Bill Barr Promised to Release Prisoners Threatened by Coronavirus — Even as the Feds Secretly Made It Harder for Them to Get Out | Talking Points Memo

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1310761

Makes sense to me, there is obviously a major risk that anyone who is let out might vote Democratic in the upcoming election.

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5 bucks says they cooked up the new half-baked release policy to justify keeping Michael Cohen in jail (he was in quarantine just days from release to home detention when they changed their minds and put him back in general population). Cohen still eventually got out, thanks to the efforts of his lawyers. We can’t all afford Lanny Davis.

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At the urging of Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who co-authored the First Step Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general has agreed to examine the scope of Barr’s directive as well as the Bureau of Prisons’ compliance with it and the agency’s overall response to the pandemic.

Damn straight! Get the Inspectors General from the DOJ to look into this!

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In two memos, one in late March and a second in early April, Attorney General William Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department, to begin identifying inmates who could safely be released to home confinement — essentially house arrest. They instructed prison officials to grant “priority treatment” to inmates deemed to present minimal risk to the public.

Separately, however, the Bureau of Prisons had drafted a 20-page policy document this year that altered a standard adopted only a year ago and made it harder for an inmate to qualify as minimum risk.

So what you are saying is that Barr lied. Quelle surprise!

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Three words: Private. Prison. Contracts.

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He did release prisoners, or prisoner Manafort, to be specific, he’s done what he promised.

What I’d like to know because I haven’t seen it yet, is what comforts does Manafort get while at home supposedly “serving out the rest of his sentence”? Does he get internet or phone privileges? TV? Access to visitors? Is he allowed outside any time he wants? In my view he shouldn’t even be allowed a couch if he didn’t have one in prison.

So they just opened up the prisons long enough for Trump’s buddies to get out? That way he doesn’t have to ‘pardon’ them right before an election? Nothing is too small to scam for these guys…

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Just in time for Manafort to contribute to the campaign. Work release, don’t ya know.

Is a snark marker missing here?

There has always been a big moral hazard involved in running a private prison. SARS-CoV-2 has raised the moral hazard involved in running any prison and it’s huge now when private prisons are involved.

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So they’re relying on an unpublished document to which access is only available by the caprice of the bureau of prisons? That’s certainly a good look.

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Remember Paul Simon’s song, So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright?

He needs to write another one about Franz Kafka: where is he now when we need him most? He can work something about Jerzy Kosinski into it, too.