Attorney General Barr : "We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon"

ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR vs THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. That is what we are watching now, as the Democrats who were sure special counsel Robert Mueller would allow them to impeach and oust President Trump are now scrambling for any way to discredit the Mueller findings. But, that path leads through Attorney General Bill Barr and what is now HIS firmly-in-control Justice Department. Not a Yellow Brick Road by any means. • • • FINALLY, DERSHOWITZ SAID WHAT THE DEMOCRATS DID NOT WANT TO HEAR. I could have jumped for joy this morning when I read the Newsmax article posted late on Wednesday about the Newsmax TV interview with Alan Dershowitz, who stated the obvious but until now unspoken facts : "He's a Cabinet member. He's supposed to protect the President. He's supposed to help him get elected next time. He's just like the Secretary of State. He's just like the Secretary of the Treasury. He works for the President, he's part of the administration." • Professor Dershowitz also said that Attorney General William Barr's appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee showed he was right on not charging President Donald Trump with obstruction of justice: "What's most important is that Barr is 100 percent right on obstruction of justice and Mueller is 100 percent wrong. You can't convict a president, or charge a president with obstruction of justice, for engaging in a constitutionally authorized act such as firing [former FBI director] James Comey....You can't indict a sitting President for doing what he's supposed to do : pardoning, firing, or anything else that's authorized by the Constitution. So, Barr wins and Mueller loses." • Dershowitz went farther, noting that special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Barr that expressed concern over how his report was portrayed, which Dershowitz said was irrelevant : "We can all read the letter, we can all read the report and decide for ourselves," Dershowitz said. • Regarding the role of the attorney general, Dershowitz told Newsmax that Barr -- or whoever holds the office -- has two jobs. One is to work in the presidential Cabinet and the other is to enforce the law. • • • DEMOCRATS ACCUSE BARR OF LYING -- LABELING IT A "CRIME." I've several times written in our blog that every Attorney General is a CABINET OFFICER. Every one. From Day One of the Republic. The Constitution spells it out. The Democrats were happy when Eric Holder was "protecting" their President Barack Obama. But, somehow, whatever a Trump AG appointee does is "partisan," "biased," and now it is a "crime." At least, CNBC is reporting that : "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused Attorney General William Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and Mueller’s issues with how Barr has characterized its findings. 'What is deadly serious about it is the attorney general of the United States of America is not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States. That’s a crime,' the California Democrat told reporters. Pressed again about the accusation, Pelosi said, 'He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law.' Asked whether Barr should go to jail, the Speaker responded that 'there’s a process involved here.' " • CNBC said a Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Pelosi’s remarks. But, Speaker Pelosi's comments, according to CNBC : "appeared to reference answers Barr gave during House testimony last month when asked about reported frustrations Mueller’s team had with a summary the attorney general wrote about the special counsel’s report. The attorney general said he was not aware of frustrations the Mueller team had about his summary. But it was revealed this week that Mueller wrote a letter to Barr expressing concerns about how the attorney general depicted the 'substance' of the report. Here is the exchange from an April 9 hearing that apparently sparked Pelosi’s accusation : 'Representative Charlie Crist, D-Fla.: Reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the Special Counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24th letter...Do you know what they are referencing with that?' Barr: 'No, I don’t. I think I think, I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view I was not interested in putting out summaries.' " • Newsmax reported that Barr said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that Mueller told him of his team's plans at a March 5 meeting : "A Justice Department legal opinion says sitting presidents cannot be indicted. Barr says Mueller told him he wouldn't have recommended indicting the President even without that opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel. Barr says Mueller told him that there may come a time when the Justice Department should consider revisiting that opinion but that this is not that case. Mueller has written a letter that says Barr's summary of his Russia report created 'public confusion about critical aspects of the results. In the March 27 letter, Mueller said Barr's four-page letter about the report 'did not fully capture the context, nature and substance' of the special counsel's 'work and conclusions.' Barr said he called Mueller after receiving his complaints and Mueller told him 'he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report.' Barr said Mueller told him press reports were reading too much into Barr's letter and Mueller wanted the public to see more of his reasoning for not answering the question of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. • Newsmax also reported that : "Committee Republicans did not focus on Trump's conduct but rather on what they saw as the FBI's improper surveillance during the election of Trump aides they suspected of being Russian agents, as well as on the Kremlin's election meddling. To that end, Barr defended his accusation in a previous congressional hearing this month that American intelligence agencies engaged in 'spying' on Trump campaign figures amid worries over their contacts with Russia. He said 'spying' is 'a good English word' without a pejorative meaning and that he would not back off his language, which echoed Trump's complaints that the Justice Department had engaged in wrongdoing toward his campaign. At the outset of the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said the report showed that Congress should focus on protecting the coming 2020 election, in which Trump is seeking re-election, from foreign interference after Russian meddling in the 2016 race. 'My takeaway from this report is we've got a lot to do to defend democracy against Russians and other bad actors,' Graham said. • CNBC noted that while Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have accused Barr of protecting Trump and having a conflict of interest, "neither official has previously gone as far as alleging a crime." • The Washington Times reported later on Wednesday that the House Democrats "weigh contempt of Congress for William Barr." The Washington Times wrote : "House Democrats said they are considering holding Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress after he informed them he won’t meet their deadline for turning over the unredacted special counsel’s report and won’t appear to testify Thursday. Mr. Barr says Democrats changed the rules on him, souring the spirit of comity he had shown in agreeing to testify. Democrats said he was terrified of facing the skilled interrogator they had arranged and was giving excuses. That clash came Wednesday evening, hours after Mr. Barr spent much of the day testifying across the Capitol in the Senate. He scolded Democrats for refusing to accept the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report finding no evidence of successful coordination between Russia and President Trump to subvert the 2016 election." • • • CRIMES? PERJURY? NAME IT AND THE DEMOCRATS SEE IT IN AG BARR, AND CALL FOR RECUSAL. The Washington Times quoted several Barr exchanges with Senate Judiciary Committee members, under the header "Richard Blumenthal: If William Barr didn't perjure himself, 'it comes very close to the line.' During five hours of questions, Mr. Barr also dinged Mr. Mueller as 'a bit snitty' in one of their communications, refused to recuse himself from other investigations that arose from Mr. Mueller’s work, and acknowledged he took Mr. Mueller at his word and didn’t delve into all the backup evidence that the special counsel assembled....Still, Mr. Barr said : 'The evidence now is that the President was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians and accused of being treasonous and accused of being a Russian agent, and the evidence now is that was without a basis. Two years of his administration have been dominated by the allegations that have now been proven false, and to listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think the Mueller report had found the opposite.' • But, said the Washington Times, Democrats "were having none" of it : "One called Mr. Barr a liar, and others emerged to say he should be fired or neutered to the point where he can’t make decisions on key prosecutions. 'You lied to Congress,' said Senator Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii Democrat. 'You knew you lied, and now we know.' The lying allegations stem from Mr. Barr’s testimony last month that he and Mr. Mueller saw eye to eye on the findings in the report, which Mr. Barr said cleared Mr. Trump of collusion and found too little concrete evidence to pursue a case of obstruction of justice. After Mr. Barr released a four-page letter in late March offering that summary, Mr. Mueller fired off a letter saying the public was given the wrong impression and asked for more complete summaries to be revealed. The Mueller letter was made public Wednesday just before Mr. Barr sat at the witness table in the Senate Judiciary Committee room. Mr. Barr described the letter as 'snitty,' saying Mr. Mueller likely didn’t write it himself. Still, Mr. Barr said he called Mr. Mueller to talk it over and that the special counsel DIDN'T OBJECT to the attorney general’s summary, but rather to the way the press was covering it. Mr. Mueller’s letter does not mention the media, but rather suggests Mr. Barr’s March 24 letter to Congress “threatens to undermine” his work. Democrats rejected Mr. Barr’s explanation." • Senator Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, asked whether there was a record of his call to Mr. Mueller. The attorney general said he had notes detailing the call but was not handing them over to Congress. When Mr. Blumenthal pressed further on why lawmakers couldn’t get a copy of the notes, Mr. Barr shot back, 'Why should you have them?' Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and Committee chairman, broke in to say he intends to write Mr. Mueller a letter inviting him to address the attorney general’s account of the phone call. 'I’m going to ask him, ‘Is there anything you said about that conversation that he disagrees with?’ And if there is, he can come and tell us,' Mr. Graham said. 'I’m going to give him a chance to correct anything you said that he finds misleading or inaccurate, and that will be it.' Mr. Graham later told reporters that he was not going to subpoena Mr. Mueller to testify, ignoring Democrats’ increased calls to hear from the special counsel, who has largely remained silent about his investigation. House Democrats, though, said they will order Mr. Mueller to appear." • Representative Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is quoted by the Washington Times as saying that he is "circling in on a May 15 date for the special counsel to testify. He also excoriated Mr. Barr for planning to be a no-show at Thursday’s scheduled hearing. It was Mr. Nadler’s move to create an additional hour of questioning from practicing lawyers that soured the scheduled hearing. 