Former DOJ Officials Call for Barr's Resignation.
SCIUTTO: Welcome back. More than 1,000 former Justice Department officials who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations are now calling on the attorney general, William Barr, to resign. In a rare statement, the officials write, quote, Mr. Barr's actions in doing the president's personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice's reputation for integrity and the rule of law require Mr. Barr to resign. One of the signatories is the former acting attorney general, Stuart Gerson. He was an adviser to George H.W. Bush. Mr. Gerson, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.</s>STUART GERSON, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Good morning, Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: So I find your point of view fascinating here because your argument, in effect, is that Barr is less interested in defending Trump himself than in advancing his own belief in a reactionary, you call it, or right wing agenda here. And that, in effect, he's smarter than Trump and, therefore, able to do this. Explain that.</s>GERSON: Well, he's a good deal smarter than the -- than the president. The president is able to capitalize on the intellectual depth of Bill Barr, who's setting an agenda that the president can adopt. I think the point of Barr's statement was, get out of the way, Mr. President, and I can advance this agenda. Barr believes in a -- what he calls -- his view of the unitary executive, which would grant superiority to the executive over the other branches. That's not the way the framers saw it but it's an authoritarian view and the president is very comfortable with that.</s>SCIUTTO: Respond to the argument, because you will hear from the president's defenders, or from Barr's defenders, saying, hey, Eric Holder looked out for President Obama. Explain where Bill Barr, in your view, has gone beyond previous attorneys general.</s>GERSON: Bill Barr has never been a prosecutor. He's never stood up in front of a jury perhaps as a white man talking to a black jury seeking the conviction of a black man. It's the job of federal prosecutors to dispense justice without fear or favor, without respect to class or position in life. These prosecutors, who were on the line, who brought in a verdict against someone who was a crony of the president now see that being undone in a way that differs from the way other people are treated. That's the point.</s>SCIUTTO: And it's not just on Roger Stone, because, as you know, Attorney General Barr has now -- is now re-examining a whole host of cases, including the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Tell us -- tell us about how that might play out in your view and what that does to the line prosecutors who've been entrusted with these cases?</s>GERSON: Well, it's likely to do nothing to the judges who have these cases. They're experienced judges. They see what's going on. And they're going to decide what sentences should be based on the way they see the facts and what information is made available to them that they don't otherwise get. So I think we'll be safe as a public from that. Where -- where there's a problem is when what is supposed to be the least political branch of the executive branch, the least political part of the executive branch, where political officials are reaching into pending cases, that is something that's out of the ordinary and out of the norm. Of course there are going to be disputes between prosecutors and their superiors about how cases should be treated and charging decisions and the like of that, but this goes beyond that. This is reaching into a pending case, obviously without the knowledge and input of the prosecutors, else that otherwise couldn't explain their resignations. They were -- they were taken aback by all of this. And it's a very unusual situation. And it's not a good one.</s>SCIUTTO: And that is a concern for the attorney general, is it not, that he has something of a mutiny on his hands here, when you have four U.S. attorneys resign from a case in protest in effect here. And it's CNN's reporting that this extends far beyond those four prosecutors.</s>GERSON: Well, look at it -- look at it this year, I -- I've seen reporting that suggests that the attorney general doesn't care that there's disputes within the department as long as he's doing the right thing. My experience, albeit for a shorter time is, you can't lead without the people following you. And this is a situation that needs to be resolved and explained. On a day-to-day basis, I'm confident that the assistant United States attorneys, throughout all the 90 plus offices in the country, are going to do the right thing. This makes it a little more difficult, and they're certainly looking over their shoulder.</s>SCIUTTO: Stuart Gerson, good to speak to you this morning.</s>GERSON: Thank you very much, Jim.</s>CAMEROTA: All right, Jim, we are following breaking news with the coronavirus outbreak. So NEW DAY continues right now.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. John Berman is off today. Jim Sciutto joins me. Great to have you.</s>SCIUTTO: Good to be here. Just a little bit of news to cover this morning.</s>CAMEROTA: There sure is. So, after two weeks in quarantine on a cruise ship in Japan, more than 300 Americans are back on U.S. soil at this hour. And now they're facing another 14 days in isolation here. These two charter planes have landed this --