James Hohmann of the Washington Post reviews a report that is soon to be released. It is highly critical of Attorney General William Barr.
He writes:
“A forthcoming report from the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, prepared in partnership with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is sharply critical of Attorney General Bill Barr.
“The authors gave me a first look at their 277-page report, which is scheduled for publication next week, and focuses on nine areas, including the misleading summary Barr initially offered of special counsel Bob Mueller’s conclusions; the Justice Department’s handling of the whistleblower complaint related to President Trump’s infamous call with Ukraine’s president; his intervention in politically sensitive prosecutions, such as the cases of former Trump advisers Roger Stone and Michael Flynn; the deployment of federal agents and troops against protestors, including the order to clear Lafayette Square; the firing or reassignment of U.S. attorneys, especially in the Southern District of New York; his role in trying to block the publication of material unflattering to the president, such as former national security adviser John Bolton’s memoir; the politicization of several offices within the department, in particular the Office of Legal Counsel; and his resistance to congressional oversight, including subpoenas.
“The meatiest, and perhaps most timely, chapter focuses on Barr’s support for investigating the origins of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Several of the authors have backgrounds in national security and intelligence, and they express fear that the ongoing investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut, ordered up by Barr, could have chilling effects on collecting and disseminating information about potential foreign interference amid the 2020 election.
“There is a grave danger to the Intelligence Community from politicized DOJ investigations, intimidation and potential prosecutions,” the authors argue. “The use of a criminal investigation is ill-suited to examining the process of foreign intelligence analysis, poses unnecessary risks to intelligence sources and methods, intimidates and alienates foreign intelligence analysts, and chills the analytic process in a way likely to undermine the candor essential to producing the best intelligence information for national policymakers. The cumulative effects are likely to increase the attrition of talented intelligence personnel and neutralize the concept of ‘speaking truth to power’ that is essential to the effective use of intelligence in national policy decisions. All of this weakens prospective U.S. intelligence capabilities to the advantage of Russia and other adversaries in competition with the interests and goals of the United States.”
Barr’s spokespeople at the Justice Department did not respond to three requests for comment. The attorney general has vigorously defended the propriety of all his actions since taking office early last year. He testified last year that he thinks “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign in 2016 and has repeatedly cast doubt on whether there was proper predication for the investigation. He has said that – as the nation’s chief law enforcement official – he has an obligation to pursue wrongdoing, if there was any. He recently delivered a fiery speech that criticized career prosecutors for the zealousness with which they have pursued certain targets of investigations and defended the politicization of the Justice Department on his watch.
The three chairs of the 10-member working group that prepared this document over several months are University of Pennsylvania law professor Claire Finkelstein, the faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law; University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush; and Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of CREW, a liberal-leaning watchdog group, and a former federal corruption prosecutor.
The bipartisan working group includes several members with significant national security backgrounds, including Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, who served as general counsel of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency; George Croner, who oversaw signals intelligence and FISA compliance in the operations division of the NSA’s general counsel’s office; Stuart Gerson, a former acting attorney general who ran the DOJ’s civil division under George H.W. Bush; Richard Meyer,who taught law at West Point after 22 years in the Army, including as a military intelligence specialist; and Shawn Turner,who wascommunications director for the director of national intelligence. Donald Ayer, who was deputy attorney general under Bush and Barr’s boss at one point, was a consultant for the project.
It is unknown whether Durham will issue any findings about his probe before Election Day, but Barr has not ruled out that he would announce something during the homestretch of the campaign. “The Attorney General appears to be determined to use the Durham investigation as a publicity tool in order to justify President Trump’s conduct in the 2016 campaign and to discredit the investigation of Robert Mueller,” the report says. “All signs point toward a politically orchestrated ‘October surprise.’”
Trump signed an executive order last year giving Barr broad authority to declassify government secrets, and the attorney general has used it. The Justice Department recently released a pair of documents that seemed designed to cast fresh doubt on the judgment of senior law enforcement officials who investigated possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, showing that one of the FBI case agents thought prosecutors were out to “get Trump” and that a key source of allegations against the president had been previously investigated as a possible Russian asset.
Last month, a senior prosecutor working with Durham on his investigation resigned, raising concern that Barr was pushing the case toward some kind public announcement to benefit Trump ahead of the election. Durham’s investigators have reportedly asked witnesses about how the FBI handled the case after it came to have doubts about the credibility of Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer whose work the bureau relied on in part to obtain the secret court order to surveil Page.
The working group says it came to “the reluctant conclusion” that Barr is “using the powers” of the Justice Department to help get Trump reelected and cited several interviews that the attorney general has given to Fox News about the Durham investigation. The authors conclude with a list of 10 recommendations that they say would safeguard the rule of law, including ensuring more independence for future special counsels, requiring recusal of presidential appointees from matters involving his personal financial interests, staggered 10-year terms for U.S. attorneys and inspectors general, more autonomy for career prosecutors, additional independence for members of the intelligence community, more vigorous congressional oversight and requiring all Justice Department attorneys to comply with ethics advice from DOJ ethics officials.
