#bill barr

[sher-ee]

[republikkkanorcs]

[not-safe-for-democracy]

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[simply-ivanka]

Bill Barr, has demonstrated that he is Anti-Trump. Stay far away from him.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

I think we knew that a federal indictment of former president Donald Trump would elicit a collective primal scream from the right-wing fever swamp — and they have not disappointed.

In true Trump-era fashion, the response from most elected Republicans has been a collective whine about "unfairness" and the "weaponization" of the "deep state." Some have even gone so far as to at least hint around that it's a nice little country we have here, be a shame if anything happened to it. I would expect nothing less. This is how they roll.

There are, notably, a few dissenters from that party line.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney put out a statement saying that Trump "brought this on himself" and it's "consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest," which is true. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2024 GOP hopeful, said "these facts are devastating," which is also true. But they, and a handful of others, are outliers among GOP elected officials.

One very significant former GOP official has come out swinging, however:

There are a number of Trump defenses out there. But the main talking point, which we can assume was coordinated, is that this is a political prosecution engineered by President Biden to take out his most threatening political rival. And their main proof of this is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina probably articulated this the best, including the deployment of some very emotional righteous indignation:

He's not saying it's ok, he's just saying that Hillary Clinton got off so that cancels out Trump's crimes. Or something.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wi. says that Trump refused to prosecute Clinton but Joe Biden sent in a SWAT Team to torment Trump:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the same theme:

“Is there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let's enforce it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules.”

It wasn't a perfect defense of Trump but as long as he makes sure to condemn Hillary Clinton is probably good enough for the moment.

As much as I loathe the idea of re-litigating "but her emails," I'm sorry to say that it's necessary. There was almost no pushback to this talking point from the media, probably because they didn't get the Clinton story right in the first place. A few have since stepped up to point out that Clinton didn't refuse to cooperate with the government, as Trump did, although Trump and his accomplices will no doubt cry inanely about her "bleaching the emails" and "smashing the phones" and that will be enough to sustain the argument. Trump may even say "Russia, if you're listening" again. But those allegations are just plain silly and always have been. And the fact that she didn't obstruct the investigation is only part of the story.

As it happened, Clinton copied all work emails to the State Department system so they had them. The Justice Department inspector general issued a report in 2018 about the FBI Investigation and determined that the people tasked with marking documents as classified had not done so clearly. Moreover, only three email chains "contained any classification markings of any kind," and they were low-priority "call sheets" marked with the lowest priority of classification, which had info and details for Clinton to refer to when talking to a foreign leader. There were no nuclear secrets or war plans among them, needless to say.

The State Department under Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo did two separate investigations and found in 2019 that there was "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" and that Clinton bore no "individual culpability."

And let's dispense with the "magnanimous" Trump defense. Trump tried desperately to get the DOJ to investigate Clinton (and many others he considered his political enemies.) His White House counsel told him that the DOJ operated independently and if he ordered it there would be tremendous unrest from career officials and massive political blowback. That didn't stop him. He conspired with Matthew Whittaker, then an assistant to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get Sessions to assign a Special Counsel to investigate Clinton. In the end, they succeeded in getting Sessions to assign John Huber, a US Attorney in Utah to look into all the allegations against Clinton, including the bogus "Uranium One" scandal which had also already been dismissed. That investigation didn't turn up anything either.

Notably, when Bill Barr became Attorney General he looked into all of it and also came up with nothing. If anyone thinks that Barr wouldn't have prosecuted Clinton if he could have doesn't recall just how much he hates her guts. The evidence just wasn't there. So, the FBI, the DOJ Inspector General, two State Department probes, a Clinton-hating attorney general and a U.S. Attorney assigned to review all the evidence found that Clinton committed no crimes. (I'm not even counting the 10 Benghazi investigations which were the genesis of the email scandal —- and also came up empty.)

I know your eyes have glazed over by this point and you wonder why in the world anyone should care about this. And frankly, we shouldn't have to. It's long settled ancient history. But the right's "whatboutism" and the media's continued unwillingness to acknowledge that, once the FBI determined there was no crime, there was no crime, I fear that a lot of people who aren't already down the right wing rabbit hole will be persuaded that this is a partisan prosecution simply because of the words "classified documents."

