For quite a while almost all of the pundits, and even a few on Daily Kos and in the Democratic Party, have been talking nonsense about AG William Barr torching his supposed reputation as an honest, upright “institutionalist”. For example, here is Kossack Aldous Pennyfarthing.
Washington Post: 'Barr has lit his reputation on fire'
Lying Republican liars like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham lying out of both sides of their mouths at the same time do not in any way surprise me, of course.
If Barr had somehow just done his job, maybe public opinion would have left him alone. Well, no, Trump would have gone after him in that case. But noooooooo, Barr had to go and shoot off his word processor and provoke people to the most trivial level of digging into his record, which nobody in the Village thought to do before.
This is not breaking news. I am writing about it today, and calling attention to others who have done so, because I am fed up. I want Barr held in contempt of Congress. I want him impeached.
Also, I want the arguments in one place so I can link to them all at once.
Kossack BlueSue, commenting on that Diary.
Barr did something similar in 1989 to what he did with Mueller's report.
[Just Security:] Barr’sPlaybook: He Misled Congress When Omitting Parts of Justice Dep’t Memo in 1989
At that time he was head of OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] and wrote an opinion memo that concluded the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state.
Congress and the public did not get the full, unsummarized, unredacted memo for three years.
But you should read what William “Nattering Nabobs of Negativism” Safire said about Barr 27 years ago.
We Should Not Have Been Surprised About Bill Barr
Barr, it turns out, has for 30 years been the go-to guy for protecting a president, covering up scandals, and obstructing investigations. In August 1992, Safire wrote about Barr’s refusal to appoint an independent counsel to investigate what he called Iraqgate – the shadowy diversion of funds that Saddam Hussein used to build up his military after the Iran-Iraq War. It is now a nearly forgotten chapter of history, but Safire lasered in on what he thought was “the Bush Administration’s fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.”
In August 1992, he wrote about Barr’s refusal to name an independent counsel, despite what Safire saw as an “obvious conflict of interest.” (Another independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh had been named to investigate the Iran-contra affair in 1986 and would infuriate Republicans when he issued high profile indictments on the eve of the 1992 election.) Wrote Safire:
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in rejecting the House Judiciary Committee’s call for a prosecutor not beholden to the Bush Administration to investigate the crimes of Iraqgate, has taken personal charge of the cover-up.
The document that will be Exhibit A in a future prosecution of obstruction of justice is an unsigned 97-page apologia that accompanied Mr. Barr’s unprecedented refusal to recognize a “political conflict of interest,” as called for in the law.
Read it for yourself; though intended to explain in detail why Congress does not understand the intent of Congress, Barr’s Apology does the opposite: its strained defensiveness will cause any objective reader to say “something smells fishy here.”
Three months later, Safire revisited the issue after Barr “handpicked a whitewasher” who would successfully filibuster the probe until after the election.”Why does the Coverup-General resist independent investigation?” Safire asked.
Barr’s clear strategy, Safire wrote, “has been to stall past Dec. 15, when the law authorizing independent counsel expires; Republicans recently filibustered its extension to death.” Whoever won the 1992 election, “no autonomous prosecutor could then be named; Iraqgate might then become a matter between departing and incoming Presidents, and bygones could be bygones …” And that is pretty much what happened.
But Barr 1.0 had one more chapter left. He was one of the driving forces behind what Safire called the “Christmas eve massacre” of the Iran-contra probe. Barr pushed hard for last minute pardons for six individuals caught up in the investigation, including former defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. The dramatic move on December 24, 1992, aborted Weinberger’s trial, which was slated to begin the next month, “virtually decapitating what was left of Mr. Walsh’s effort, which began in 1986.” Walsh denounced the pardons as part of the cover-up that “has continued for more than six years.” The decision to issue pardons, he said, “undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences.”
What Reputation?
More from
BlueSue, who opened thus.
What reputation? Barr has a troubling history.
I’m sick of the pundits and ex-federal prosecutors lamenting Barr’s stellar reputation.
He trashed his reputation 30 years ago by his actions and he’s no different today.
and continued after the first quotation above
Congress wanted to see it-Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that “summarizes the principal conclusions.”
When Barr's memo was finally made public after he left office it was clear that his summary failed to fully disclose the opinion’s principal conclusions.
Then there's the Iran-Contra pardons George HW Bush issued weeks before he left office. One was for Casper Weinberger. He was about to go to trial and the pardon ended that. It may have saved Bush because it looked like he knew more about Iran-Contra than was public.
What Does William Barr Have to Do With Iran Contra?
Hearing of Weinberger being pardoned, Judge Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel investigating Iran-Contra, issued a statement of condemnation: “President Bush’s pardon…undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office—deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence."
Among the lessons of Iran-Contra is that a healthy democracy must have robust checks on executive authority in order to minimize abuses of power. A quarter century ago, the president’s attorney general, William Barr, staunchly opposed the independent counsel’s investigation of wrongdoing in the White House, and he also firmly supported Bush’s use of pardons as a means of self-protection.
Barr is doing what’s he’s always done. Why do so many think he had a great reputation and is an institutionalist and reveres the law?
WaPo, Molly Roberts: Why we believed William Barr
Why did anybody ever trust William P. Barr?
Business Insider: Meet William Barr, the attorney general who Democrats are calling on to resign over the Mueller report
In addition to the crimes cited above,
During his confirmation hearings, Barr told the Senate he thought Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, should be overturned.
