'Start Here': Barr says Trump's tweets 'make it impossible for me to do my job'
Here's what you need to know to start your day.
It's Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. Let's start here.
1. Exclusive: Barr speaks out
Responding to criticism over the Department of Justice's decision to overrule the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation made by its own prosecutors, Attorney General William Barr told ABC News in an exclusive interview that the move was "fair and reasonable," while insisting he wasn't influenced by a critical tweet from President Donald Trump that came hours before the reversal was announced.
"I’m happy to say that in fact, the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case," he told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, but added that the president's tweets "make it impossible for me to do my job."
Trump tweeted earlier this week that the prosecution's initial recommendation of seven to nine years in prison for Stone, convicted in November on charges including obstruction of Congress and witness tampering, was a "miscarriage of justice."
"The White House is saying they still have full confidence in Barr, that they're really not that concerned about his comments, but what happens if the president keeps tweeting about criminal cases. What does Barr do then?" Thomas says on "Start Here" today.
2. JEDI cloud case
A federal judge has granted Amazon's request to temporarily block the Pentagon from proceeding with Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, a $10 billion cloud-computing contract awarded to Microsoft.
Amazon filed a lawsuit in November alleging that the president’s “personal animus” towards CEO Jeff Bezos, and the Washington Post, which he owns, caused the Department of Defense's decision to be “based on bias and bad faith.”
"Amazon is genuinely saying that this has not been a fair process, at the same time, DOD has said that all along we're going to move exactly through this contracting process as we would any other contract," ABC News' Elizabeth McLaughlin tells the podcast.
In a statement responding to the ruling, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said, "We are disappointed in today's ruling and believe the actions taken in this litigation have unnecessarily delayed implementing DoD's modernization strategy and deprived our warfighters of a set of capabilities they urgently need. However, we are confident in our award of the JEDI Cloud contract to Microsoft and remain focused on getting this critical capability into the hands of our warfighters as quickly and efficiently as possible."
3. How do you do fellow kids
Related Stories
In a bid to reach younger voters, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a political-meme campaign on Instagram -- the billionaire's way of saying "I'm so uncool, that I'm cool," according to ABC News Political Director Rick Klein.
"This isn't just about him spending gobs of money to get his name out there; he is doing really smart things with some of his money to get himself into a conversation that he could potentially be owning in two weeks' time," he tells "Start Here."
"Start Here," ABC News' flagship podcast, offers a straightforward look at the day's top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or the ABC News app. Follow @StartHereABC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for exclusive content and show updates.
Related Topics
Related Stories
ABC News Live