Mr Mueller had de-
clined to come to a decision on obstruction and instead simply laid out “evidence on both sides of the question”. In the letter, issued 48 hours after the special counsel filed his final report, the attorney-general gave his own rationale for clearing the president, a decision that included Rod Rosenstein, the outgoing deputy attorney-general. Mr Rosenstein was the official who first appointed Mr Mueller after the firing of Mr Comey, and is credited with helping to protect the investigation. He also wrote the
memo the president used to justify Mr Comey’s dismissal. A justice department official said the special counsel’s team had given Mr Barr and Mr Rosenstein an advance briefing on Mr Mueller’s report on March 5, and informed them that it would not include a conclusion on obstruction. Mr Barr pointed to the absence of an underlying crime of collusion and said it undermined the idea that Mr Trump was engaged in a cover up of that crime, an argument he had referenced in his 2018 memo.
India touts military capability with launch US regulator starts probe into money laundering at Swedbank US companies struggle to pass on rising labour, transportation and raw materials costs of anti-satellite missile Move comes ahead of April elections and amid tensions with Pakistan AMY KAZMIN
I
ndia successfully tested a new anti-satellite missile on Wednesday — a move that Prime Minister Narendra Modi said had catapulted the country into the space “super-league” but which analysts said risked drawing international opprobrium. The test, which puts India into the small group of countries that could attack its enemies’ satellites in space, comes just weeks ahead of a general election that has been increasingly focused on national security following the worst military conflict with Pakistan in decades. Until now, only the US, Russia and China have developed antisatellite weapons. New Delhi said the test used a ballistic missile defence interceptor, which is also part of India’s ongoing ballistic missile defence programme. “India stands tall as a space power,” Mr Modi said in an unusual lunchtime television address in which he announced that New Delhi had carried out the test and destroyed an Indian satellite in low-earth orbit. “It will make India stronger, even more secure and will further peace and harmony.” With voting in India’s general elections starting on April 11, some security analysts said the timing of the announcement suggested that
the main target was India’s domestic electorate, rather than any of New Delhi’s international strategic rivals such as Pakistan or China. “This is more politics than strategic policy,” said Abhijit Singh, a security expert at the Observer Research Foundation. “Mr Modi’s supporters would want to see him project a strong image and this is exactly why he has done it. This is good theatre for the ruling party, and the government, which is why Modi announced it himself.” Mr Singh said the decision to carry out the test was also “very risky. Modi knows for sure, as do many in India’s strategic establishment, that this is a test that is going to draw criticism from international observers”, who are likely to see it as a worrying escalation of an Asian arms race and the weaponisation of space. Vipin Narang, a professor in nuclear strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the test was an important part of developing a missile shield that could help limit damage from a nuclear strike by a hostile neighbour such as Pakistan, a long-held goal of India’s nuclear strategists. “This is a test of India’s ballistic missile defence system, which has all kinds of implications for nuclear strategy and damage limitation,” Mr Narang said. “If you are worried about Pakistan launching missiles out of the blue, this gives you a potential defence against it.”
RICHARD MILNE
U
S regulators are probing Swedbank over a series of money-laundering scandals in a dramatic escalation of the Swedish bank’s dirty-money problems. The New York State Department of Financial Services wrote to Swedbank last month saying it was looking into seven separate matters involving the Swedish bank, according to a copy of the letter seen by the Financial Times. News of the letter came on the same day that Swedish prosecutors raided Swedbank and only hours after it emerged that it handled €135bn of money from high-risk non-residents, mostly Russians, through its Estonian operation over the past decade. The DFS letter, dated February 20, stated that New York was “currently undertaking several inquiries” related to Swedbank and its relationship to various other money-laundering scandals. These involve lenders such as Danske Bank, Latvia’s ABLV, Cyprus’s FBME and Lithuania’s Ukio, as well as Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers. The letter marks the first sign of interest by a US regulator in Swedbank’s actions following the announcement last month of a joint Swedish and Estonian supervisory probe into the largest bank in the Baltics. The letter appears to have been
sparked by the DFS’s dissatisfaction with Swedbank’s responses to a previous enquiry on its links to Mossack Fonseca. “From our review of the production it appears that this response may be incomplete, as it does not appear to apply to ‘the global operations of Swedbank,’ and instead excludes responsive information relating to parents, subsidiaries or other affiliates of Swedbank,” stated the letter, signed by DFS’s deputy superintendent for enforcement Megan Prendergast Millard. New York’s DFS declined to comment on the letter. Swedbank said it was restricted by law to not commenting on communications with the DFS. But it added: “Swedbank co-operates fully and communicates clearly, truthfully and with good faith with all relevant authorities.” The rapidly-expanding Swedbank scandal is only the latest in a series of dirty-money sagas ripping through Nordic banking. The US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission have already started investigations into Denmark’s Danske Bank while both Swedbank and Denmark’s Nordea are facing criminal complaints in the Nordic region over alleged money laundering. The scandals at the three Scandinavian lenders amount to what could be the largest money-laundering operation in history, painting a picture of wealthy Russians and oligarchs from ex-Soviet states using
the Baltic outposts of well-known Nordic banks to move hundreds of billions into the western banking system over the course of a decade. The Swedish Economic Crime Authority said on Wednesday it had begun a raid in connection with a probe into whether Swedbank broke insider information rules by disclosing to its largest shareholders in February that a television programme on money-laundering allegations against the bank was about to be broadcast. Swedbank’s shares, already under pressure following a series of revelations about possible money laundering, were down more than 10 per cent at a new five-year low of SKr157.10 on Wednesday. Prosecutors told the Financial Times they hoped to provide more information, including whether the investigation could be widened, later in the day when the raid was concluded. Swedbank confirmed it had been raided in connection with an insider information investigation. “At this point of time, no individual or legal entity has been served suspicion of a crime,” it said, adding that it would co-operate with the authorities. Swedbank is facing several new allegations including that it had misled US regulators and that it handled payments that found their way from the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort.