Tag: Bill Barr

Former Attorney General Eric Holder Shreds William Barr As ‘Unfit,’ ‘Incapable’

Holder accused Barr of taking actions that are “so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for America’s chief law enforcement official.”

Former Attorney General Eric Holder was unequivocal in his criticism of William Barr, the current attorney general of the United States, in a searing op-ed published in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Holder, who served as the country’s top law enforcement officer from 2009 to 2015 and as deputy attorney general from 1997 to 2001, accused Barr of shameless partisanship and of having behaved in a way that’s “fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution.”

Barr is “incapable” of serving effectively as attorney general, Holder said.

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Experts blast Bill Barr for ‘utterly shocking bad faith’ NBC interview attacking FBI: ‘Sean Hannity is the attorney general now‘

AlterNet logoIn a stunning move the Attorney General of the United States on Tuesday blasted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, widely separating himself from the findings of the Dept. of Justice Inspector General’s report. Barr also claimed the FBI should have ended the counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump once he was elected president.

And Barr even said the FBI acted in “bad faith” in conducting the investigation into Trump and Russia.

Effectively, Barr is saying not only should the president never be prosecuted, but presidents should never be investigated. All these statements are contrary to what many if not most constitutional experts have said.

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Lock her up? Trump’s AG complains that people who want to send their adversaries ‘to jail’ are ‘poisoning the system’

AlterNet logoOn the day House Democrats announced the specific articles of impeachment they plan to pursue against President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr discussed Trump’s 2016 campaign and the FBI’s investigation of Russian election interference during a live Tuesday interview with the Wall Street Journal. Barr was highly critical of the FBI’s 2016 activities in relation to Trump’s campaign, describing them as a “travesty.”

Barr also asserted that those wanting to send their political rivals “to jail” are “poisoning the system.” Trump’s attorney general was referring to the president’s critics, but one thing he didn’t criticize was the “lock her up” chants aimed at Trump’s 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by his supporters.

The attorney general disagreed with the findings of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz: in a report released on Monday, Horowitz found that the FBI acted ethically and responsibly in its 2016 investigation. But Barr disagrees. And earlier in the day in a separate interview, Barr told NBC News, “I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press.”

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Bill Barr attacks FBI for ‘bad faith’ probe of Trump campaign in stunning interview

AlterNet logoAttorney General Bill Barr attacked the FBI for investigating the Trump campaign’s multiple contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential campaign as being a “bad faith” probe.

In an interview with NBC News, Barr outlined why he disagreed with Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s conclusion that the FBI was justified in launching its investigation into the Trump campaign.

“I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,” Barr said. “I think there were gross abuses…and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI. I think that leaves open the possibility that there was bad faith.”

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Barr criticizes FBI, says it’s possible agents acted in ‘bad faith’ in Trump probe

The Hill logoAttorney General William Barr on Tuesday offered stern criticism of the FBI over its investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016, disputing a Justice Department inspector general’s report one day earlier and saying it is possible the bureau acted in “bad faith.”

Barr in an interview with NBC News also elaborated on his disagreement with a key conclusion of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report that the investigation was justified, saying he doesn’t believe the evidence backed up the steps that were taken.

“Here, I felt this was very flimsy,” Barr said. “I think when you step back here and you say, ‘What was this all based on,’ it’s not sufficient.”

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Horowitz report severely undermines Barr’s conspiracy theories

AlterNet logoAccording to the report just released by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the FBI initiated investigations of four people in August 2016, including George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Carter Page. We might note that three of those men were convicted of felonies by the Mueller team. On Page, the Mueller report states that “the investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” And yet Page wasn’t exactly exonerated.

Investigators separately scrutinized a trip Page took to Moscow in July of 2016, where he delivered two speeches criticizing US policy toward Russia. Page met with several friends and associates, according to the report, and informed Trump campaign officials of “strong support” for the then candidate Trump within the Russian government.

What follows are redactions and an admission by the special counsel that aspects of Page’s travel to Russia are still unknown:

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Attorney general reschedules Trump hotel holiday party. DOJ won’t disclose the date.

Washington Post logoWilliam Barr is sticking with the Trump hotel as a venue after a party planned for Sunday night was canceled.

Attorney General William P. Barr had planned to hold a 200-person holiday party at the Trump hotel in Washington Sunday night, but the event was rescheduled, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The spokeswoman declined to say when the event would take place but said it would still be at the Trump International Hotel, a choice that prompted critics to question Barr’s independence from Trump, who still profits from his business while in office.

Barr has been a key defender of President Trump, including Monday when he criticized an inspector general’s report examining the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Twice this week, Justice Department attorneys are defending Trump in court against suits claiming the president illegally benefits from his business while in office.

DOJ says Congress can’t stop Trump Org from taking foreign payments — despite Constitution’s emoluments clause

AlterNet logoThe so-called emoluments clause has been the center of a case that many legal scholars have been making that President Donald Trump is regularly violating the Constitution by continuing to accept payments from foreign governments via his businesses.

The Washington Post reports that an attorney from the Trump Department of Justice argued on Monday that the emoluments clause doesn’t actually prevent Trump from accepting payments from foreign governments, even though the clause specifically states that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The only role that the Constitution gives Congress with respect to the foreign emoluments clause is to allow them,” DOJ attorney Hashim Mooppan argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

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Barr: Horowitz report shows FBI launched Trump campaign investigation on ‘thinnest of suspicions’

The Hill logoAttorney General William Barr said that a newly released Justice Department watchdog report showed that the FBI launched an “intrusive” investigation of President Trump‘s campaign “on the thinnest of suspicions.” 

Barr also said that the report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz showed that, in his opinion, the FBI had an “insufficient” basis to justify steps taken in the investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016, putting him at odds with Horowitz, who concluded in the report that the bureau had an “authorized purpose” to open the investigation.

“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration,” Barr said.

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Barr Allows for Release of Additional Details About Ex-Spy Behind Steele Dossier

New York Times logoThe British former spy was told on the eve of its release that a highly anticipated inspector general’s report would contain further information about him than he had expected.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr recently approved making public new details about a former F.B.I. informant at the heart of conservatives’ allegations about the Russia investigation, deciding to release information that had been blacked out in a highly anticipated inspector general’s report due out on Monday.

A representative from the office of the Justice Department inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, told the former F.B.I. informant, Christopher Steele, on Sunday that the Justice Department had decided to allow for the release of the information, two people briefed on the situation said late on Sunday.

Mr. Steele was given no details about the information itself, nor was he told how it would affect the report’s portrayal of him, the people said. Mr. Horowitz is expected to be critical of Mr. Steele, a British former spy who compiled a dossier of salacious, unverified information about President Trump. F.B.I. officials relied to some degree on the dossier to seek a court order for a wiretap of a former Trump campaign adviser, and the president’s allies have seized on the issue to make broad claims about the sprawling Russia investigation.

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