Tag: Barr doing Trump’s bidding

ACLU demands special counsel probe into Barr over police assault on protesters: ‘The suspect can’t be the investigator’

AlterNet logoThe ACLU is demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate a violent police assault last month on peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators near the White House—a crackdown reportedly ordered by Attorney General William Barr.

“The suspect can’t be the investigator,” the ACLU the tweeted. “We need a full investigation independent of Barr.”

The group sent a letter (pdf) Tuesday morning urging Barr and other Justice Department officials involved in the law enforcement crackdown to recuse themselves from any investigation into the June 1 incident, which came amid nationwide demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd. Continue reading.

Prosecutor spills about Bill Barr’s ‘unprecedented, unnecessary and unexplained’ efforts to oust him

AlterNet logoGeoffrey Berman, the man who until recently served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told members of Congress on Thursday about Attorney General Bill Barr’s “unprecedented, unnecessary and unexplained” efforts to oust him.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Berman explained how Barr contacted him and repeatedly pressed him to step down from his position at SDNY to take another high-profile position within the government.

Berman, however, told Barr that he wanted to stay at his current job until a replacement was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the United States Senate. Continue reading.

Park Police did not record their radio transmissions during Lafayette Square operation on June 1

Washington Post logoCritical record of how police launched sweep against protesters is lost

Audio of the forceful push led by U.S. Park Police to sweep protesters out of Lafayette Square on June 1, moments before President Trump’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church, was not recorded by the Park Police radio communications system, the agency said Tuesday.

The sudden march into the group of protesters, featuring members of the Park Police, Secret Service, D.C. National Guard and Arlington County police, is now under investigation by Congress and the inspectors general of the Interior Department and Justice Department and the subject of civil lawsuits. The sweep along H Street caused an uproar because police used smoke and chemical irritants, along with officers on horseback, to clear out protesters well before a 7 p.m. curfew, with advance announcements that many said they did not hear.

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which is investigating the June 1 incident, said Tuesday that “Trump administration officials ordered the attack on clergy, nonviolent protesters, and working members of the press. For the official audio record of that day to now turn up missing has every appearance of a coverup.” Continue reading.

Four ways William Barr is already subverting the 2020 elections

Washington Post logoSafeguarding the vote would be the top priority of a normal attorney general. It’s the opposite now.

A normal attorney general of the United States right now would be focused on protecting the integrity of the fast-approaching November elections. Instead, the attorney general we have — William P. Barr — is intent on doing the opposite: unraveling the government’s efforts to hold accountable those who infected our last presidential election, in 2016, and undermining the integrity of the vote in 2020. It’s so bad that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who last weekend said it would be a “waste of time” to try to impeach Barr, is now reconsidering. (For the moment, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is not happening.)

There are four ways that Barr’s approach to running the Justice Department imperils the vote: He’s letting off the hook those who contributed to interference in the last election; he’s undermining confidence in the government’s ability to protect the coming election; he’s signaling to bad actors that helping President Trump win will garner them special treatment under the law; and he’s spreading disinformation about the potential for voter fraud.

First, Barr is actively undoing work by the very department he oversees to address the counterintelligence threat exposed during the 2016 elections. At the core of Russia’s effort to distort American democracy was its move to obtain influence over a presidential candidate and his team. That’s what the FBI was investigating when it interviewed Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in January 2017. The criminal charges brought against Flynn for lying during that interview — to which he pleaded guilty twice — affirmed federal law enforcement’s commitment to investigate counterintelligence threats and disrupt them.

Trump urges Barr to prosecute those who damage monuments

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday directed Attorney General William Barr to prioritize prosecution for those who damage federal monuments as the administration pushes to protect statues and monuments from vandalism amid ongoing protests against racial inequality and police brutality.

Trump signed an executive order stating that it is U.S. policy “to prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal law, and as appropriate” any person who destroys, damages, vandalizes or desecrates a monument, memorial or statue or who damages, defaces or destroys religious property.

The order also states that it is U.S. policy to withhold federal support from state and local governments who fail to protect public monuments, memorials and statues, and from public spaces tied to state and local governments who do not meet those conditions. Continue reading.

 

Why Bill Barr may have ‘gone too far’ this time in trying to protect Trump

AlterNet logoWhen President Donald Trump was expressing his frustration over former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in 2018, he famously remarked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” — a reference to his infamous far-right attorney who was an ally of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Trump later found an attorney general who, unlike Jeff Sessions, turned out to be the loyalist he was hoping for: Bill Barr.

Journalist Joan Walsh,  in an article this week for The Nation, argues that Trump found his Roy Cohn in Barr. But she said that now Barr is becoming “sloppier” as he becomes “more brazen.”

“Barr’s decline into blatant but ineffectual lawlessness is proof that Trumpism is a degenerative disease,” she said. Continue reading.

Analysts say Barr is eroding Justice Department independence — without facing any real personal consequence

Washington Post logoA federal prosecutor’s testimony Wednesday that he was pressed by supervisors to offer a more lenient sentencing recommendation for a friend of President Trump’s capped a remarkable four-month stretch in which Attorney General William P. Barr has seemed to repeatedly bend the Justice Department to Trump’s political interests — generating significant controversy but no personal consequence, legal analysts said.

Since February, Barr has intervened in two criminal cases to the benefit of those who once advised Trump; ousted a U.S. attorney who is investigating Trump’s personal lawyer; and dutifully implemented Trump’s vision for a forceful crack down on demonstrators in the District protesting police violence.

Democrats and legal observers have decried the moves — calling on Barr to resign or be investigated by his agency’s internal watchdog — and morale inside the Justice Department has plummeted, according to several Justice Department employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter frankly. But lawmakers, who already held Barr in contempt last year for defying congressional subpoenas, seem to have little in the way of practical recourse. Continue reading.

U.S. court orders dismissal of case against former Trump aide Michael Flynn

WASHINGTON, DC – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday directed a federal judge to drop a criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, handing the Justice Department a victory in the politically charged case.

Wednesday’s ruling by a three-judge panel is likely to anger Democrats, who have accused Attorney General William Barr of improperly meddling in criminal cases to help benefit the Republican Trump’s friends and political allies.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Wednesday’s ruling will likely be appealed to a larger panel of the federal appeals court. Continue reading.

Prosecutor testifies on alleged politicization inside Barr’s Justice Department

Washington Post logoThe House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday from a federal prosecutor and another witness who have accused Attorney General William P. Barr and his top deputies of acting “based on political considerations” and a desire to appease President Trump.

Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland formerly detailed to the Russia investigation by special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III, told the panel that prosecutors involved in the criminal trial of Trump’s friend Roger Stone experienced “heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice” to give Stone “a break” by requesting a lighter sentence.

Zelinsky was joined by John Elias, an official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, who said Barr ordered staff to investigate marijuana company mergers simply because of his “personal dislike” of the nature of their underlying business. Continue reading.

Ethics expert warns ‘America is on the brink of total destruction’ over DOJ ‘corruption’ bombshell

AlterNet logoWalter Shaub, the former head of the Office of Government Ethics, issued a dire warning Tuesday on the allegation that officials at the “highest levels” of the Dept. of Justice pressured prosecutors to ask for an extremely light sentence for Roger Stone, a good friend and former associate of President Donald Trump.

“America is on the brink of total destruction,” Shaub warned on Twitter.

And he put his warning in context.

“Short of assassinating opponents or using the military to quell public protests, I can’t think of a form of corruption worse than a nation’s leader influencing the administration of justice to protect friends and prosecute enemies.” Continue reading.