“The Whole Idea Was to Intimidate Congress:” Bill Barr Continues to Minimize Witness Tampering
In a supine interview to help Bill Barr rehabilitate his reputation, Lester Holt asked the former Attorney General about intervening to lessen Roger Stone’s sentence. According to the summary thus far posted, Barr claims it was made to look bad, but really he just thought it was right to halve the sentencing recommendation for the guy hiding the President’s knowledge of Russian interference during the 2016 election.
As for his decision to soften a prison sentence for longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone that Trump had repeatedly blasted as unfair, Barr said: “I knew it would be made to look bad. At the end of the day, all you can do is what you think is right.”
Barr’s intervention was an ominous precursor to the January 6 riot. In slashing Stone’s sentencing recommendation, Barr affirmatively said that threats by Roger Stone and the Proud Boys on judge Amy Berman Jackson were just a technicality unworthy of a sentencing enhancement. He similarly suggested that the threat of militia violence against Randy Credico that, in summer 2018, was serious enough that the FBI gave him a warning, did not merit a full 8-point enhancement for threats of violence.
Less than a year before two Stone-connected militias led an attack on Congress, the Attorney General let it be known he didn’t find those threats to be all that serious.
That’s likely one factor that led the FBI to treat the Proud Boys as intelligence partners against Antifa rather than a dangerous gang to be infiltrated.
And Barr continues that approach to militia-assisted witness tampering. Holt asked Barr whether Trump was responsible for the mob led by Stone’s militia buddies at the Capitol. Barr responded by describing, effectively, witness tampering.
Do you think that President Trump was responsible for what happened here, ultimately?
I do think he was responsible in the broad sense of that word in that, it appears that part of the plan was to send this group up to the Hill. I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that that was wrong.
“Part of the plan,” the former top law enforcement officer in the US said, “was to send this group up to the Hill … to intimidate Congress.”
In describing January 6 that way, Barr better understands how the insurrection worked than so many TV lawyers. He described it as an attempt to corruptly convince Congress to do something illegal and, in asserting that sending the mob was part of the plan, describes it as pre-mediated obstruction. This is, by all appearances, the crime for which that DOJ is investigating the former President.
But then, having described the same crime, witness tampering and obstruction, achieved in partnership with the same militias, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, as Barr minimized with Stone, Barr then suggests Trump hasn’t committed the crime of incitement.
But, he added, he hasn’t seen evidence that Trump committed an actual crime. “I haven’t seen anything to say he was legally responsible for it in terms of incitement,” Barr said.
And Holt let him.
Barr is going to keep saying that mob violence by the Proud Boys is no big thing until someone like Lester Holt calls him out for coddling crime.
Thank you for the thread and this post. Of all the players in the last administration, I find him the most vile. That includes Trump. I simply cannot listen to or watch him.
So is a “riot that got out of control” like a party goin’ out of bounds??? JFC
Most vile player in The Despicable Don’s administration is not really tough for me. Barr is certainly worthy of an Honorable Mention, but -hands down – it has to be Stephen Miller, and his separating of families.
Speaking of families…
Miller’s wife was Pence’s press secretary, then communications director. A cursory search of EW shows no mentions of her, though one would think she was in the thick of it j6. Has any attorney asked to see her comms?
Good question. She’s not on the list NPR has been keeping of the persons subpoenaed by the J6 committee:
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1051652687/jan-6-panel-and-subpoenas-committee-targets-witnesses-linked-to-day-of-attack
Dear Doc Wheeler (or anyone who want to respond besides),
I have a question.
Not flippant, a sincere curiousity.
Do you believe there will be serious legal consequences for any of these individuals in any of these criminal or civil cases?
Thanks,pace×2,for the Monday morning humor…
Hi, Russel,
So is it “Tak” or “Ni” (Ukrainian: “yes”or “no”)?.
I’m still sncerely curious what M.T. and we all believe.
P.P.
Let’s just say seeing Barr facing real consequences is about as likely as seeing Putin’s forces giving up and going home…could happen, but most probably won’t.
Real consequences for what?? Lying to Congress? That is a tough charge to meet and is basically never prosecuted. He has prosecutorial immunity for pretty much anything else. People really need to come to Jesus about what can, and cannot, be effectively prosecuted. It is NOT what the popular internet thinks.
