When AG William Barr was nominated to the position by President Trump, the conservative talking point – not unreasonably – was that he was a widely respected former AG for President Bush (43). He would be following (technically not succeeding) the widely derided Matthew Whitaker, and I’m sure his nomination occcasioned a breath of relief for many not in the Trump cult, despite an unfortunate memo Barr had written criticizing Mueller investigation as being illicit: finally, a professional, even if the Democrats in the Senate largely voted against his appointment. No doubt many Republicans were outraged that the vote was not more in Barr’s favor.
Since then, Barr has done little but mar his reputation. He led off with outraging Special Counsel Mueller by allegedly misrepresenting his conclusions; later, he earned an unprecedented public letter calling for his resignation, signed by a large number of former DoJ members from both sides of the political spectrum, for his shocking interference in the Roger Stone case’s sentencing phase.
Apparently, AG Barr has a bare spot on his wall of professional awards at home, because now he has a second letter calling for his resignation.
We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us proudly took an oath to defend the Constitution and pursue the evenhanded administration of justice free from partisan consideration.
Many of us have spoken out previously to condemn President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s political interference in the Department’s law enforcement decisions, as we did when Attorney General Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of career prosecutors to seek favorable treatment for President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone. The Attorney General’s intervention in the Stone case to seek political favor for a personal ally of the President flouted the core principle that politics must never enter into the Department’s law enforcement decisions and undermined its mission to ensure equal justice under the law. As we said then, “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”
Now, Attorney General Barr has once again assaulted the rule of law, this time in the case of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Subsequent events strongly suggest political interference in Flynn’s prosecution. Despite previously acknowledging that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” President Trump has repeatedly and publicly complained that Flynn has been mistreated and subjected to a “witch hunt.” The President has also said that Flynn was “essentially exonerated” and that he was “strongly considering a [f]ull [p]ardon.” The Department has now moved to dismiss the charges against Flynn, in a filing signed by a single political appointee and no career prosecutors. The Department’s purported justification for doing so does not hold up to scrutiny, given the ample evidence that the investigation was well-founded and — more importantly — the fact that Flynn admitted under oath and in open court that he told material lies to the FBI in violation of longstanding federal law.
Evidently, they didn’t buy into Barr’s claim that the antecedents of the investigation were illicit. Other evidence of the political nature of Barr’s interference? The filing for withdrawal of Flynn’s prosecution was not signed by any professional DoJ prosecutor – it was signed by a political appointee.
Barr’s reputation is in irreparable tatters.
But, in a way, this is unsurprising. Back in October 2019, as Catherine Rampell of WaPo reported, Barr gave a speech:
On Friday, in a closed-door speech at the University of Notre Dame, Attorney General William P. Barr talked at length about a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order.”
The alleged perpetrator of this campaign?
“Militant secularists,” who insist upon keeping government institutions free from the influence of any faith or creed.
To be clear: This was not merely an affirmation — delivered by a devout Catholic, while visiting a Catholic university — of how privately taught religious values can contribute to character development or stronger communities.
No. This appeared to be a tacit endorsement of theocracy.
Theocracies are predicated, at least outwardly, on a single source of inerrant rules. If Barr believes liberals are the source of the problems plaguing society, if he thinks that’s God’s opinion, it’s no surprise he’d ride in on a charger to save a conservative – even a conservative who’s confessed to sin, shall we say, twice.
I don’t expect Barr to resign just because all the professionals have condemned him. He’s doing God’s work here. Rescuing a sinner from punishment. It’s of a piece with the fairly unbelievable behavior of the evangelicals.
And Barr’s entered into the same category as most of Trump’s nominees to important posts – second- and third- raters who are either of dubious morality, or simply don’t understand the secular morality this nation has gradually built up since the days of President Washington. It’s too bad. We could have used a competent Attorney General.
It’ll be interesting to see how Barr’s action and the second letter calling for his resignation impact the independents’ opinion of the Trump Administration and its reelection campaign.