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, told the group in an interview quoted in the report that the questioning of intelligence analysts as part of a criminal probe into substantive foreign intelligence analysis issues has been “unprecedented.” Clapper said he could think of no other instance of such an inquiry during his 54 years in the intelligence world, and he complained that this will have a “very chilling effect” on analysts inside the agencies. “That just shouldn’t be,” Clapper said. “The intelligence community is supposed to tell the unvarnished truth as best it can, which is a hard enough job to start with.”
“Undermining”
Court records released today show Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the target of a kidnapping plot. Those charged allegedly said, “abduct the bitch”. The goal identified by the FBI was to violently overthrow the government.
Each American can decide for him or herself how much the religious right has contributed to ratcheting up rhetoric until it has become dangerous especially for women who oppose Trump and the religiously-backed GOP.
The plot allegedly began in Ohio, with planned execution by militia men from Michigan. Gov. Dewine imposed an unpopular lockdown in Ohio similar to Whitmer’s.
The militia plan singled out Michigan which has a female, Democratic Governor who has been Trump’s target for ridicule.
“Michigan Catholic Conference Slams Gov. Whitmer as ‘Removed from Reality’ “.
The book I am reading now is Katherine Stewart’s “The Power Worshippers,” which is a deep dive into Christian nationalism. It’s scary.
The duopoly includes evangelical churches. A group of them filed suit against Whitmer for “disregard of the Constitution”. One of the signers is a pastor and he is the father of Michigan’s Speaker of the House. In tandem, the Speaker and his GOP colleagues filed a lawsuit against Whitmer.
I have read transcripts of two Bill Barr’s speeches, one at Notre Dame University, the other at Hillsdale College both ultraconservative and Barr-friendly venues. He consistently disparages “line attorney generals” in his own office and stated that the Constitution gives the Executive Branch almost unlimited power. He also expresses little regard for the Bill of Rights, calling them mere amendments to the Constitution.
Trump wants to direct Barr’s activities, and Barr is usually allowing him to do just that. But Trump is looking for a big October surprise from Barr and has not yet received it.
Trump’s tweets and interviews since his return from the hospital have been conspicuously nasty and vindictive, even for Trump. He has ranted on Fox News that not enough of his political enemies have been arrested – and said attorney general Bill Barr could find himself in a ‘sad situation’ if he doesn’t start rounding them up. Who are these enemies?
From a report by the UK Independent: “The president…was particularly rancorous on the subject of supposed Obama-era ‘crimes’ against him for which he wants to see his predecessor indicted, along with Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and many others.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes,” declared the president, “the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re gonna get little satisfaction unless I win. Because I won’t forget it. But these people should be indicted, this was the greatest political crime in the history of our country. And that includes Obama, and that includes Biden; these are people that spied on my campaign, and we have everything. “Now they say they have much more, and I say Bill, you got plenty. You don’t need any more.”
…..
“If people delete emails in a regular court case – she deleted 33,000 emails and nothing happens to her! Our justice system, nothing happens to her. With all of the pages of stuff, thousands of pages that we have on them, nothing happens to them, nothing happens.
“And you know, I said I’m gonna not get involved, I’m gonna have to get involved, because these people are crooked people.”
More at
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-bill-barr-arrests-fox-news-clinton-obama-biden-obamagate-b885971.html
Hillsdale’s big money growth is attributed to a former university president- a lot of speculation about his daughter-in-law’s “suicide” on campus and allegations of a prior long term affair between the unhappy, spurned daughter-in-law and the school’s president. Family values.
CNN reported that Rev. Jenkins’ Notre Dame has “lost” the once-posted YouTube video of Barrett’s speech on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Josh Hawley is continuing the right wing campaign to rob Democrats of their obligation to ask Barrett about her religion.
Republican Mike Lee promotes the “religious tests” contrived arguments of the Federalist Society’s Naomi Rao.
The Trump administration keeps insisting that Obama spied on the Trump campaign, and this assertion was repeated by Pence last night. While the FBI launched an inquiry into the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia, there is no evidence that this inquiry was at the request of Obama. Trump is a acting like a cornered bull particularly when he reads the new polls.
Trump is counting on Bill Barr to challenge the mail-in ballots in various states. That is why he is trying to ram Coney Barrett through the Supreme Court on such short notice.
Expected- Trump promised a vaccine before the election. And, an October surprise from Putin to helpTrump’s election was anticipated. Yesterday, msm reported about the roll out of a Russian-developed Covid vaccine available in the next couple of weeks.
“undermining”
Self-styled “Christian” Foster Freiss (GOP promoter) funded Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Facebook has the organization in its cross-hairs, according to Axios.
Good to know that my eyes aren’t lying.
Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.
Barr is EVIL to the core.