“any of these individuals in any of these criminal or civil cases” casts a pretty broad net. A number of people have already pleaded guilty in Jan. 6 cases, and some have gotten serious sentences. Guy Reffitt’s case is the first to go to trial, and the attorneys are now making their closing arguments. If you didn’t intend to cast such a broad net, which cases are you wondering about?
The big fish. The deep-pocketed,high profile scoundrels. The big bad jaspers and scallywags.
The principles.
Not just the low hanging fruit.
I think you mean the principals.
These guys have no principles beyond Get Power. Keep Power.
yeah I was attempting a pun but I know the principals have no principles .
Just hoping the DOJ has a few.
Still curious what the concensus here is on
anyone big being ever held accountable
Thank you Dr. Marcy. For me, it would be satisfying for you to interview Billy Barr.
Billy Bar would never agree to be interviewed by Marcy.
Don’t understand why Lester H. didn’t do any pushback.
He asked too many questions, with no follow ups.
So frustrating to see Lester walking with the guy, being his buddy, as if we are idiots to believe Billy is no danger to American democracy, he is just an honest broker that happens to be republican / conservative, what ever that means.
It is an article of faith with the courtier press (especially the national-level ones) that the GQP is merely misunderstood and not the slavering Bugblatter beasts they have become. Therefore the bothsidesism and the letting obvious gaslighting go unchallenged. As he and the network execs see it, Holt has to keep MAGA country in the ratings fold, not just the libs.
The courtier press, indeed. When Peter Jennings died and left an estate in excess of 50 million dollars (Peter Jennings left estate of over $50 million – Today Show) I knew the courtier press would only entrench itself further. When you’re making 50 million in a career, chump change to what TV “news” folks make these days, you have access and you do or say nothing to harm that access, you are no different than any any royal court at any time in history. Lester Holt is not an outlier, he is the face of the majority of the press, print, TV or other media.
Oh yes, the infamous “courtier press”. And you know this because Peter Jennings had an estate to distribute 17 years ago. Seriously, that is the ill of the world??
Consider repurposing a smidge of the pushback you communicate to the commenters in another direction, OPR (LOL) and the Bar Association(s) Barr is a member in good standing of.
Consider not telling me, or us here, what to do. I will guess I have a bit more experience than you do. As to both OPR and bar associations. Tell me Tom, are you still trying to gin up the false RICO junk? How about “treason”, have you moved on to that bunk yet?
Tom S. Thanks for the assist. Please see my response as well.
I counted to ten. I took a walk on the beach. And then I figured, what the hell? If the question was asked, “What is the ill of the world?” I would never have included in my first thousand or so answers, the “courtier press”. But since that question was not asked, where do you get me saying that the “courtier press” and/or the size of the Jennings estate is “an ill of the world”? Seriously. Then I offered the size of the Jennings estate as an example of that “courtier press” which I acknowledge, to me, the existence of the “courtier press” prior to Jennings’ demise, by this – “…I knew the courtier press would only entrench itself further.” Seriously. I have long admired the work of Dr Wheeler and some of yours as well, but please, continue to parse away but only to what I have written. Thanks. Seriously.
It is swell you can count to ten and walk. Other than that, your “courtier press” is bullshit. You have been here for three comments starting….Oh, today. So, spare me.
“Thanks. Seriously”.
I was politically naive back then, but I thought I remember Jennings push back quite a bit. He would actually read someone’s book before an interview and was surprising knowledgeable even when the topic strayed.
Maybe I was just young and was still calling myself a repug back then.
He was also the top of the talking heads on the top network back then so the money wasn’t out of line.
And it was 60 minutes that showed the networks they could make money off news. Been downhill since.
I also remember Jennings doing some good interviews but I also remember him claiming that we have the best healthcare system in the world during the 90s effort to reform our broken healthcare system. That was back in the days when shows like his were reporting amount middle class people deliberately going bankrupt to qualify for Medicaid coverage for their life-threatening illnesses after their insurance companies had dropped them for being too expensive to cover and others denied them because of their pre-existing condition.