Barr in November 2017 told The New York Times there was more basis for investigating a uranium deal between the US and Russia from when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State than allegations the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin's 2016 election interference. Trump has repeatedly made false claims about Clinton's involvement in the uranium deal.
Additionally, Barr supported one of Trump's most criticized moves as president — the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Barr wrote an op-ed in 2017 stating Trump "made the right call." Trump has faced accusations of obstruction of justice over Comey's ousting.
The New Yorker: The “Reputational Interests” of William Barr
Barr’s effort to discredit the Mueller investigation should have brought to mind the not-so-distant history of his first stint as Attorney General, under George H. W. Bush. In 1992, just as Bush was leaving office, he issued, with Barr’s support, pardons for six Reagan Administration officials—including the former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger—who had been either charged for or were convicted of crimes connected with covering up the Iran-Contra affair and its violations of the U.S. Constitution. Weinberger’s pardon came before his case went to trial, and it was commonly believed that it was itself part of another coverup, to prevent the presentation of evidence that would have indicated Bush’s personal involvement in Iran-Contra, when he was Reagan’s Vice-President. Thanks to the pardons, the whole truth was never known.
Politico: Barr's legacy on the line as Mueller team fumes
“He’s an institutionalist and loves the Department of Justice and the only thing he has to lose at this point in his career is his reputation,” former FBI director James Comey told CNN this week. Comey added that, for now, Barr “deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
During his first tenure as attorney general, Barr criticized the underlying independent counsel statute and advised then-President George H.W. Bush to pardon half-a-dozen senior Reagan administration officials who had been ensnared in the Iran-Contra affair.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a frequent Mueller critic and member of the Judiciary Committee, said the criticism leveled at Barr since he took the job is just Democrat-driven sour grapes.
“It strains credulity that the two-time attorney general of the United States would mischaracterize the Mueller report and risk his reputation in the legal community forever,” the Florida Republican said. “That is ludicrous to suggest, but Democrats are out of nonludicrous arguments to make.”
Washington Examiner: Barr's reputation in peril with Mueller report rollout
In recent days, a number of media outlets have called into question the Barr summary’s reliability, pointing back to what they claim is Barr’s sketchy track record of providing legal summaries over the years. Specifically, they unearthed a controversy from 1989 involving Barr’s time as the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. In a 13-page letter, Barr similarly “summarize[d] the principal conclusions” of a then-secret controversial legal opinion that, when the full opinion was released in 1991, seemed to have glossed over some key underlying facts.
CNN: Barr's world view didn't change when he became Trump's top cop
…a veteran government and corporate lawyer who has always believed in the power of a strong presidency and in limiting the authority of career law enforcement officials.
The Wikipedia article on William Barr does not express a political opinion on Barr’s record, but recites the facts brought out in the articles above.
More Reputational Bogosity
The Atlantic: William Barr Didn’t Really Need This Job
USA Today: Is William Barr a lawman or Donald Trump's lawyer? Answers to these 5 questions will tell.
If Barr doesn't have solid answers to those questions, he risks being viewed as a mere stooge of an embattled president. When the attorney general last served under President George. H.W. Bush, he left his post with an image of integrity that might not follow him after his visit to Capitol Hill this week.
Democrats blast Attorney General William Barr, calling him Trump’s ‘paid federal public defender’
Long known as a law-and-order prosecutor, Atty. Gen. William Barr is under fire from critics…
“[Barr’s talk of “spying” by the FBI] permanently tarnishes his reputation,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee. “I'm not sure why somebody wants to do this after a long career.”
Barr should be commended for “his commitment to transparency and keeping the American people informed, consistent with the law and our national security interests,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and supervised his work, praised Barr as “a brilliant and principled conservative lawyer” in a Time magazine essay.
“With Bill Barr at the helm,” Rosenstein wrote, “the rule of law is secure.”
Oh, yeah, Graham and Rosenstein. What reputation there, too?
Time: William Barr, by Rod Rosenstein
The enthusiasm in and around the Department of Justice was palpable when President Trump announced his nomination of Attorney General William Pelham Barr. A brilliant and principled conservative lawyer, Barr brings unique experience to the challenge of working at the intersection of law and politics.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough slams 'political hack' William Barr, says his reputation has been 'sullied'
He does something once again that is going to scuff up his reputation. Absolutely his reputation is shot.
Here’s a guy that served in Washington for 30 years, had the respect of Republicans — he won’t get his reputation back. It’s shot. Sullied, the way he’s handled himself.
Joe finally quit the Stupid Party in 2016.
HuffPo: William Barr’s Mueller Report Testimony Has Everyone Wondering What Happened To Him
“The American people know that you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once-decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), one of four senators who called on Barr to resign.
Matthew Miller, who headed the Justice Department’s public affairs office under former Attorney General Eric Holder, told HuffPost he thinks Barr has lived in a “cocoon of Fox News” and conservative legal circles in the Trump era and says his trajectory matches that of the Republican Party under Trump.
“People want to believe there are still conservative lawyers who will follow the law without respect to partisanship,” Miller said. “People just keep wanting to believe that there are pillars of the Republican establishment who are too smart and too sophisticated and have too much integrity to compromise for Donald Trump. We keep being shown over and over that that’s just not true in most cases.”