Lowering the Barr
It is hard from day to day to understand what situations perpetrated by the Trump Administration are the new depths to which the rule of law can stoop at his command. The sequence of events between Friday night and today have been stunning and they played out on cable TV in all their glory for us to put hand to lips in amazement. Let’s agree that of all the cabinet posts, the Attorney General position is perhaps the most prone to getting tangled up with laws and politics in extreme ways. Donald Trump is not the first president to want his mouthpiece to run interference for him. Many have done so and two, John Mitchell followed by Richard Kleindeinst, threw their bodies against the law for Richard Nixon so hard that they both went down getting convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice respectively. But William Barr, who trained for his current role as AG by serving George H. W. Bush as Acting and then confirmed AG for seventeen months, has set a new standard with his recent actions.
The preamble to the most recent episode was his extreme and shocking intervention in both the Flynn and Stone conviction processes. Flynn, of course, plead guilty twice to his crime of lying to the FBI and evidence to that crime has come out since in the form of call transcripts which have been in the possession of the authorities all along. Those transcripts show that Flynn had a basis for lying in that he had, indeed, talked specifically and contrary to existing government policy during the waning months of the Obama Administration with Ambassador Kislyak of Russia about easing up on U.S. sanctions on Russia for their actions in the Ukraine. On an absolute basis, there is a clear case for saying that Flynn acted in a traitorous way and that furthermore, he knew that and felt the need to lie about it to the FBI. That’s pretty serious stuff in my book, but not, apparently, in Attorney General Barr’s book since he felt it was appropriate to weigh into the judicial process and force the resignation of his prosecutors, thereby calling off the dogs so to speak, and recommending to the court that they reconsider and lighten the conviction and penalty for Flynn. The court had the wisdom to seek an objective analysis of the official DOJ request by Barr done by a retired and highly respected retired federal judge (having, presumably, no dog in the underlying fight). That report directly challenged the wisdom and appropriateness of AG Barr’s request of the court and gave the judge the foundation to not be swayed in his determination of how best to dispose of the Flynn conviction. It is almost unimaginable, based on that very truthful and contentious report, that the judge will do anything but proceed with sentencing of Flynn and assigning him to a federal penitentiary.
Of course, we are all expecting that if that happens to Flynn, Trump will do what he and Barr had been hoping to avoid doing, and he will provide a pardon to Flynn, which Trump has the presidential right to do. Stop and think about that for a moment. Barr has sold out the legitimacy and dignity of the post of Attorney General and head of DOJ, ostensibly in order to help Trump avoid having to take the politically sensitive step of issuing a pardon for an obviously guilty potentially-deemed traitor. I do not think for a moment that this is a case of loyalty by Trump for his pal Michael Flynn. Trump has simply not exhibited any ability to show loyalty to those who have stood by him or helped him. His ego does not extend that far to allow for it. Every fiber of Trump’s being is apparently aimed at only one primary goal, and that is reelection. That is actually very believable and understandable. He is enough of a self-preservationist to understand that once he leaves office, he and his family are at great personal risk given their actions over the past four or five years. So Barr tossed in all his reputational chits to help Trump’s reelection efforts by giving him cover on the Flynn issue so that Flynn would not be prone towards spilling more beans (ala John Bolton, who’s book, The Room Where it Happened, came out in print and audiobook [I have both] this very day).
The second flail by Barr on the judicial intervention front has been in trying to intervene on the Roger Stone case. That chapter has yet to play itself out, so stay tuned for some similarly debasing shenanigans by AG Barr.
With those preambles, AG Barr has, this weekend, teed himself up for his biggest and best/worst fuck-up yet in the “throw your body in front of any train heading towards Trump’s reelection” program for salvation. It is such a royal fuck-up as to make me think that Barr thinks he too must be on the “reelect or die” track based on his actions over the last two years. Unless there is a sudden and thorough bonfire of all the records held at DOJ, Barr will be found severely in jeopardy for his actions once a new sheriff comes to town (presumably after the next election…if Trump loses…and if Trump, Barr and Pompeo don’t induce the Rapture as a Doomsday Mechanism in the event of their loss).
The events of the weekend are well know to all, but let’s review them as I understand them. Two years ago, based on the investigation and legal action docket of the esteemed SDNY (Southern District of New York) of the U.S. Department of Justice, Trump, who was the target of a number of these investigations, including into Michael Cohen, the Trump Organization, Trump’s Financial dealings, etc., induced then AG Sessions to replace Preet Bharara, the long-time and respected Unites States Attorney leading SDNY to resign. He fired him and put Geoffrey Berman in as his replacement. He furthermore decided to use a slick 120-day trick to avoid confirmation hearings for this presumed Trump loyalist (Berman had contributed $2,700 to the Trump election campaign in 2016) wherein Berman would avoid the Senate confirmation process and be “automatically” installed as the United States Attorney by the courts of the Southern District.
Somewhere along the way in his work at SDNY, Berman obviously became convinced based on all the investigative work underway that things of significant import were shaping up which righteously needed to go forward. Clearly these things were concerning to AG Barr and or Trump himself. So Barr dismissed Berman via press release, probably after Berman refused to voluntarily step down. That’s what transpired on Friday night at about 10pm, as suspicious a moment for anything to happen in Washington that exists. Some (including Barr himself in his letter rebuttal to Berman as events have unfolded) suggest that this was a matter of patronage, moving his replacement (Jay Clayton, Chairman of the SEC and a golfing buddy of Trump’s) in and giving Berman a plush job in D.C. But no one in their right mind believes that in the months leading up to a reelection campaign.
The most likely situation is that Berman has refused to stop a train heading towards Rudy Giuliani and thus a train that will splatter bad shit all over Trump and Barr as well, right before an election. Berman took a novel and daring maneuver of holding his own press announcement declaring the AG a liar and saying that he had not resigned and could only be forced to do so once the Senate has confirmed his replacement since the AG is not empowered to remove him given his appointment by the courts. Barr then said Trump had fired Berman…his second lie of the episode since Trump publicly said he was decidedly not involved. Suddenly, Barr cried uncle under the Berman choke hold and allowed Berman to resign in favor of his deputy, one Audrey Strauss (a tough and honest cookie by anyone’s reckoning). This inept backfiring of this removal process ended with another dead Trump soldier by the roadside (Berman), a more ardent protector of the rule of law in the SDNY seat for 2020, an embarrassed Trump loyalist in Jay Clayton hiding under the conference table at the SEC, a President whistling at his AG saying “What’d you do!?” and little shriveled Willy Barr having lowered the boom on himself.