'He is terrified of having to face a skilled attorney,' Mr. Nadler said after learning Mr. Barr was balking. He said the House has the right to structure its hearings however it wants. A Barr aide called the format 'unprecedented and unnecessary.' Mr. Barr also missed a committee deadline to turn over the complete unredacted Mueller report in response to a subpoena. Mr. Nadler said he will give a grace period of a couple of days but will pursue contempt of Congress proceedings if they don’t reach a deal." The Washington Times notes : "That would put Mr. Barr in the company of Eric H. Holder Jr., who during the Obama administration became the first attorney general to be held in contempt. That spat was also over a refusal to turn over documents to the House, then led by Republicans." • Fox News's Gregg Re said : "A key sticking point was that Nadler wants to have House Judiciary Committee staff -- rather than members of Congress -- question Barr on his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. But DOJ officials said members should conduct the inquiry. In remarks to reporters Thursday afternoon, Nadler said Democrats had 'worked around the clock' to address Barr's concerns, and slammed what he called Barr's 'lack of candor. He's trying to blackmail the committee into not following the most effective means of eliciting the information we need,' Nadler said. 'He is terrified of having to face a skilled attorney.' Although Barr has not yet been subpoenaed, Nadler said contempt citations could be possible down the road not only if the full Mueller report is not released, but also if Barr does not comply with a possible future subpoena....'It’s a shame Members of the House Judiciary Committee won’t get the opportunity to hear from Attorney General Barr this Thursday, because Chairman Nadler chose to torpedo our hearing....The reason Bill Barr is not here today is because the Democrats decided they didn’t want him here today. That’s the reason he’s not here,' said House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., in a statement. 'The attorney general gave clear, informative testimony in the Senate Wednesday, as he offered to do more than a month ago in the House tomorrow....By rejecting the chance to question Attorney General Barr or read the materials he’s provided, Democrats are trying to prolong an investigation the special counsel completed. Ultimately, though, they’re ignoring the will of the majority of Americans who want Congress to move on and secure our border and continue to strengthen our economy.'....Attorney General Barr wasn’t asked to testify before the committee -- he offered,' a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Republicans told Fox News earlier this week. 'He provided the Mueller report voluntarily. He invited Democrat leaders to view the less redacted report in person. Yet the only thing, apparently, that will satisfy Democrats, who refuse to read the less redacted report, is to have staff pinch hit when a cabinet-level official appears before us.' The spokesperson continued, 'What actual precedent is there for our committee making such demands of a sitting attorney general as part of our oversight duties? The attorney general isn’t a fact witness, and this committee’s investigations -- as Democrat leadership reminds us daily -- don’t constitute impeachment, so Democrats have yet to prove their demands anything but abusive and illogical in light of the transparency and good faith the attorney general has shown our committee.' It is unusual [said Gregg Re] for committee counsels to question a witness, especially a high-ranking Cabinet official." • The battles over testimony and access threatened to overshadow the goings-on of the Senate hearing, where Mr. Barr tried to explain his decisions. The Washington Times noted that AG Barr said "he was BAFFLED why Mr. Mueller reached conclusions on Russia collusion but declined to do so on obstruction of justice. 'I think that if he felt he shouldn’t go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn’t have investigated,' Mr. Barr said. 'That was the time to pull up.' " But, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to press Mr. Barr on his announcement that the Mueller report exonerated Mr. Trump, pointing to 10 episodes which the special counsel described in his report as possibly being able to be seen as attempts to obstruct the investigation. • Senator Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and ranking Committee member, asked about former White House counsel Don McGAHN, who told investigators that the President ordered him to fire Mr. Mueller. The Washington Times reported that the demand "worried Mr. McGahn so much that he prepared to quit. Mr. Trump has denied the allegation. Mr. Barr explained that the President never 'outright directed' Mr. McGahn to ax the special counsel. Rather, the President ordered Mr. McGahn to have Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein remove the special counsel for alleged conflicts of interest. 'There’s something very different firing a special counsel outright, which suggests ending an investigation, and having a special counsel removed for conflict -- which suggests you’re going to have another special counsel,' he said. • Senator Blumenthal, according to the Washington Times, said "Mr. Barr has tainted himself so badly that he should RECUSE himself from a dozen or so other Justice Department cases spun off from Mr. Mueller’s work." “No,” AG Barr said. He then chided Blumenthal for setting an "unrealistic standard" for the President. “It’s presumed that someone is innocent, and the government has to prove that they clearly violated the law. We are not in the business of exoneration,” AG Barr said. Blumenthal countered that it seemed like Barr was declaring President Trump in the clear with his public statements about how he saw the evidence. He said history will judge the attorney general harshly. “You in effect exonerated or cleared the President,” Senator Blumenthal said. “No, I didn’t,” Barr retorted, saying his job was to determine whether a prosecutable crime was committed. Now it is out of his control. • AND, then came the KEY POSITION of Attorney General Barr : "The report is now in the hands of the American people. Everyone can decide for themselves. There’s an election in 18 months. That’s a very democratic process. But we are out of