Althouse: "Democrats and the media are turning the AG into a villain for doing his duty and making the hard decisions that special counsel Robert Mueller abdicated."

May 2, 2019

"Democrats and the media are turning the AG into a villain for doing his duty and making the hard decisions that special counsel Robert Mueller abdicated."

"Mr. Barr's Wednesday testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was preceded late Tuesday by the leak of a letter Mr. Mueller had sent the AG on March 27. Mr. Mueller griped in the letter that Mr. Barr's four-page explanation to Congress of the principal conclusions of the Mueller report on March 24 'did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance' of the Mueller team's 'work and conclusions.' Only in Washington could this exercise in posterior covering be puffed into a mini-outrage. Democrats leapt on the letter as proof that Mr. Barr was somehow covering for Donald Trump when he has covered up nothing.... Mr. Barr has since released the full Mueller report with minor redactions, as he promised, and with the 'context' intact. Keep in mind Mr. Barr was under no legal obligation to release anything at all. Mr. Mueller reports only to Mr. Barr, not to the country or Congress.... Contrast that to the abdication of Loretta Lynch, who failed as Barack Obama's last Attorney General to make a prosecutorial judgment about Hillary Clinton's misuse of classified information. Ms. Lynch cowered before the bullying of then FBI director James Comey, who absolved Mrs. Clinton of wrongdoing while publicly scolding her.... [The Democrats are] shouting and pounding the table against Bill Barr for acting like a real Attorney General."

From "A Real Attorney General/Bill Barr gets smeared for refusing to duck and cover like Loretta Lynch" by the Editorial Board at The Wall Street Journal.

240 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 240 of 240

Kevin said...: For two years the Journal has followed along with the investigation, reporting all the negative rumors about Trump and his associates.

When the Dems have lost the WSJ...; 5/2/19, 8:40 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The War of the Rebellion? Jesus. Just call it the Civil War. Is there a single fucking term in the world that you don't seek to warp to fit some silly agenda of yours?

Yes, people who were lynched, enslaved, raped and disenfranchise want to emphasize that they're people first, and that categories are less important - whichever color it was. I realize that would bother an old unrepentant racist douchebag fool like you, but don't worry. You're almost dead. And look it from that one slide.

It's like Marty McFly said of Old Man Strickland. Did that guy ever have hair?; 5/2/19, 8:44 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: iowan2 is the smartest jew in the Hawkeye state.

Too bad nothing he says makes any difference for his insignificant party.; 5/2/19, 8:46 PM
narciso said...: Anyone tell evan Perez at CNN, or the host of reporters still swallowing that story,; 5/2/19, 8:48 PM
narciso said...: See its this fake partiality that tells me no they are still buying the slop

https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-speaker-pelosi-says-barr-lied-to-congress-11556810097?mod=mhp; 5/2/19, 9:01 PM
FullMoon said...: Pelosi really looked bad while lying about Barr. Don't think I have ever seen her so ragged..; 5/2/19, 9:06 PM
Kevin said...: Oh yes, the plan now is Barr lied, is removed from office, his ruling is “tainted” and since the AG slot is now vacant Nadler launches impeachment proceedings to settle the matter.

The plan is even codenamed Hopeful Inga.; 5/2/19, 9:09 PM
Drago said...: Whatever happened to that nice lad Michael Avenetti that every single lefty was gaga over and allowed permanent residence on the lefty cable shows?; 5/2/19, 9:10 PM
Drago said...: Bill Barr appears quite up to the coming battle with the stalinists and their LLR lap poodles.

But you know those East German Stasi-types: they hate anyone who stands up to their corruption and totalitarian impulses.; 5/2/19, 9:12 PM
Drago said...: Expect our resident lefties/LLR-lefties to completely lose their minds when Barr exposes their Putin-enabled failed coup attempt.; 5/2/19, 9:32 PM
Michael K said...: Bill Barr appears quite up to the coming battle with the stalinists and their LLR lap poodles.
Barr, like Andy McCarthy, has figured out the crazy left and knows there is no sanity there.

People like Jonah Goldberg have lost the sense they were born with.; 5/2/19, 10:05 PM
narciso said...: Same with podhoretz sr and kristol jr, as a long time reader of commentary and frequent one of public interest then again Buckley himself was clearly disappointed with his som, who returned the favor in his poppa dearest memoir thata why they brought in rich lowry.; 5/2/19, 10:08 PM
narciso said...: The podlet the patriarch still is very sharp, because he knows the milieu from whence he came.; 5/2/19, 10:10 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: People like Jonah Goldberg have lost the sense they were born with.

