On MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne excoriated Attorney General William Barr for his partisan suppression of the inspector general’s conclusions about the FBI’s Russia investigation.

“Here’s the problem. The inspector general has already found that the — the investigation was not motivated in the way that Bill Barr is saying it is, and he’s directly taking all the work of all the people and he’s throwing it in the trash,” said Alksne. “And he’s added this other layer of an investigation and now he’s broken all the rules, because one of the rules in an investigation is you don’t talk about it in the middle, and he’s done that. And it’s a very threatening thing to the person who did the initial investigation, and it’s also a way of putting his thumb on the scale with the guy who’s doing the followup investigation, [U.S. Attorney John] Durham. He was talked into issuing a press release that was completely improper.”

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“You know, I tried a case in Abilene one time, and I learned this expression from West Texas, which is, God is testing Brother Durham,” continued Alksne. “I mean, what Durham should do is not issue that press release, refuse to talk about the case, and if Barr insists upon it he should resign. I mean, you have to — the Department of Justice regular employees have got to now take the example from the State Department standing up to Mulvaney and to Pompeo, they have to take that example and use it.”

“Barr has been totally improper with Durham,” said Alksne. “He’s forced him to make this statement, or we presume he forced him because he’s an honorable guy and it makes no sense he would make it. He’s going with him on interviews to Europe. He’s getting involved in discussions with witnesses with the Italians and with this professor which is totally improper. this is a guy who’s never done a criminal investigation in his life, and suddenly he’s a lead guy with the Italians and he’s lying about why he has to go there, saying he has to go first or they won’t talk to them, which is not true, and Durham has got to stand up to him, and that’s got to be true of everybody in the Justice Department when Barr oversteps his bounds.”

“I’m sort of over thinking Barr is a bad guy,” added Alksne. “He’s bad guy. And he’s actually a metaphor for the entire Republican Party at this point.”

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