William Barr And The End Of The Rule Of Law In America

The rule of law is falling apart in America, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress must act to stop it before it really is too late.

by Ben Cohen

Over the past three years, I have learned through trial and error to always assume that anyone associated with Donald Trump is a liar. Those he brought with him to the White House from his real estate and media days are liars. Those who came from around the country to work in his administration are liars. Those he asked to help save his wreckage of a presidency during one of his many crises are liars. His supporters are liars, and everyone member of Congress unwilling to speak out about him are liars too.

How can I say this so definitively? Donald Trump is the biggest liar in American political history, so anyone who work for or supports him must by default, internalize, justify or ignore the many, many lies he tells.

You must lie to yourself in order to support him, just as he lies to you and everyone else.

When William Barr was nominated by Trump to become his Attorney General, I simply assumed that given Barr accepted, he was a liar too. Little did anyone know how big of a liar Barr was, until yesterday when he held a press conference in advance of the release of the Mueller report, and lied through his teeth about it.

It was a truly astonishing performance from the man who served the same role under George H.W. Bush, given what he said was in the Mueller report clearly was not in it.

With a straight face and monotone voice, Barr told the nation’s press that not only had the Mueller report completely exonerated Trump from charges of colluding with the Russian government, he had presented no evidence that Trump had obstructed justice.

“There is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,” Barr told the nation. “Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation.” Barr also determined that Trump had engaged in “no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation.”

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Firstly, Mueller’s report did not “exonerate” Trump from charges of collusion. As Bob Cesca wrote in his column yesterday, “Mueller reminds us there’s no criminal statute covering “collusion,” which is more a term of the press to describe contacts between Trump and Russian operatives.”

“The statute Mueller was aiming for was criminal conspiracy, and he was unable to prove such crimes in conjunction with the Russian military intelligence agency due to the numerous lies by “several” members of the campaign,” continued Bob.

“In other words, for both Barr and Trump to declare “no collusion” is a lie. Mueller didn’t rule out collusion, only conspiracy.”

As Vox reported, Mueller did in fact find “several troubling interactions” that could certainly be construed as collusion, such as:

• Two Trump campaign officials — Paul Manafort and Rick Gates — provided polling information to a Russian oligarch Gates believed was a “spy” for the Kremlin

• Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, with Trump’s approval, tried to arrange meetings between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin

• Russia tried to hack Hillary Clinton’s office five hours after Trump called on Moscow to find her deleted emails

As Vox notes:

The report makes it clear that: 1) the Russian government tried to help Trump win; 2) the Trump campaign was eager to benefit from hackings targeting Democrats; and 3) Trump’s campaign advisers had a lot of troubling ties to Russia.

More egregious though, was Barr’s characterization of Trump’s innocence when it came to obstruction of justice. Page after page after page of the Mueller report outlines an extraordinary case for obstruction of justice. From page 156 of the second volume:

Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations. The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony. Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their significance. For example, the President’s direction to McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed was followed almost immediately by his direction to Lewandowski to tell the Attorney General to limit the scope of the Russia investigation to prospective election-interference only—a temporal connection that suggests that both acts were taken with a related purpose with respect to the investigation.

Coupled with his firing of James Comey and not-so-subtle offers of pardons to former campaign members facing jail time, it is extraordinary to surmise anything else. Yet out trotted William Barr before all of this became public to insist that nothing in the report amounted to obstruction of justice. Trump’s errant behavior was in fact, just a result of the decision to investigate him. Barr called it an “unprecedented situation” and claimed Trump was subjected to “relentless speculation in the news media” about his culpability.

In other words, Trump might have tried to obstruct justice on multiple occasions, but it doesn’t count because he was stressed out.

Mueller was more explicit in his judgment, writing that the president’s “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

Apparently this is absolutely fine with the Attorney General, who, only second to the president, has the most important job in the country when it comes to defending the rule of law.

This act of blatant partisanship and outright lying is immediately disqualifying and Barr should be removed from his role as Attorney General. Barr not only lied about what was in the Mueller report, but performed as a trial lawyer would for his client whom he knew was guilty. Barr displayed no trace of shame when deliberately misleading the public, apparently completely comfortable destroying the credibility of the office holds.

When those in power refuse to follow or defend the rule of law, civil society and democratic rule is placed in great danger. It is not just Trump who is unaccountable for his lies, but now the entire Department of Justice. The rule of law is falling apart in America, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress must act to stop it before it really is too late.

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