Barr is dumping 150 years of AG separation of powers to be Trump's B***h

Mr. Barr portrayed Mr. Mueller as encountering “difficult issues” in reaching a decision on obstruction

FROM WILLIAM P. BARR
“The special counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the president’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The special counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”

Mr. Mueller used those two phrases twice, in slightly different formulations:
FROM ROBERT S. MUELLER III

Vol. II, Page 2: Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the president’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
Vol. II, Page 8: Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the president’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the president’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

In his letter, Mr. Barr did not explain why the special counsel had demurred from making any prosecutorial judgment on obstruction beyond a cryptic reference to what he said Mr. Mueller had described as “difficult issues” of law and fact. His suggestion was that these unspecified issues prevented Mr. Mueller from making a call “one way or the other.” In fact, Mr. Mueller made clear that the difficulties resided in accusing Mr. Trump of committing a crime; if the facts had exonerated him, he would have been willing to say so.

Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” @charlie_savage • Facebook

 

When you even lose fox news...

 

THE "COVER-UP" GENERAL, WILLIAM BARR, HAD BEEN ACCUSED
OF A PRESIDENTIAL COVER-UP BEFORE​

Before the Mueller report, Barr had played a key role in at least three contentious episodes of cover-ups that have come under scrutiny; they are as follows:

• The FBI Memo:
  • In 1989, Barr reportedly misled Congress when omitting important parts of a Justice Department memo he wrote about the FBI’s ability to abduct suspects in foreign countries.
• Iran-Contra:
  • He successfully advocated the pardon of six former White House aides, including those convicted of lying to Congress or withholding information during the investigation. The six-year probe centered around allegations that the Reagan administration had secretly sold weapons to Iran despite an arms embargo, then clandestinely funneled the proceeds to anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua.
• Iraqgate:
  • Barr refused a Congressional request to appoint an independent counsel, for the first known time since the statute creating the position was established 24 years earlier, according to contemporaneous accounts in the Washington Post and the LA Times.

If you want a presidential cover-up, Barr is your guy!

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article...een-accused-of-a-presidential-cover-up-before

 

I'm sure that's why he was hired. He has the experience required.

 

WSJ Editorial Board this morning:

Targeting Bill Barr
Unlike Loretta Lynch, the AG does his duty on ‘prosecutorial judgment.’
By
The Editorial Board
April 19, 2019 6:57 p.m. ET

Pivoting from their failed Russia-Trump collusion narrative, Democrats and the press corps have discovered a new political villain: William Barr. They claim the Attorney General is misleading the public, but their real goal is to warn Mr. Barr from following through on his promise to investigate abuses by the FBI and Obama Administration officials.

The rap is that Mr. Barr didn’t tell the truth about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report when he summarized its conclusions in late March. “It’s a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of United States,” tweeted presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, in a typical broadside.

Mr. Barr was trying to satisfy the Democratic demand to see the report as soon as possible while he vetted the details for material that had to be redacted for sound legal and intelligence reasons. His four-page summary fairly characterized its conclusions on collusion and obstruction of justice while promising the full report soon. He even quoted Mr. Mueller’s line that the report “does not exonerate” Mr. Trump. A summary couldn’t contain the details that Mr. Mueller took 488 pages to describe, and now those details are public warts and all.

Democrats also want Mr. Barr to take a vow of silence so they’re the only people who can explain what the Mueller report means. But Mr. Mueller works for Mr. Barr, who had no legal obligation to release any of the report to Congress. He made a prudent judgment in the public interest to do so, as he promised during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Especially since Mr. Mueller abdicated on making any “prosecutorial judgment” about obstruction, Mr. Barr also had a duty to provide his own judgment on the law. Democrats may not like his conclusion, but at least Mr. Barr didn’t run for the tall grass like Obama-era AG Loretta Lynch did on the Hillary Clinton emails. She deferred, disastrously as later became clear, to FBI director James Comey’s inappropriate prosecutorial pre-emption. Mr. Barr stood up and took responsibility like a real Attorney General.

Mr. Barr is also being attacked for making redactions, and House Democrats said Friday they’ll subpoena the unredacted version and all background material. Yet Mr. Barr says senior Members of Congress will be able to see all redacted material except for what is legally protected by grand-jury secrecy. Mr. Barr would have to petition the judge who supervised the grand jury to release such testimony, which is secret under the law to ensure people speak honestly and to protect the innocent.

If Mr. Barr resists the subpoenas, Congress is likely to lose the legal fight. Congress has an interest in the report as part of its oversight duties, but the executive branch also has an interest in protecting the integrity of judicial proceedings. Congress will be able to see everything in the report except grand-jury material. Under the Supreme Court’s balancing test in the Nixon tapes case (U.S. v. Nixon), Mr. Barr is on strong legal ground.

The larger Democratic concern is that Mr. Barr is serious about looking into the origins of the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016. That could mean turning over such rocks as the FBI-Clinton-media collaboration over the discredited Steele dossier, or whether officials misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in seeking a warrant to eavesdrop on Trump adviser Carter Page. The Mueller report barely mentions the Steele dossier, which suggests the special counsel could not corroborate its allegations.

The Justice Department Inspector General is expected to issue a report on much of this in the coming months, and criminal referrals can’t be ruled out. Several criminal referrals have already come from Congress. Any prosecutions would no doubt require Mr. Barr’s assent, and Democrats are sending a message that he’ll pay a political price if he doesn’t call the whole thing off.

As he’s learning in this second turn as AG, Mr. Barr will be hammered no matter what he decides. The good news is that the country finally appears to have an Attorney General who can take the heat.

Appeared in the April 20, 2019, print edition.

​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/targeting-bill-barr-11555714643?mod=hp_opin_pos1

 

déjà vu



keep hope alive

 

uber Conservative Republican lawmaker from Mi disects Barr's deliberate misrepresentation of the Mueller Report, point by point, https://twitter.com/justinamash

​

 

fox news...

 

Keep the rule of law alive.

 

fox news' Shepard Smith joins Brett Baier in reporting the truth...

 

barr is outright slime. So now he is trying to strengthen the trump fiction on "well, why didn't Mueller reach a decision?" I guess the companion question is "Why didn't barr wave the department of justice guideline preventing a sitting president from being impeached?"

In any event, this strengthens the call for Mueller to testify in from of congress (and America)...


And, since cartoons are so popular...

 

Ouch, that one will leave a scar...

 

Chief law officer in America, can't keep his stories straight. And we thought jeff sessions was bad...