Tag: Bill Barr

Bill Barr goes full-on right-wing nutjob

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Are you kidding me? Sedition? From 1798?

Just in case someone is not persuaded that this Trump Administration is falling off its rocker, the advice from Atty. Gen. William P. Barr to federal prosecutors to use a two-century-old law to stop people – no, specifically “violent” leftist protests outside federal courthouses – from seeking to overthrow the government should make us stop and scratch our collective heads.

For openers, protesting disproportionate police brutality against Black citizens is not calling for the overthrow of the government. Continue reading.

Top Democrats call for DOJ watchdog to probe Barr over possible 2020 election influence

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Four House committee chairs are calling on the Justice Department watchdog to open an emergency investigation into whether Attorney General William Barr and other political appointees have improperly influenced the upcoming 2020 presidential election. 

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Friday called on Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz to probe whether Barr’s public comments on ongoing investigations and other actions are a violation of the agency’s longstanding policy and federal law.

“Attorney General Barr has signaled repeatedly that he is likely to allow DOJ to take prosecutorial actions, make public disclosures, and even issue reports before the presidential election in November. Such actions clearly appear intended to benefit President Trump politically,” the top Democrats wrote to Horowitz. Continue reading.

‘Tyrannical and un-American’: ACLU slams Barr for urging sedition charges against protesters

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Attorney General William Barr drew stinging rebuke from legal experts and civil liberties advocates including the ACLU Wednesday after he told federal prosecutors to more aggressively charge some protesters with crimes—including sedition, under certain circumstances.

The Wall Street Journal reports Barr’s directive came during a conference call last week in which the attorney general warned that protests—which have been overwhelmingly peaceful and focused on racial justice—could increase as Election Day approaches.

Two people familiar with the call told the Journal that Barr urged prosecutors to seek federal charges wherever possible—including a rarely-used sedition law meant to punish people who conspire to overthrow the U.S. government. Continue reading.

Barr Told Prosecutors to Consider Sedition Charges for Protest Violence

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Attorney General William P. Barr was also said to have asked prosecutors to explore whether to bring charges against the mayor of Seattle for allowing a police-free protest zone.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who described Mr. Barr’s comments on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish a police-free protest zone near the city’s downtown for weeks this summer, according to two people briefed on those discussions. Late Wednesday, a department spokesman said that Mr. Barr did not direct the civil rights division to explore this idea. Continue reading.

Legal experts are disturbed by Bill Barr reported push to bring sedition charges

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A new report from the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday found that Attorney General Bill Barr has been pressuring federal prosecutors to bring aggressive charges against violent protesters across the United States, a push that some experts fear could have the effect of chilling constitutionally protected free speech.

The report explained:

In a conference call with U.S. attorneys across the country last week, Mr. Barr warned that sometimes violent demonstrations across the U.S. could worsen as the November presidential election approaches. He encouraged the prosecutors to seek a number federal charges, including under a rarely used sedition law, even when state charges could apply, the people said.

This demonstrates that Barr seeks to use the heavy hand of the federal government against the protests. It’s notable that while President Donald Trump and the attorney general have been clearly outraged by violence that has emerged from the protests — the vast majority of which have been peaceful — the federal government has done little to address the actual substance of the demands for racial justice from protesters. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton’s Book

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Investigators are examining whether the former national security adviser illegally disclosed classified information.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in a memoir this summer, an inquiry that the department began after it failed to stop the book’s publication, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” The Javelin Agency, which represents Mr. Bolton, also received a subpoena, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry is a significant escalation of the turmoil over the publication of the book, whose highly unflattering account of Mr. Bolton’s 17 months in the White House prompted Mr. Trump to attack him and call for his prosecution even as the Justice Department sued earlier to try to stop its release. Continue reading.

‘Trump’s handmaiden’: Former federal prosecutor explains the many ways AG Bill Barr twisted ‘the law to protect the president’

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To read Part 1 of this article, go here. 

None of the founders of the country conceivably imagined that if the Attorney General is indeed the creature of the President, he would be ill-equipped to investigate, much less prosecute the President or his associates for wrongdoing, either before or during his presidency. It obviously didn’t occur to Hamilton, Madison or Jay that we might one day have a rogue President like Donald Trump with a life history of being one step ahead of the law, and little or no regard for presidential or constitutional norms.

Barr enjoys the dubious decision of being the most controversial Attorney General in history. He testified in his confirmation hearings that he would make law enforcement decisions based on the facts and the law “not on politics.” But, he quickly broke his promise and emerged as a political apparatchik, leaving a trail of decisions favorable to Trump and his political cronies that appear to have ignored both the facts and the law, and raise serious questions as to whether he has any independence from the President at all. Indeed, Barr not only embraced, but bedded down with, the controversial doctrine of the unitary executive. In a devastating Washington Postop-ed, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder found Barr “unfit” to hold the office because he failed to distance himself from the President:

Barr made the outlandish suggestion that Congress cannot entrust anyone but the President himself to execute the law. In Barr’s view, sharing executive power with anyone ‘beyond the control of the President,’ [emphasis Holder’s]… presumably including a semi-independent Cabinet member’ [the Attorney General], contravenes the Framers’ clear intent to vest that power in a single person.’ This is a stunning declaration … revealing of Barr’s own intent: to serve not at a careful remove from politics, as his office demands, but as an instrument of politics — under the direct “control” of President Trump.

Continue reading.

Watchdog Reportedly Probing Justice Officials’ Interference In Roger Stone Sentencing

Prosecutors quit when Attorney General Barr forced a lighter sentence for Trump confidant Roger Stone, who dodged prison entirely after Trump commuted it.

The Inspector General’s Office of the Justice Department has launched an investigation into officials’ interference in the sentencing of long-time Donald Trump confidant and convicted felon Roger Stone, sources have told NBC News.

The probe is reportedly examining the details of what happened in February when prosecutors said DOJ bosses applied “heavy pressure” to ensure a far lighter sentence for Stone than what was initially planned.

Attorney General William Barr ultimately intervened to override prosecutors’ recommendation of seven to nine years for Stone to ask for a lighter sentence. All four prosecutors then quit the case in dissent. Continue reading.

Bill Barr had deep links to the origins of Central American migration crisis long before Trump

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We look at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America have led to the ongoing migrant crisis, with Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas.” Lovato recounts his own family’s migration from El Salvador to the United States, his return to the country as a young man to fight against the U.S.-backed right-wing government responsible for grave human rights violations, and his embrace of journalism to tell the stories of people on the margins. “I’m unforgetting a history of not just El Salvador, but the United States and of myself,” says Lovato.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we spend the rest of the hour looking at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America has led to the migrant crisis of today. Continue reading.

Nora Dannehy, Connecticut prosecutor who was top aide to John Durham’s Trump-Russia investigation, resigns amid concern about pressure from Attorney General William Barr

Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned — at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said.

Dannehy, a highly regarded prosecutor who has worked with or for Durham for decades, informed colleagues in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Haven of her resignation from the Department of Justice by email Thursday evening. The short email was a brief farewell message and said nothing about political pressure, her work for Durham or what the Durham team has produced, according to people who received it.

Durham, who has never even acknowledged that Dannehy was in Washington working for him, had no immediate comment on the resignation. Continue reading.