The thought of a corpulent Roy Cohn is as disgusting as that of a skinny Roy Cohn.
Another one added to my list of people I would most like to see fighting skeeters and poisonous snakes at Club Fed Guantamo.
Having been caught lying to Congress, Barr had to dance around the bullets Democratic senators were shooting at his feet.
This is all troubling for future generations. Going forward we all have to fear Presidents will feel emboldened to flout the law to no detriment. At least we can console ourselves any Democrats doing so will not be permitted to get away with it as Trump has.
It’s important to distinguish between 1) what is the case and 2) what POTUS thinks is the case. It sounds like, if pressed, Barr’s view is actually worse than reported; and that he thinks POTUS can shut down an investigation if POTUS (merely) believes an investigation is unjust (as opposed to it actually being so).
Barr laid out a view on Wednesday that if a “proceeding was not
well-founded, if it was a groundless proceeding, or based on false
allegations, the President does not have to sit there constitutionally
and allow it to run its course.”
Barr should be in prison for lying to Congress and for obstruction of justice. Harsh penalties are merited by this meritless thug apparatchik.
Of course the Barr Theory of Executive Power only applies when a Republican is in the White House.
When a Democrat is in the White House every executive action is a violation of law.
To put it simply, every criminal claims he is being falsely accused. If simply saying that gives you license to obstruct justice then we may as well get rid of obstruction altogether as a criminal offense.
Heck, running for President itself is a violation of the law, if you’re a Democrat. A Democrat’s candidacy is a prima-facia case for investigation at the highest level.
“Most of the obstruction claims that are being made here… do involve the exercise of the president’s constitutional authority,”
Please list the few that claims that do not involve constitutional authority.
Please tell us the number of times a citizen can commit obstruction before it becomes illegal.
"Barr’s 1998 comments about “spin control” came several months after he co-authored a public statement with three fellow former attorneys general expressing concern that attacks on Starr from officials in the Clinton administration appeared “to have the improper purpose of influencing and impeding an ongoing criminal investigation and intimidating possible jurors, witnesses and even investigators.”
ETA; One wonders why Barr didn’t opine that Clinton should have just shut the whole thing down ?
Let’s start saying it aloud: Trump’s nomination of Barr as AG constituted (at the minimum) the 11th act of potential obstruction of justice, in addition to the 10 described in the Mueller Report and the others we don’t yet know about.
At this point, however, I think we can remove “potential” from the description of Barr’s nomination and replace it with “actual.”
Hi …I know this is off topic, but I was glued to this article on buzzfeed.
It is worth a look.
Barr committed freshman college or even high school plagiarism in not crediting Alan Dershowitz’ input on The Divine Right of Kings.
BTW-Rupert Murdoch’s Wall St Journal Editorial Board is claiming that Barr is being “set up.” I am so glad Eli Stokols has left that putrid joint.
I dont need a legal expert to tell me he is fucked up.
Oh, that’s okay.
Or so we’re being signaled from all over.
And of course, we know that Trump thought the investigation was totally baseless because the common reaction to a baseless investigation is “I’m fucked, my presidency is over”.
Here’s my theory…the republicans have NEVER gotten over Watergate.
It’s the deep, dark reason they pursued Clinton’s impeachment.
It’s why they defend donnie. They will NOT let another repub president be ousted, no matter how obscenely guilty he is.
Sure…there are obvious political and mercenary reasons…but there is a bitter core of poison in their souls that has only festered over the decades since Nixon. And this acrid spiritual tumor is carried in the genes to the younger conservatives.
This is their revenge and what they’ve wanted to establish ever since Nixon so they can abuse the presidency to assure they win the presidency perpetually.
Fitting that Avengers: ENDGAME just came out, because this LITERALLY is the endgame for this country’s democracy. They are making their play for permanent minority-rules GOP white Christian hegemony while the Fourth Estate and the rest of us play nice and stand flat-footed.