Katy, Barr the door

Bill Knight column for 7 27, 28, or 29, 2020            

Attorney General William Barr might look a bit like Fred Flintstone, but the Rubble his Stone Age approach to justice is leaving behind is not Barney.

His Department of Justice’s priorities are now Trump’s priorities. Barr is acting as Trump’s personal lawyer, not the nation’s, and he’s signaled that federal involvement in issues related to the President are off limits, whether tax-related matters or action by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani or, now, sending secret federal law-enforcement personnel to cities to attack, abduct or intimidate nonviolent demonstrators.

Last week, four former presidents of the D.C. Bar Association signed a letter calling on the group to investigate Barr for ethical violations including dishonesty and failing his oath to uphold the Constitution.

This week, Barr is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which is discussing the politicization of the Justice Department. They’ll surely ask why he:

* falsely framed the Mueller Report as an exoneration,

* criticized an Inspector General’s report on the Russia investigation, plus DoJ’s own probe and prosecution of wrong-doing that Trump called a hoax,

* helped purge the FBI of people not deemed to be “loyal” to Trump,

* dropped charges against Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI,

* reduced sentencing for Roger Stone, convicted of lying, witness tampering and obstruction, but whose prison term was later commuted altogether by President Trump (especially since Barr supposedly argued against back-tracking Stone’s prosecution, which Barr reportedly termed “righteous,” and in his confirmation hearing told Senators that a President pardoning someone in exchange for not incriminating the Commander in Chief “would be a crime”),

* oversaw the release of Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty to witness tampering and conspiracy and was also convicted of bank fraud, tax evasion and hiding foreign bank accounts, but had his sentence commuted to house arrest over COVID-19 concerns (though comparable inmates weren’t offered the deal),

* launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, subverting U.S. intelligence findings,

* removed prosecutors Jessie Liu (Washington, D.C.) and Geoffrey Berman (New York),

* ordered federal law enforcement personnel to gas peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square so Trump could walk to a nearby church for a photo holding a Bible, and

* circumvents Congress’ bipartisan criminal-justice reform.

Conflicts of interest seem to swirl around Barr. In 2017 he was hired by Caterpillar to examine the federal case against the Illinois company for using foreign subsidiaries to avoid paying U.S. taxes (despite Barr’s law firm’s involvement in the strategy). Now he’s reportedly questioned U.S. Attorneys’ looking into allegations of campaign fraud and extortion within his boss’s operation.

Meanwhile, an Appeals Court last month heard objections to Barr’s Flynn Forgiveness Express by Judge Emmet Sullivan, who accepted Flynn’s original guilty plea. In a 2-1 vote it ordered the dismissal anyway. In Appellate Judge Robert Wilkins’ dissent, he said Sullivan “must be given a reasonable opportunity to consider and hold a hearing on the government’s request [to drop charges] to ensure that it is not clearly contrary to the public interest.”

This month, Sullivan asked Washington’s full, 12-member Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his request.

In the Southern District of New York, Berman this month told Congress that Barr lied in conversations about changing the office, seeking Berman’s resignation so Trump loyalist Jay Clayton (who’s not a prosecutor) could replace him. If Berman resigned, the administration assumed their choice could take over. If Berman was fired, the prosecutor said, his assistant Audrey Strauss would succeed him (which is what eventually happened). Plus, even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) conceded that the precedence of Senators from a nominee’s home state clearing the move (and New York Democrats’ Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer are unlikely to OK Clayton).

As far as criminal justice reform – which through 2018’s First Step Act started to relieve overcrowded prisons and improve federal sentencing guidelines – Barr has issued federal charges in connection with recent civil uprisings instead of the more appropriate state charges, leading legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker to comment “The Attorney General has expressed nothing but contempt for more civilized approaches to law enforcement.”

Former Deputy Attorney General Donald B. Ayer, who served President George H.W. Bush before Barr was there, was more direct in recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

“I believe William Barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law,” Ayer said. “That is because he does not believe in its core principle that nobody is above the law.”

This isn’t animation; it’s animosity.