Can't figure out what would keep a guy named "Goldberg" from getting down with Trump's Jew-killing/synagogue shoot-up appeal. That's a real stumper.; 5/2/19, 10:40 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Social Media is making it do only the Far Left is heard, and this acts like an echo chamber moving the msm and Democrats more and more to other left due to the sjw mob.

This explains the pandering by the Democrats to the far left.

The Democrats are caught in a nasty cycle of going further and further left. Some donors and social media are demanding it.

The only thing that will end this is a huge electoral trouncing.

Trump looks like he will get re-elected.

Senate looks like it will stay GOP.

House I’m not sure about.; 5/2/19, 10:45 PM
Titus said...: Of course u go to the Wall Street journal editorial. So predictable of u.; 5/2/19, 10:54 PM
narciso said...: The journal is still buying palomino Pelosis slop.; 5/2/19, 10:57 PM
Gretchen said...: You have to love that the Democrats keep calling Barr Trump's handpicked AG. Ummm, at least Barr never claimed to be his wing-man. He isn't Trump's sibling either, like Bobby Kennedy. Trump's sister was a Federal judge, so he could have nominated her. The Democrats act as if no other president ever got to pick their AG. They have made sure the majority of the populace is ignorant of civics so they believe these idiots.; 5/2/19, 11:01 PM
walter said...: StephenFearby said...The NYT in better-late-than-never Russiagate investigative mode:

"The decision to use Ms. Turk in the operation aimed at a presidential campaign official shows the level of alarm inside the F.B.I. during a frantic period when the bureau was trying to determine the scope of Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 election, but could also give ammunition to Mr. Trump and his allies for their spying claims."
--
Clearly, that is the only possible reason for said "alarm"...; 5/2/19, 11:06 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Nice summary of Barr's performance”

“Personally, I would call it a highly partisan hack job. Not surprising from a well known liberal whack job (BENJAMIN WITTES is the editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.)...”

Stumbled into something interesting that may help explain why Wittes so viciously attacked AG Barr. See Checkmate

When the Mueller Report was released on April 18th, most commentators focused on the “explosive” factual allegations. But other than the shocking revelation that the President once used an expletive in private, very few of those facts were novel; most were leaked long ago.

In June 2018, Bill Barr, then in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote a detailed legal memorandum to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This memo came to light in December, when Barr was nominated for Attorney General.
At the end of Volume II of the Mueller Report, however, there were 20 pages of genuinely new material.

There, the former FBI director turned Special Counsel Robert Mueller defended his “Application of Obstruction-Of-Justice Statutes To The President.” These overlooked 20 pages were dedicated to defending Mueller’s interpretation of a single subsection of a single obstruction-of-justice statute: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

That’s quite strange, but you know what’s stranger still?

In June 2018, Bill Barr, then in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote a detailed legal memorandum to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This memo came to light in December, when Barr was nominated for Attorney General.; 5/2/19, 11:24 PM
Drago said...: HoaxPutinPPT: "Can't figure out what would keep a guy named "Goldberg" from getting down with Trump's Jew-killing/synagogue shoot-up appeal. That's a real stumper."

When all your recent lefty lies turn to ash, go back to your oldie but goodie lies and see if those will work.

Meanwhile, the new US Embassy in Jerusalem sits near the new train station which will be named after Trump.

Also meanwhile, all those lefty dem congresspersons and lefty media types and lefty academic types have anti-semitism oozing out of every pore...but only in a "good" and acceptable pro-islamist way.

"Unexpectedly"; 5/2/19, 11:40 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Getting to Wittes, he apparently was one of several outside attorneys who worked closely with Andrew Weissman to draft that expansive interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). Weissman, of course, is well known to have used extraordinary broad definitions of criminal statutes in the past, so extraordinary that they inevitably are rejected at the trial court or appellate court level. AG Barr last summer, while still in private practice, wrote a well researched legal memo that refutes the Weissman/Wittes interpretation of that portion of that Obstruction statute. He sent it to Trump’s attorneys, who used it to push back against The Mueller investigators. As I have pointed out before here, AG Sessions had to be pushed out in order to shut down the Mueller investigation. And that was done right after the election last Nov. Barr was very quickly nominated and confirmed. His memo was discovered during those hearings.

In any case, as AG, Barr was effectively in a position to set policy in this area - determining whether DoJ policy was to be interpreted expansively the way that Weissman and Wittes wanted, or much more strictly, in accordance with his memo to Trump’s attorneys last summer. To the victor go the spoils, and Barr was AG, and neither Weissman nor Wittes were, nor are they ever likely to be AG. Ever. Being the top attorney that he was, he got DAG Rosenstein and the lawyers in charge of this sort of thing to buy into his interpretation. But in the end, it was his interpretation that is now DoJ policy.