Congratulations on your contribution to the annals of Insignificant Factoid of the Day. That you brought it up completely devoid of context makes it even more special. Jennings published three books during his lifetime, including two best sellers. He was also considered to be the reason ABC Evening News climbed from third to first in ratings. Being well paid does not correspond with being paid off.
Now, Maggie Haberman, on the other hand….
I thought it might be helpful to collect the book promo interviews together to compare subjects and nuance.
Barr disputes his image as a “toady” to President Trump while serving as attorney general. “I felt I could be independent, and I was,” he told NPR host Steve Inskeep https://www.npr.org/2022/03/07/1084510375/ag-bill-barr-book-trump-2024
“Toady” image is perfect for Barr. Thanks for the link.
I have to wonder how the interviewers prepare for these interviews. For example, when Barr claimed that there was no reason for the FBI to have interviewed Flynn, Inskeep really should have responded along the lines of “Flynn lied to VP Pence about Flynn’s conversations with the Russian Ambassador. Why do you think it’s unwarranted for the FBI to question a National Security Advisor who lies to the Vice President about conversations with a foreign adversary?” It was a disappointing interview.
I may not have researched my answer enough (or at all.)
“… how the interviewers prepare for these interviews …”
Seems obvious that Barr and NPR agreed to the questions beforehand and that there were some room for prepared answers.
I listened to Barr’s NPR interview just now. I was struck by the precision of his word choices. He objected to the objectivity verifiable effort of the GOP and Trump to tear apart legal and government institutions by saying “we’re conservatives” who want to preserve things. He didn’t elaborate on what institutions conservatives want to preserve. Roe vs. Wade? Social Security? EPA?…
Conservatives who want to conserve things? LOL. The conservative-led Supreme Court doesn’t want to conserve, it wants to tear down precedent and rewrite the Constitution to make itself the supreme executive and legislature as well.
You didn’t really think Barr would say out loud over broadcast radio that he was helping conserve the patriarchal white supremacy, did you?
You could almost hear his thinking wheel turning while he formed his reply to Inskeep. (Bring back the old NPR reporters and interviewers who were much less likely to ask softball questions)
Typically, when a major flack has a book to publicize, his or her people get with network people, and hash out the venue, date and time of recording, and a general list of questions that should be, and should not be, asked. That gives time for the author, PR people, and lawyers to prepare answers.
Some authors and books work better on talk shows, but politicos usually prefer news shows. People like Barr are good at delivering prepared answers, and I guaran-damn-tee you he’s not going to get into a situation where he gets asked any “hard questions.”
That doesn’t mean a good interviewer can’t get serious with a hands-off subject. There’s a lot to be done with nuance. As far as Holt is concerned, my impression of his performance was that he was trying to improve his access journalism cred.
More than once I have seen journalists deny that they ask questions the have pre-arranged with the interviewee. That is probably true. I think most of them are just bad at challenging right wingers because they are so determined to appear “fair’ to them rather than just trying to get at the truth. The right has spent decades successfully intimidating the mainstream media
Here’s Barr on NBC’s Today March 7, 2022 show:
https://www.today.com/video/trump-went-off-the-rails-after-2020-election-william-barr-says-134748229558
[FYI, URL edited to remove tracking (NBC doesn’t need to know how you got the page you linked.) /~Rayne]
I couldn’t watch but 3/4 of that but it’s a very good example to compare against the interview he gave Lester Holt. This one was live so there was no editing of the final product. He sputters a few times when he has difficulty with his replies, and Savannah Guthrie is more assertive than Holt was though she could have chased some follow-ups if she wasn’t trying to plow through her list of questions.
One key difference is the audience: who watches The Today Show in the morning versus Holt’s evening program. Which of them is the targeted book buying audience? Which of them is the key demographic at which Barr’s message must be aimed to effect his aims?
ADDER: Trying to go back through that video again looking at some points which are problematic but might be more critical given the Today audience. Just grosses me out listening to this guy…anyhow…
2:10-2:40 — this bit cracked me up, his being “persuaded” to take the AG job after he pointedly applied for it with his June 2018 letter to Rosenstein+Engel/DOJ.
