Attorney General William Barr is testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. He is being questioned for his many anti-democratic actions and abuses of power as the chief law enforcement officer in the country. Barr has somehow made Jeff Sessions, a heinous white supremacist himself, seem less of a white supremacist by comparison. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington questioned the attorney general today in an exchange worth noting.
With the backdrop of wildly inappropriate federal secret military police interventions in Black Lives Matter-inspired political protests, Barr attempted to defend his racist and hypocritical position against a real leader, who I wish could be president of the United States, in Rep. Jayapal. Rep. Jayapal was not going to let Barr play the neckless dictator he wants to be, and slammed him for his transparent racist and totalitarian stance on the Black Lives Matter movement and the mind-bending federal interventions in places like Portland. Jayapal began by once again reminding Barr of his anti-democratic actions in the nation’s Capitol, when he organized a gestapo-like use of force to clear the Washington, D.C. streets in order to allow Donald Trump the opportunity to desecrate a bible for a photo op. From there she compared the Barr reaction to peaceful protesters in D.C. to less peaceful, but almost entirely armed white male protesters in Michigan.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Let's look at how you respond when the protesters are supporters of the president. On two separate occasions after president Trump tweeted “liberate Michigan” to subvert stay home orders to protect the health of people in Michigan, protesters swarmed the Michigan capitol carrying guns, some with swastikas, Confederate flags, and one even with a dark-haired doll with a noose around its neck. Are you aware that these protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot, and beheaded?
ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: No.
REP. JAYAPAL: You're not aware of that?
AG BARR: I was not aware of that.
REP. JAYAPAL: Major protests in Michigan, you're the attorney general and you didn't know that the protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot, and beheaded. So obviously you couldn't be concerned about that.
Barr isn’t a smart man. You don’t have to be smart to be in our current government. You just have to lack scruples and be willing to cravenly grovel at the every whim of a pathological narcissistic sociopath. Barr has nothing to stand on and repeats the weak sauce argument of a true coward, saying “Well, there are a lot of protests around the United States, and on June 1st, I was worried about the District of Columbia, which is federal.”
Jayapal has made her point and from here she drives it home, steamrolling over Barr’s bullshit attempt to interrupt and waste the entire world’s time.
REP. JAYAPAL:--In certain parts of the country, you're aware of those. But when protesters with guns ...
BARR:--I am aware of protests --
REP. JAYAPAL:— Excuse me, Mr. Barr. This is my time and I control it. You are aware of certain kinds of protesters, but in Michigan, when protesters carry guns and confederate flags and swastikas and call for the governor of Michigan to be beheaded and shot and lynched, somehow you're not aware of that. Somehow you didn't know about it. So you didn't send federal agents in to do to the president's supporters what you did to the president's protesters. In fact, you didn't -- you didn't put pepper balls on those protesters. So the point I'm trying to make here Mr. Barr, that I think is important for the country to understand, is that there is a real discrepancy in how you react as the attorney general, the top cop in this country, when white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to quote, “activate you.” Because they're getting the president's personal agenda done. But when Black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism, and the president's very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president. You take an aggressive approach to Black Lives Matter protests but not to right-wing extremists threatening to lynch a governor if it's for the president's benefit. Did I get it right, Mr. Barr?
Barr responded with a super sad attempt to reiterate his job description as he saw it, the lap dog of Donald Trump, but Jayapal cut him off to make sure what Barr was revealing to anyone paying attention.
JAYAPAL: Mr. Barr, let me make it clear: You are supposed to represent the people of the United States not violate people's First Amendment rights. You are supposed to uphold democracy and secure equal justice under the law, not violently dismantle certain protesters based on the president's personal agenda.
With that, Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s time expired. Jayapal had a study showing that mail-in voter fraud does not exist, entered into the Judiciary Committee record, and just like that, as with every time she speaks, America was a better, smarter, and more hopeful place.