Bill Barr may have killed probe of Trump's payoff to Stormy Daniels: Florida prosecutor

A Florida prosecutor called on Congress to examine whether Attorney General William Barr killed an investigation into an illegal payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, said newly released court documents further implicated Trump and his former aide Hope Hicks in the scheme, which has already resulted in a prison term for the president's former attorney Michael Cohen -- who implicated his boss in the campaign finance law violation.

"You and I don't have the benefit of the internal DOJ policy that forbids indicting a sitting president, and I think that is relevant here," Aronberg told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "There are a lot of things going on here. But I think that the public needs to know -- there needs to be public hearings about this. Especially I want to know what Bill Barr's role is."

The investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York resulted in no additional charges, after Cohen pleaded guilty, and Aronberg said the timeline was suspicious.

"You know, the investigation into the matters seemed to conclude five months ago," Aronberg said. "That was the last time the Southern District of New York had contact with the Trump Organization. That coincides with the swearing in of Bill Barr as U.S. Attorney General."

"Did he put his thumb on the scale?" he added. "Did he put the kibosh on the investigation? These are things that maybe Congress needs to investigate."