2:56-3:33 — he responds to and defines “stolen” to close the door on voter fraud but avoids addressing the term “rigged” leaving room for doubt while lobbing “the Facebook payments” question into the mix encouraging even more doubt. The way his response is framed the audience doesn’t know if he was referring to the Facebook donations to civtech NGO or payments to encourage users to go on hiatus temporarily before the election, or both.
FWIW, at the very end, he indicates he will vote for whoever is the Rethug nominee, even TFG, as they would be less dangerous than a Democrat.
Odds are he never stopped being a first degree background source for most of the political press. They let him set the framework for discussion, and then they justify speaking to him on the grounds that his point of view is essential to understanding that framework.
In this case, the framework is he’s a major player in the GOP rehab project, and the political press is basically chasing the narrative he’s creating of how will they do it.
As a result, they’re not even questioning the more basic question whether the GOP even deserves it, or for that matter what “rehab” even means.
Indeed.
In the investment world they call beating the market – Alpha.
I say Marcy is our Omega.
She punches and kicks Barr’s groin as a call to “end” the madness.
She squeezes out the truth to “end” the filthy lies.
She cleans up the debris floating since Trump was elected, “ending” the debate and “ending” the crime syndicate.
She has more patience than I have, since Garland too, can finalize the ending.
Journalism can do so much but lacks the power to render the final blow.
It is March 7th, the Ides of March approach.
It is time to settle the debts.
Lester Holt is a nice guy who came up through the ranks of the Today Show on NBC. He is not a serious journalist in any sense of the word. Billy Barr is smart enough to carefully screen those who he deigns to grant an interview. That he chose Lester Holt is telling.
Shoulda been Mary Louise Kelly instead of Steve Inskeep, maybe. She was impressive in that interview with Pompeo.
Inskeep is a self promoting NPR “go to guy”. Agree that Kelly would be better.
I believe Lester Holt started as a local Chicago anchor; I remember him as such.
Sophist + Elitist + Clever Lawyer with a hidden agenda = Bill Barr.
The only way to interview people like him is to be well-prepared, unafraid, and unwilling to let b.s. stand unchallenged. Kamala Harris exposed his soft underbelly in that Senate hearing.
The most newsworthy part of his book tour is his continued willingness to vote again for a man who he thinks is so unqualified and of low moral character.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-warn-justice-department-probe-of-trump-would-trigger-political-war/ar-AAUJ5rW?ocid=msedgntp
Just peachy! Going after the DOJ.
This is what we are dealing with. The Republicans are nervous, hit them hard.
Garland has been pumping his brakes, he must take a “profiles in courage” pill and indict soon.
It will only get worse.
(From the article)
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blocked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) picks to serve on the panel, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
She instead tapped Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), two outspoken critics of Trump’s election fraud claims, to participate in the Democratic-led investigation.
“I don’t mind looking into the events but I think that Speaker Pelosi did not do the process justice by the way the members were ultimately seated,” Tillis said. “It’s going to be perceived as political.”
And again, no pushback in the article with reference to the fact that it was McCarthy himself who withdrew all 5 of his Republican picks.
Nancy Pelosi said at the time that she had no objection to three other representatives picked by McCarthy — Representatives Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy Nehls.
And the only reason that Pelosi was in a position to control the membership is because the Senate Republicans filibustered the creation of a bicameral National Commission where the Republicans and Democrats in both chambers would have had equal control over the composition and neither party could have rejected members chosen by the other party: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3233/text When the Senate Republicans torpedoed that, Pelosi established the House Select Committee, and House rules give the Speaker total control over the membership of Select Committees.
‘The Lady doth protest too much, me thinks.’
Just like their bestie Vlad Putin, the GOP feign strength yet betray their weaknesses when confronted by a reality that can’t be waved away.
What disappoints it the lack of the nightly explanations to the American people of the findings of the J6 committee. Didn’t Liz Cheney tell us that those news conferences were going to start in Mid to Late February?
Last I heard, postponed to early April.
I don’t quite understand how Barr can use the word “intimidate”, and in this context, say that it is not tantamount to incitement. How can a large crowd intimidate people secured inside of a building, without a degree of force (violence), which solely based on the size of the crowd, would be a substantial degree of force (violence). Could Barr even hazard a suggestion of how intimidation could have been expressed differently?