it. We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon,” he said. • • • DEAR READERS, Attorney General Barr revealed at the Wednesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the Justice Department is looking into the possibility that Russian operatives fed disinformation to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election season. Barr told the Committee about the expanded scope of a review into “the activities over the summer of 2016,” which included rabidly anti-Trump FBI senior officials making key decisions on the Hillary and Trump investigations. The Washington Times said : "One key question is how much the FBI relied on the Dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, using information gleaned from Russian sources, which helped spur the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The Dossier was funded by payments from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee that were hidden in campaign finance reports behind payments to a law firm. Republican Senators said it’s possible that Mr. Steele’s Russian sources were intentionally feeding him disinformation, which then made it to the highest levels of the FBI. Indeed, former FBI Director James B. Comey’s first personal interaction with Mr. Trump was to brief him on the Steele Dossier shortly before his inauguration in January 2017. 'That’s the definition of collusion,' said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Senate’s senior Republican. Mr. Barr said he doesn’t know the answer -- yet. 'That is one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it, and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative,' he told the Senate Judiciary Committee." • As we expect from Deep State Swamp Creatures, as reported by the Washington Times : "Democrats were incensed at the prospect of a counter-investigation. They said the focus should stay squarely on Mr. Trump and what they believe to be his team’s efforts to coordinate with Russia in 2016 -- and then obstruct the investigation that resulted." Senator Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, called the Republican efforts “the so-called lock-her-up defense,” a reference to a popular Trump campaign trail chant against Mrs. Clinton for her use of a secret unsecured email account while she served as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama." • In what had to be the sick joke of the day, Senator Durbin said Mrs. Clinton’s troubles were old news : “That is totally unresponsive to the reality of what the American people want to know.” • As usual, Senator Durbin is wrong. What Americans want to know is why the Clinton campaign and the DNC made payments (hidden in campaign finance documents behind law firm entries) to Fusion GPS, a Democrat research operation that paid Steele to investigate reports of Trump’s financial links to Russia. Steele produced the Dossier that claimed secret meetings between Trump campaign figures and Russian operatives and suggested salacious events such as blackmail-style tapes of a Trump encounter with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. The Mueller report found no evidence to corroborate either of the allegations. AG Barr said he will review how and when the FBI learned of the Democrat backing for the Steele Dossier. AG Barr also told the Committee that President Trump probably should have been briefed on Russian meddling in the election, including efforts to reach out to his campaign: “I can’t fathom why it did not happen. If you are concerned about interference in the election and you have substantial people involved in the campaign who are former US attorneys, you had three former US attorneys there in the campaign. I don’t know why the bureau would not have gone and given a defensive briefing.” • Those stinging criticisms cover the entire Democrat Party effort to find obstruction where none existed. It covers the Democrat Party's effort to de-legitimize a duly-elected US President. It covers the Deep State cabal in the Obama FBI and DOJ to illegally use US law enforcement and intelligence services to get rid of a President who disagrees with their Progressive agenda -- an agenda driven by a Fake Dossier paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and used to subvert for political purposes the FISA Court surveillance warrant procedure. • For the Swamp Creature Democrats who continue to pursue the collusion-obstruction fantasies now proven to be false -- because they have no other means of attacking their nemesis who has turned out to be a very effective President, the road ahead is not made of Yellow Brick. It is filled with the Facts laid down as land mines by the top-notch Attorney General whom President Trump lacked in his first two years in office. • AND, to end on a high note -- Thursday is National Day of Prayer in America, a hopeful pause amidst these political storms, and a uniquely American experience. Dr. Ronnie Floyd, president of the National Day of Prayer, in a telephone interview with the Washington Times, said : “I’ve been told by people involved [with National Day of Prayer committees], all over the nation, there is probably more prayer happening in the country than ever before. It seems to be, according to what I’ve been informed, that there is more prayer than ever before.” Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill is the place to be for Floyd’s official leadership event this year. But, states and communities and localities all around the country will be holding their own prayer gatherings. Millions of Americans from all walks of life, from all religious denominations, from all political ideologies, from all spiritual beliefs, from all sorts of demographics that perhaps normally wouldn’t mix, nonetheless gather together to participate in the National Day of Prayer. Floyd says : "I operate with this [mindset]. I love the country, I believe in the country....but I also know this : The government cannot fix us, politics cannot heal us. The ultimate answer is we have to turn our eyes upward, toward heaven.” More timely or honorable words we could not hope to hear on this May 2, 2019.