Government

Uranium One Conspiracy Theorist Bill Barr Emerges As Leading AG Choice

Barr also supported pardoning Iran-Contra stooges, which seems relevant.

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Former and perhaps future Attorney General, William Barr

Former Bush-41 Attorney General, William Barr, has emerged today as a possible choice to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

Did Trump meet Barr at George H.W. Bush’s funeral? Is this happening because Barr was like the only person willing to talk to Trump while Michelle Obama and George W. Bush passed notes about how dumb Trump is? I’m asking because the current President of the United States has a known preference for whatever the last person he talked to happened to say. We know Trump is vulnerable and weak and can’t handle it when he’s not the center of attention, as he wasn’t at Bush’s funeral yesterday. It’s ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that Barr gave Trump a pep talk while standing in line for the bathroom and, now, he gets to be Attorney General again.

With apologies to Ross Douthat, Barr’s WASP-y application of justice is not something to be celebrated. Barr is a big fan of mass incarceration.

Well, he’s a fan of mass incarceration for people who have committed minor drug offenses. If you happen to be involved in a massive international conspiracy and cover-up, Barr is a big fan of pardons. From the Washington Post:

Barr also has a relevant history with special counsels, and has appointed some himself. But when Bush in 1992 decided to pardon several figures in the Iran-contra scandal, he took the legs out from beneath the independent prosecutor investigating the matter. And one of the people Bush consulted was Barr. At the time, the prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, called it “a sort of Saturday night massacre” — a reference to high-profile Nixon firings during the thick of the Watergate scandal.

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Cutting the legs out of a special counsel investigation by pardoning the key players in the conspiracy. Roger Stone must be thrilled right now.

One might argue that Barr’s beliefs about pardons and mass incarceration are old news. But his recent history is also problematic:

In fact, in November 2017, Barr told the New York Times that there was actually more basis to investigate Hillary Clinton for the Uranium One deal than there is to investigate Trump for potential collusion with Russia. He went so far as to say the Justice Department was wrong to give Clinton a pass.

“To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” he said.

Earlier that same month, Barr also explicitly called for more investigation of the Clintons, telling The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Matt Zapotosky, “I don’t think all this stuff about throwing [Clinton] in jail or jumping to the conclusion that she should be prosecuted is appropriate.” Then he added: “But I do think that there are things that should be investigated that haven’t been investigated.”

I admit, he sounds like a Trump kind of Attorney General. Investigating people who are not the president, pardoning people who have information about the president, and jailing everybody else.

But please, tell me some more stories about how George H.W. Bush represents a respect for American decency and restraint that has been lost by the modern Republican party. I’m totally in the mood to hear that, as Bush’s former Attorney General makes his way back into the news to CONTINUE the work Republicans are always about.

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Trump’s new top AG pick has urged more Clinton investigations and played down both Russia collusion and obstruction [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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