Targeting Bill Barr Unlike Loretta Lynch, the AG does his duty on ‘prosecutorial judgment.’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/targeting-bill-barr-11555714643
Pivoting from their failed Russia-Trump collusion narrative, Democrats and the press corps have discovered a new political villain: William Barr. They claim the Attorney General is misleading the public, but their real goal is to warn Mr. Barr from following through on his promise to investigate abuses by the FBI and Obama Administration officials.
The rap is that Mr. Barr didn’t tell the truth about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report when he summarized its conclusions in late March. “It’s a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of United States,” tweeted presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, in a typical broadside.
Mr. Barr was trying to satisfy the Democratic demand to see the report as soon as possible while he vetted the details for material that had to be redacted for sound legal and intelligence reasons. His four-page summary fairly characterized its conclusions on collusion and obstruction of justice while promising the full report soon. He even quoted Mr. Mueller’s line that the report “does not exonerate” Mr. Trump. A summary couldn’t contain the details that Mr. Mueller took 488 pages to describe, and now those details are public warts and all.
Democrats also want Mr. Barr to take a vow of silence so they’re the only people who can explain what the Mueller report means. But Mr. Mueller works for Mr. Barr, who had no legal obligation to release any of the report to Congress. He made a prudent judgment in the public interest to do so, as he promised during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Especially since Mr. Mueller abdicated on making any “prosecutorial judgment” about obstruction, Mr. Barr also had a duty to provide his own judgment on the law. Democrats may not like his conclusion, but at least Mr. Barr didn’t run for the tall grass like Obama-era AG Loretta Lynch did on the Hillary Clinton emails. She deferred, disastrously as later became clear, to FBI director James Comey’s inappropriate prosecutorial pre-emption. Mr. Barr stood up and took responsibility like a real Attorney General.
Mr. Barr is also being attacked for making redactions, and House Democrats said Friday they’ll subpoena the unredacted version and all background material. Yet Mr. Barr says senior Members of Congress will be able to see all redacted material except for what is legally protected by grand-jury secrecy. Mr. Barr would have to petition the judge who supervised the grand jury to release such testimony, which is secret under the law to ensure people speak honestly and to protect the innocent.
If Mr. Barr resists the subpoenas, Congress is likely to lose the legal fight. Congress has an interest in the report as part of its oversight duties, but the executive branch also has an interest in protecting the integrity of judicial proceedings. Congress will be able to see everything in the report except grand-jury material. Under the Supreme Court’s balancing test in the Nixon tapes case (U.S. v. Nixon), Mr. Barr is on strong legal ground.
The larger Democratic concern is that Mr. Barr is serious about looking into the origins of the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016. That could mean turning over such rocks as the FBI-Clinton-media collaboration over the discredited Steele dossier, or whether officials misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in seeking a warrant to eavesdrop on Trump adviser Carter Page. The Mueller report barely mentions the Steele dossier, which suggests the special counsel could not corroborate its allegations.
The Justice Department Inspector General is expected to issue a report on much of this in the coming months, and criminal referrals can’t be ruled out. Several criminal referrals have already come from Congress. Any prosecutions would no doubt require Mr. Barr’s assent, and Democrats are sending a message that he’ll pay a political price if he doesn’t call the whole thing off.
As he’s learning in this second turn as AG, Mr. Barr will be hammered no matter what he decides. The good news is that the country finally appears to have an Attorney General who can take the heat.
Comments are closed.