So Holt does softball interviews, his network couldn’t challenge him to dig a little deeper? Catch Barr off guard, and if Barr walks before it’s over, that reflects poorly on Barr, not Holt.
Holt could have at least mentioned a comparison of the number of times Trump mentioned peaceful actions compared to using the word “fight”. Or how about show that propaganda video that played before Trump spoke and get Barr’s opinion on that horror.
Barr was AG until Dec 23, 2 weeks before the Jan 6 insurrection and while Trump, Stone, Rudy, Bannon, et al were planning it, even as Proud Boys met in the Oval Office.
Imagine Condi or Rumsfeld resigning 2 weeks before 9/11 and coming on as a laconic impartial observer to American security lapses. Except Trump was neck deep in the planning and had already pardoned some of his co-conspirators. How does Barr stay below the wire, get to play “adult”?
“The guy whose sentence i decreased then helped plan an attack on Congress. Ho-hum, it’s all the libs’ fault.”
To me it seems like Barr is a devotée of that Ole Time Catholic notion, the doctrine of the double truth, that is, he can preserve his conscience by using different standards to judge things. The problem is, as Dr Wheeler points out, that the actions being judged differently are essentially the same, therefore, are not susceptible to evaluation under different standards.
What I wonder is: how could he possibly imagine that St Peter is going to give him a pass when he arrives at the gates with his in-flight bag and a copy of his catechism? Or is the whole conservative Catholic thing just another convenient public mask for a soul that relishes its own blackness?
Politics and religion the most potent force throughout recorded history. The means are justified by the ends. I think one day we may come to realize at least in politics that religion is the problem not the solution.
protection racket.
I give you power, you give me absolution.
Indeed. A hypocrite is gonna hypocrite.
Of course Bill Barr would not prosecute Trump. He’s on the right side, and any prosecution might well implicate Barr. I suspect he wouldn’t have been so charitable about the prosecution of Sandy Berger, though, for much less serious offenses. He was probably appalled that BushCheney let Berger plead to a misdemeanor, pay a fine, and lose his law license.
With Trump, it’s always about Trump. With Barr, it’s always and ever about his destructively partisan promotion of what he mislabels “conservative” values. He’s a better liar than Boris Johnson, if slightly less clownish than Trump.
The kicker is after all that work Norm from Cheers did to make that look sexy and lovable …..here comes Barr the wrecking ball. He seems to like breaking things or defending folks that do.
He can’t fuck with Norm, though … legend.
As commenter Marinela points out above, there is no follow-up. That’s because interviewers aren’t competent in the areas of the interview. It’s shameful that Holt is so poorly prepared, considering that he does maybe one interview a week. His staff has weeks to prepare, and can easily read enough to understand the issues. They can prepare him. They can put a mic in his ear and feed him data and questions.
We are ill-served by media corporations controlled by the capitalist class and their carefully selected talking heads, or,as my dad used to say, pretty faces with naught behind.
The decision at the editorial and management level to keep the beat system that parallels parts of government has been a horrible weakness of news organizations for years.
The old model is they”d have a White House beat, a DOJ beat, a Congress beat, and the underlying assumption is that stories would run along one track, with maybe a handoff at certain points like when a bill was nearing passage and the next question was if a president would veto it.
The problem that people like Barr have exploited for years is what happens when an issue like Ukraine meddling, Mueller, Trump, DOJ and national security overlap?
The response of news organizations has been hopelessly fracturing coverage among multiple beats which are under no orders to build a comprehensive understanding of an issue.
As a result, when someone like Barr comes along who has a strong grasp of all of the issues, they will have a huge advantage over someone like Holt who may try to pull together questions from multiple reporters who neither coordinated in the past nor built up a comprehensive understanding of issues in the first place. These beats may also have a vested interest in not seeing rival beats winning primacy over an issue at the expense of their turf.
A few interviewers like Isaac Chotiner actually have a grip on how to break out of an old school beat mentality. But most management is oblivious that there is even a problem in the first place.
It’s not that Holt isn’t competent at interviewing. It’s that the managing editor and producers agreed to this format where there would be no follow-up.