The 20 pages that Barr essentially ignored argued for the highly expansive Weissman/Wittes interpretation, and under that interpretation, there might have been Obstruction. They could argue for that, that Trump possibly Obstructed Justice by his actions, but couldn’t actually say that they believed that he had, because then they would have to explain why they hadn’t indicted him. So, they threw the decision to AG Barr, who flushed their argument down where it belonged, interpreted the facts laid out in the Mueller Report, and found (with DAG Rosenstein) that using the statutory interpretation that was now DoJ policy and that he had written the legal memo to support, Mueller’s team was not even close to having made a case for Obstruction based on any of the sets of facts presented. Wittes, Weissman, and the Democrats wanted a discussion about the facts interpreted utilizing their expansive interpretation of that section of the statute. But AG Barr could safely ignore them, and those 20 pages, because that wasn’t the way that the DoJ interpreted that section of statute, so was completely irrelevant.

Which is very likely why Wittes came across as so butt hurt in the Atlantic article that Readering cited early in this thread. He was butt hurt because he and Weissman got outmaneuvered.; 5/3/19, 12:03 AM
narciso said...: Wittes was the recipient of one of this
He memos whose description triggered the appointment of a special counsel.; 5/3/19, 12:06 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Meanwhile, the new US Embassy in Jerusalem sits near the new train station which will be named after Trump.

Jews are fans of dying in great numbers so that buildings and monuments can be named after some self-important goy, right? That's why their temple was called, "Herod's temple." LOL!!! Embassy Macht Frei!!!; 5/3/19, 1:51 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Pharaoh's pyramids, Herod's Temple, Trump's embassy. Kill Jews and enlist them in building our monuments, say the gentile bigshots lording over them!

Drago makes for an awesome Pontius Pilate. Let's give him a hand!; 5/3/19, 2:08 AM
Narayanan said...: ...the principal objective early on was to use Hillary's missing emails to ensnare Trump or someone in his campaign in illegality or (attempted) collusion with Russia...

!?So they could be "missing on purpose"?!; 5/3/19, 2:21 AM
Fen said...: Jews are fans of dying in great numbers so that buildings and monuments can be named after some self-important goy, right?

He said wearing his S&M Gestapo Gimp outfit.

Why do you hate Jews?; 5/3/19, 2:22 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Aren't the democrats guilty of obstructing justice, by their own iights?
They are demonizing Barr to blunt his conclusions into investigations into Hillary & the JD.
"We're fucked!"; 5/3/19, 2:40 AM
Quaestor said...: Ritmo wrote: What a fount of knowledge you are. SO Christine Blasey Ford was being "impeached?" Lol. Do tell us more nuggets from the profound wells of your deep civic wisdom.

Is it worth pointing out that executive privilege and separation of powers has nothing to with Blasey Ford's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Probably not, just getting those Big Macs assembled in the correct order is challenging enough for Ritmo's plaque encrusted neurons.

Now, is that bread, meat, meat, cheese, lettuce, sauce, bread? Or Bread, bread, cheese, meat, lettuce, cheese, meat, sauce?; 5/3/19, 6:06 AM
tim in vermont said...: I don’t know why anybody wastes their time on Ritmo, who is obviously not a good faith commenter.; 5/3/19, 6:24 AM
Hey Skipper said...: Nobody:

Ritmo has caused the replacement of at least a half-dozen scroll bars on my browser.

I've wised up. Now I shop in bulk to get a quantity discount.; 5/3/19, 7:32 AM
Original Mike said...: "I don’t know why anybody wastes their time on Ritmo, who is obviously not a good faith commenter."

In particular, I don't understand why Michael K doesn't wise up.

Thanks, Bruce. I read (and was unpersuaded by) Witte's article. The back story is interesting. Given that Mueller had to know Barr was going to dismiss obstruction, it's surprising Mueller held back on explicitly charging Trump with obstruction. He might not have prevailed in the end, but it would have made for a big row.

Oh, and good work with the paragraphs.; 5/3/19, 9:31 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I don’t think that was going to happen. First, I think that DAG Rosenstein’s defining characteristic is that he is a weasel. The extremely aggressive Weissman/Wittes interpretation has never been tried it court, and the President shouldn’t be the one to rest it out on. As. Weasel, I don’t see Rosenstein standing up to Trump’s lawyers defending it. Maybe more importantly, the thing that Mueller never addressed was that their power to indict is derivative of Trump’s Article II Executive Power. His underlings hamstringing his ability to govern over essentially political differences doesn’t comport with our Constitutional government. He must have the power to fire people, etc, in order to execute his office. If Weissman and the other highly partisan prosecutors had indicted Trump for Obstruction, given the facts in the Mueller Report, I expect that it probably would have been dismissed on the pleadings for failing to state a valid claim, since their overly aggressive interpretation of Obstruction had never been tried in court (and the President wasn’t the one to try it out on, given his need to govern).

