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Barr Brings in Outside Prosecutors to Review Flynn, Other Politically Charged Cases: NYT

The prosecutors have reportedly grilled existing prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. for the past two weeks.

Attorney General William Barr assigned an outside prosecutor to look into the Justice Department’s criminal case against former national security adviser and Trump ally Michael Flynn, The New York Times reported. In addition to assigning someone on the Flynn case, Barr also reportedly put in place a number of outside prosecutors to review other politically charged, national security cases at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. The outside prosecutor handling the Flynn matter is Jeff Jensen, from the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis. According to the newspaper, the other prosecutors tasked with reviewing the cases are from the office of Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. The outside prosecutors have reportedly been questioning prosecutors in the D.C. office on a number of cases—some of them known to the public and some not—for the past two weeks. The questions have addressed “investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them,” sources told the Times. The DOJ has not spoken publicly on the matter.

The report comes after four prosecutors quit the case against another Trump ally, Roger Stone, after DOJ headquarters decided to override their initial sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years. President Trump blasted the sentencing recommendation on Twitter before the department announced their decision to override, through Barr has stated the decision was made before Trump sent his tweet.