Barr wouldn’t have agreed to this interview without a copy of the questions asked in advance. The TV audience — unlike the youngs who consume most of their news in formats like TikTok — don’t understand how easy it is to edit this so that it looks like there weren’t breaks when Barr might have stopped the interview because he didn’t want to go in any particular direction.
Barr’s first interview as AG on CBS was just as artfully produced, with him appearing all chummy in a casual insulated vest. Bah. Barr is an actor in highly-produced programming operations above all else.
It’s interesting that when Inskeep interviewed Trump about a month ago, he did a lot of followup and Trump eventually ended up hanging up in the middle.
I think the difference is NPR hadn’t spoken to Trump since before 2016 and figured he wasn’t coming back regardless.
I’m guessing Barr is not only an active source for NBC and NPR reporters, he’s likely to encourage blackballing by the legal pundit community if reporters ask hard questions, not just by conservative hacks but including even supposed liberals along the lines of Jed Rubenfeld and Amy Chua.
The dumb thing of course is that the regular pundits on that circuit are useless as sources — all they do is insist that Federalist clones are very very serious scholars who base their decisions on serious principles, only to see their predictions fall apart as soon as the clones are seated.
The price for burning Barr isn’t nearly as high as they think — there are always more voices to plug in.
He learned a thing or two from Poppy Bush, not to mention his work as a senior officer for big telecoms companies.
So when all is said and done , i guess Bill does care about his legacy . No matter how sullied it is.
Indeed.
I don’t expect Barr cares about his legacy. It is what it is, confined to the fringe.
He came in through the back door of the Trump DOJ, waving his deficient 19 page memo as his admission ticket. It was just another assignment.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Bill Barr: The “Cover-Up General”
“At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush’s imperial presidency,” we reported in 1992, “the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad.”
by Frank Snepp
Originally published October 27, 1992
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/19/opinion/essay-the-patsy-prosecutor.html
Essay; The Patsy Prosecutor
By William Safire – Oct. 19, 1992
“..In a last-ditch maneuver to block an independent investigation into Iraqgate, Attorney General William Barr has hired a so-called “special” counsel. But the man lending his good reputation to this subterfuge can be fired by the very Attorney General he is supposed to investigate.
Why does the Coverup-General resist independent investigation? Because he knows where it may lead: to Dick Thornburgh, James Baker, Clayton Yeutter, Brent Scowcroft and himself. He vainly hopes to be able to head it off, or at least be able to use the threat of firing to negotiate a deal.
The last time Mr. Barr refused to ask the courts to appoint an independent prosecutor was when formally requested to do so by the majority of the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Jack Brooks huffed and puffed, but despite the urging of House Banking chairman Henry Gonzalez, flinched from impeaching the Attorney General..”
Indeed. It is very easy to minimize a concept , if the idea isn’t even in your audience’s purview.
Bill Barr is trotted out to ad confusion to the folks minds that are somewhat interested in the truth. I have been such a person. I fear it will be some time before the working population, can afford the time to keep up the with the schizoid information stream we are subjected to. The monetizing of Cognitive Dissonance by Rupert Murdoch in this country is a catastrophe. I am an immigrant of West Africa. The idea this man, an immigrant (brown immigrant bad) is able to use the Freedom of the Press, and Freedom of Speech not only make money but dumb down a Country is audacious, yet telling. He tells folks what they want to hear, what he wants to hear. With help from friends in radio. He creates a fishbowl with fish and charges money to various enterprise. He then provides a boat a rod and bait. His fish are a Cash Cow, for him. The fish are so well feed, he can make them do tricks with the right bait, they will even put their children in harms way for him during an epidemic.
Bill Barr is a Chicken McNugget, Trimp a faux Big Mac all kinds treats come through the menu.
There is only one McFox and the not so absent Landlord is Murdoch . A virus of the highest order begets other virus’s and here we are. The question is how do we bring truthfulness like that of folks like Marcy to the forefront. . The technology is here, we have no excuse.
Wow
Enjoyed your commentary
Even Barr’s book title sounds lame, dated, and out-of-sync with his record in office, the sort of thing you would expect on the cover of a volume of memoirs by Bob Hope.