Trump had an extremely good set of attorneys. Weissman, etc desperately wanted to interview Trump, because the only way that they had a decent chance at getting him on Obstruction was if they could trip him up in the interview, and get him to admit something that could have been leveraged into intent. Instead they got over a million pages of documents, and hundreds of interviews of others. The problem was Mens Rea. The Weissman/Wittes interpretation got around the Actus Rea problem, but not the intent requirement. They could argue that Obstruction of Justice might have been one reason for Trump’s actions, but how do they get over the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold, with his attorneys pointing out other reasons why he might have done something - and since pretty much the only thing that they had on him was him giving what appeared to have been orders, that were never executed, frustration at Mueller’s people preventing him from doing the job he was hired to do was likely more than sufficient to introduce reasonable doubt. The Mueller prosecutors never had enough of a legitimate justification, that would stand up in court (and probably to survive appeal), to force Trump into an interview, and Trump’s attorneys made sure that they knew that, and were more than ready to fight their overreach in court.; 5/3/19, 11:52 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I do note that in addition to my paragraphs being long, my sentences are maybe worse. Some are just complex, but some definitely run on sentences. The complex part I can blame on maybe 7 years of Latin, including 3 in college. Plus, almost 30 years of patent law where the ability to read complex sentences is essential. Statutes are notoriously hard to understand, given their often convoluted structure, and we have the added problem in patent law of drafting and deciphering patent claims. I try to write more cogently, but it is a running war with myself. Sorry.; 5/3/19, 12:01 PM
Skippy Tisdale said...: "This is probably the most ridiculous, phoniest "controversy" of the Trump era and it's very revealing about the Democrats. Simply, they aren't serious people."

What you fail to grasp is that right now the Democrats are playing one-dimensional chess. And they're really, really good at it!

/snarky sarcasm; 5/3/19, 1:02 PM
Hey Skipper said...: @Bruce Hayden: The extremely aggressive Weissman/Wittes interpretation has never been tried it court ...

Caution: I am not a lawyer.

Take the Weissman/Wittes interpretation as read. What is the limiting principle? Impeachment is a political process undertaken by a co-equal branch of government that is accountable to the voters. But if W/W carries the day, then it sounds like the judicial branch and executive branch appointees, which could come from the previous administration, could take it upon themselves to — and I know this sounds far fetched, but work with me here — concoct any old farcical story, then use it as a whip against the president, thereby causing any reaction, no matter how justified, to be grounds for indictment.

That sounds to me like recipe for disaster. Although, having suffered through that Wittes piece, I'm not surprised he either can't see it, or won't admit to it.

(As for long paras, IMHO, more than six or so lines of large blocks of text on a screen are difficult to scan accurately. Aside from that, your writing is very lucid and informative. Thanks for taking the effort.); 5/3/19, 2:31 PM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/3/19, 3:57 PM
Original Mike said...: My doctoral mentor (a brilliant man) didn't understand the use of the 'period'. He counted on his students to edit his stuff for readability.; 5/3/19, 7:56 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Why do you hate Jews?

I didn't realize I did. I'm just not a fan of rhetoric that gets them killed in America - my country - so that the president you love can "offset" that by putting his name on a building in Jerusalem.

But we can always go to both of our rabbis and compare hatreds. I predict mine will agree that it's no virtue to get Jewish Americans killed with hateful rhetoric so that you can applaud Trump for moving a buidling in the Middle East. Yours might, also. But then, Jews like people who can actually think. They're really not into blind followership. But thanks for pretending that you actually are one, anyway. What's your Hebrew name and what was the circumcision like?; 5/3/19, 8:36 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Take the Weissman/Wittes interpretation as read. What is the limiting principle?”

Another, related question - why weren’t Mueller, Weissman, etc, Obstructing Justice by prolonging the investigation at least a year beyond when they knew, with a certainty that there had been no collusion between the Trump people and the Russians, esp since the FBI used the existence of the Mueller investigation to stop and freeze both Congressional and OIG investigations that involved allegations of Russian collusion? Indeed, the mere presence of the Mueller investigation could be seen as Obstruction, since its primary purpose was to shield top FBI and DoJ officials from being investigated for their abusive FISA lawbreaking.

The next question would probably be, why do these Mueller prosecutors believe that they should be exempt from indictment for Obstruction utilizing the aggressive interpretation they laid out in the Mueller report? Because they are Democrats? Because they had ties to the Clintons? Inquisitive minds are interested in answers to these questions.; 5/4/19, 8:31 PM