Everyone who surrounds that dump is IMMORAL, greedy, and of course, works for Putin,
Rule by strongman takes many forms. One sees it among Common Chimpanzees, in ancient kingdoms and empires, in feudal societies, in criminal organizations of all kinds (gangs, RICOs), in authoritarian nation states, in isolated communities in places like Siberia and the Balkans and in hills and hollers in Appalachia in the twentieth century, and in many business organizations, such as modern corporations. The development of the strongman almost always takes predictable steps.
The Abused Child and Budding Narcissist. The young, eventual strongman, develops defense reactions against abuse by one or more powerful, distant, cruel, dismissive parents and/or by peers. These defense reactions take the form of narcissistic fantasies that substitute for authentic feelings of self worth and, as well, of an intense desire to prove that those fantasies aren’t imaginary.
The Sociopathic Manipulator. The desire to prove self worth leads the eventual strongman to develop an ability to manipulate others to achieve his ends. He becomes a con artist, making and breaking alliances easily, seeing others as pawns in a game whose object is achieving power as a sign of his self worth. Not having genuine empathy toward others is essential to this and, at any rate, is another defense mechanism–if you don’t really care about others, you will not be open to hurt. People often falsely attribute native intelligence to strongmen because of his abilities as a manipulator. That’s a mistake. The ability to manipulate others doesn’t take a lot of intelligence because people don’t expect others to act amorally. They expect, for example, when in conversation with others that those others will, generally, tell the truth, and they expect to have to reciprocate. As the linguistic philosopher Paul Grice observed, successful communication generally depends on people’s being able to trust that others actually believe or think what they say they do. The Manipulator need not be very smart, but he needs this superpower–not to be bound by that rule or by any other rules governing normal human interaction. Rules are for the naive, for lesser mortals. So, success at this stage involves not great intelligence but the development, in fits and starts, of a kind of low cunning.
The Psychopathic Authoritarian. If the Manipulator is successful in his manipulations, he becomes the Authoritarian, able to exert power. The more power he exerts, the stronger his feelings of self worth are. See, I really am somebody. And the more power he or she gets, the more he or she wants because those feelings of self worth, of self validation, are intoxicating. The Authoritarian may seem childish to many people because he is obviously driven by the need to fill his need to have his self worth affirmed, but some people just don’t see this or find it useful not to see it. Power is extremely seductive to people with low feelings self worth, for it enables him or her to force others to hold him or her in esteem, leading to the person’s becoming. . . .
The Object of the Personality Cult. As the authority of the Authoritarian increases, he or she is able to project outward, upon others, the idealized image of himself or herself as not only of worth but of ultimate worth. He or she is the greatest, the best–godlike.
The Object of Sycophancy. Having achieved power and having created a personality cult, the strongman attracts and demands to be surrounded by sycophants–people who can bask in secondary glory, shine in the strongman’s borrowed light. Because he has such power, at this point, those surrounding the strongman, the toadies, dare not stray from absolute obedience and self-debasement. As sickening as that is, it has its very real rewards. At this point, the strongman often indulges in cruel exercises that force self-abasement on his toadies, in the presence of others, and takes great glee in these exercises.
The Delusional, Psychopathic Narcissist. However, being surrounded by sycophants has a heavy price. One makes terrible mistakes. There develop cracks in the self image, but these cannot be accepted, or the whole edifice that the strongman has created will fall apart, and so the strongman becomes delusional–he begins to believe his own B.S. He’s off the rails. It’s gross distortion of reality that defines psychopathy.
Well, that’s where we are with Trump. Barr is the sycophantic toady. Trump is the totally delusional, psychopathic narcissist who is, and has been for quite a long time, completely off the rails.
This is not a new pattern of development. We’ve saw it over and over again during the twentieth century.
Unfortunately, he and Barr have this messy business of Democracy to contend with.
cx: We’ve SEEN, ofc. Sorry. That error was the result of an incomplete edit.
“in hills and hollers in Appalachia in the twentieth century” Interesting allusion. Are you referring to the labor bosses in the coal mine labor unions? The local political supporters of the companies that opposed them? I bet you do not mean my old friend, Odie Edwards, who cleaned houses and used to sing old songs that were in her family.
I was thinking of the bootleggers in the hills in Arkansas and in Harlan, Co, Kentucky.
Trump on steroids. Now there’s a frightening thought.
He called in today to Fox Business and went on a long, long, long, long rant in which he did not allow his very sympathetic and toadying interviewer say anything. Instead, he just ranted and talked over her. And in the course of the rant, he said that he was not happy with AG Barr right now because he hasn’t yet indicted Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, et al. for spying on his campaign. He then said that Barr would either prove to be the greatest AG in history, if he did this, or a total joke. And he ended the interview actually screaming, “What’s he waiting for?”
New levels of off the rails, even for Trump.
Time to invoke the 25th Amendment. The guy is totally insane now.
One of the consequences of Bill Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky was him being disbarred. Do any of Bill Barrs actions not require the American Bar Association to take away his law license?