Naming his book ‘One Damn Thing After Another’ is a self-own by Bill Barr who for Republican presidents appears to have functioned much like the character Harvey Keitel plays in Pulp Fiction.
The Wolf : Your wife… Bonnie comes home at 9:30 in the AM, is that right?
Jimmie : Uh-huh.
The Wolf : I was led to believe that if she comes home and finds us here, she’d wouldn’t appreciate it none too much?
Jimmie : [laughing] She wouldn’t at that.
The Wolf : That gives us exactly… forty minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which, if you do what I say when I say it, should be plenty. Now, you’ve got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage. Take me to it.
Found the Bill Barr interview with Savannah Guthrie, 13 minutes, don’t know if this is the full interview.
Added breaks to the link.
https [:] //www.today.com/news/politics/attorney-general-william-barr-still-vote-trump-2024-rcna18946
This is way better interview than Lester H. She is informed. At least an intelligent viewer gets some context if they are not aware about who Billy Barr is by now.
Jeez, I’m so old that I can remember when terrorism was defined as “the use of violence or the threat of violence to influence the public and its representatives on the passage of laws or the operation of government.” Sure sounds to me that Mr. Barr just admitted that – in his opinion, at least – Mr. Trump attempted to intimidate the legislature into not performing its legal responsibility to properly count the certified electoral votes of several states. But then Mr. Barr goes on to admit that should Mr. Trump again be the Republican candidate for president he would vote for him without any qualms.
When people tell you who they are, you should take them at their word. Based on his own statements, it would appear that Mr. Barr is a toady of the first water. This time, I am inclined to believe him. What a sad excuse for a rational, moral human being.
That is still the definition. But if you do not know the limits of that definition, you are basically nowhere.
[Yes Rayne, this is my first comment here. I will always use only this user name. The comment is too long—I promise to be more concise in the future—but Barr is a particular bug of mine.]
Bill Barr, never being anyone’s loyalist, simply considered GHW Bush and Trump temporarily useful tools to weaponize his fav Unitary Executive theory to bleed power from the Judicial/ Legislative branches, and pour it into the Executive.
That’s one of the three consistently employed strategies of his life-long quest to convert America from a representative republic to a Theocratic Authoritarian Police State. Look at his efforts (and interviews and speeches) since the 1970’s—nearly everything serves three ends:
1. Increase the relative and total power of the Chief Executive and Executive Branch.
2. Weaken constitutional separation of church and state, freeing religion—especially his favored strain of sour, ultra-conservative Catholicism—to be a tool of government.
3. Establish pseudo-military police and domestic intelligence forces accountable only to chief executives of governments at all levels, and free them to use force in support of his theocratic authoritarian goals.
One thing his book and all the interviews demonstrate is that Barr hoped to retain a modicum of credibility in a post-Trump future. In December 2020, he calculated a public rejection of election fraud fantasies would help by making Trump fire him. That worked. Although he would have liked another four years to further lock-in his anti-democracy ideals, Barr is likely satisfied with what his Trump-manipulation accomplished.
Too bad someone can’t make that the framework of an interview.
“[Yes Rayne, this is my first comment here. I will always use only this user name. The comment is too long—I promise to be more concise in the future—but Barr is a particular bug of mine.]”
LOL.
I much appreciate the observation of the unique naming protocol as well as the comment, which surprisingly isn’t too long compared to those left by other community members who find Barr particularly challenging. :-)
Seemed to be a just-right length and proper paragraph spacing. What more can we want?
Oh, the content was excellent too.
Barr still hasn’t convincingly explained why he resigned when he did, has he? If there were no crimin going on, then why did he bother to resign… from an administration that he would have no qualms about voting back into more now…that the impeachment thing blew over without too much blowback (so far). Smh. Those interviewers need to say “no” to Barr and stop giving him free advertising for his disingenuous book and specious rationale for most of the things Barr did to protect Twitler and his Twisslerings before running for the hills when it seemed likely that Twitler might go down in flames because of the insurrectionist plotting.
The best thing that could happen here is if Barr was arrested, tried, convicted of obstruction of justice and his book profits given to Ukraine to defend itself from Twitler’s pal, Putin.
In this fantasy of redirecting Barr’s book profits, I’d like to see a portion go to the Freedom From Religion Foundation.