Impeach Bill Barr!

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                                              Ladies and Gentlemen:
                                             You’re A-Toady General
 
            Behind all the sturm und drang  of the Trump Presidency --- particularly regarding the impeachment inquiry and the Syrian withdrawal --- we might want to take a closer look at the actions (or inaction) of Attorney General William Barr.  The attempt to bury the whistleblower complaint, citing Trump’s criminal phone call to Ukraine President Zelensky, by Barr is just the latest in this Attorney General’s actions that reveal him to perceive his role as the President’s attorney and not  the head of the Justice Department.  For those of us who opposed Barr’s appointment (despite the complicit Media touting he’s “fair-minded,” etc.) we can see this is totally consistent with Barr’s history --- and explains (for those with short memories) why he was barely appointed by a 54-45 vote (the three Democratic defections were from “purple” states --- Alabama, West Virginia, Arizona --- along with Rand Paul’s “no” and Richard Burr’s “present/no vote.)  Earlier this year, Barr gave the Justice Department’s Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service to lawyers who backed Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court --- a confirmation hearing that featured a curtailed investigation by the Justice Department’s FBI!  In other words, we are pretty clear where Bill Barr stands regarding Trump, corruption, and criminality.

            If you check out Barr’s biography on Wikipedia you’ll find all you need to know about our A-Toady General.  He is “a longtime proponent of the unitary executive theory of nearly unfettered presidential authority.”  Is it any wonder Trump loves this guy?  Regarding his politics, Barr has argued, throughout his career, for increased incarceration rates (his report, drafted during the H.W. Bush administration was used as the primary source for the disastrous Clinton Crime Bill in the mid-1990s).  As part of the Catholic-Conservative Complex (with Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, to name a few others), “he believed the constitution was not originally intended to create a right to abortion.” (wiki)  It should be noted that during his first tenure as AG, under George H.W. Bush, Barr shifted three hundred FBI agents from counterintelligence to investigate gang violence and “violent” crime (leaving the door open for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993).  He manipulated data (using decade intervals rather than 5-year statistics) to justify his “more incarceration” argument, which shouldn’t surprise us after reading his “summary” of the Mueller report --- which was also manipulated to “exonerate” Trump.

            Regarding the current scandals, we should note that this is not Barr’s first rodeo, either.  He was the Attorney General when the Iran-Contra scandal’s investigation revealed “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American people.”  Former Secretary of Defense Caspar “Weinberger was scheduled to stand trial on felony charges on January 5, 1993” (wiki), with possible testimony that would implicate President GHW Bush as a co-conspirator (when he was Reagan’s VP).  “On December 24, 1992, during his final month in office, Bush, on the advice of Barr, pardoned Weinberger.” (wiki – bold/italics mine)  Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh made it clear that he considered that move a “cover-up” and William Safire, in The New York Times, referred to Barr as “Coverup-General Barr” (wiki)  The past is prologue, dear readers.  We should anticipate comparable legal gymnastics from the Coverup-General in the coming months.

            Let’s be clear how Barr got to where he is.  In 2017 he stated publicly that there was “nothing inherently wrong” with Trump calling on Hillary Clinton to be investigated when they were running for President (even though he did, as you may recall, ask for “Russia, if you’re listening . . . “ to help!). (wiki)  Barr even went so far as to claim there was more validity in investigating Clinton’s connection to the Uranium One (non) controversy than in Trump’s Russian collusion.  He also supported Trump’s firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for her refusal to enforce the Muslim Travel Ban Executive Order.  Finally, in “June 2018, Barr sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to senior Justice Department officials, and to members of Trump’s legal team, with some of whom he discussed the memo. . . . Democrats later characterized the memo as Barr’s ‘job application’ for the Attorney General position.” (wiki)

            Since his appointment Barr has essentially been a “champion and advocate” for Trump (an Associated Press characterization – wiki).  Beyond misrepresenting the Mueller Report (claiming, for instance, that the White House had completely cooperated with the Investigation  -- a bald-faced lie), Barr has instructed Justice Department members to not comply with Congressional subpoenas and, as of May 2019, he was held in contempt of Congress.  Undeterred, Barr has supported Trump’s claim that the Whistleblower is a “spy” and has pursued the wild conspiracy theory that led to his opening a 3rd investigation (at the request of Trump) into the “origins” of the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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            Regarding other Trump policies, Barr supports “an aggressive ‘law and order’ agenda on immigration,” the death penalty, and has consistently voiced his opinion that “traditional moral norms” have loosened divorce laws, allowed abortion, and promoted gay rights. (wiki)  If all that is not enough evidence of where this A-Toady General stands, and why he should  be impeached, you should also know that he is, according to his Wikipedia bio, “an avid bagpiper.”  That sealed it for me!  Trump’s unholy prattle and clatter is bad enough, we don’t need Barr’s bagpipes providing more cacophony in the background.