When former FBI Director James Comey held that first notorious press conference in the summer of 2016, in which he larded with inappropriate personal judgments about Clinton, he laid out the criteria the Justice Department uses when it decides whether to prosecute classified documents cases. He said:

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

Assuming they have proof of the charges in the Trump indictment, there can be little doubt that they met three of those four criteria, (the fourth being disloyalty to the United States which I believe to be true as well.) So when you see these Republicans emitting their epic whines about how unfair all this is because Hillary didn't get indicted, keep in mind that it wasn't for lack of Trump trying to get it done. It was because, unlike him, she didn't break the law. And even Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr couldn't find a way to make it so.

In case you were wondering, yes the House Republicans are considering a new investigation into —- you guessed it —- her emails. Because of course they are.

[dodelof]

Donald Trump - Mr. Liar, Mr. Grifter, Mr. Traitor, Mr. DumbAss

Schon wieder haut Trump auf seiner Plattform nichts als Lügen raus. Das ist schon sehr problematisch; wir haben da einen ehemaligen Präsidenten, der es nicht sein lassen kann, zu lügen, zu betrügen, sich an seinen Mitmenschen abzureagieren, anderen die Schuld für Dinge zu geben, die eindeutig er verbrochen hat. Das viel interessantere Problem ist aber; wie kann es sein, dass es soviele Menschen gibt, die noch immer auf ihn hereinfallen? Sind die einfach alle so dumm, dümmer, am dümmsten oder fallen sie einfach auf seine Versprechen herein, von denen er kein einziges je wird einlösen können?

[corporationsarepeople]

This is unhinged.

No, not the speculation that Epstein didn’t kill himself. Most people don’t think he did. The unhinged part is that the very guy who hired the people responsible for keeping Epstein safe, the same guy who was accused by multiple people of raping girls with Epstein, the one guy that had the reason and the ability to see to it that Epstein didn’t survive the night, that guy is now saying “yeah, maybe he was murdered.”

Does Trump even know what the executive branch does? Does he remember he was in charge of it when Epstein was jailed?

[Another angle here could be that trump knows damn well what happened & he’s setting Barr up for a fall. Barr was connected to Epstein as well—Barr’s dad gave him Epstein first job teaching high school, which he wasn’t qualified for, and it’s speculated that his blackmail business started there. Either way, this should be a major story right now, but it’s buried under the mugshots.]

[dadsinsuits]

William Barr

[constantly-deactivated]

They are all connected in some way, I guess that's why they had to run the blackmailing scheme on everyone. Check it out 👇

If you think about it, everyone Trump had in his cabinet was there to be EXPOSED.🤔

Remember the old saying; "Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer."

The military tribunal👇

https://realrawnews.com/2021/06/military-convicts-william-barr/

The execution👇

https://realrawnews.com/2021/08/military-eliminates-william-barr/

I've posted this on my deactivated blogs when it happened last year. Things are happening behind the scenes and people don't believe it because it is not on their favorite shamestream media news. 🤔

[not-safe-for-democracy]

THEY ALL KNEW

via stef.unplugged.almost and scheuermann1 / tiktok

THEY ALL KNEW

[ms-cellanies]

In case you missed this last night on The Beat With Ari Melber he discussed the latest NYT’s article about Barr & Durham ostensibly protecting Trump instead of actually going after the truth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=134470

https://www.alternet.org/bill-barr-2659317134/ 

[jonostroveart]

Gutless Toast

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

William Barr Former U.S. Attorney General

Bill looks like a human Droopy. Then I see him smile and I go aww... want some dick?

What?

I’m not voting for or marrying him. 

I’m just using him as a cum dumpster then kicking him to the streets.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former President Trump on Sunday repeatedly slammed his former Attorney General Bill Barr with a litany of insulting terms including as “a coward who didn’t do his job” as he argued that “virtually everybody” besides Barr finds the former president’s recent federal indictment a “disgrace.”

“This thing is a disgrace and virtually everybody other than a low life like Bill Barr — who I, as you know, I terminated because he was gutless, he wouldn’t do what you’re supposed to do — but everybody says this is a disgraceful indictment. It shouldn’t happen,” Trump said on “The Roger Stone Show” on 77 WABC.

The interview was the debut episode of the longtime Trump ally’s radio show and the former president’s first media interview appearance since he was charged in a 37-count indictment revealed on Thursday over his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House.

“I think he’s a coward who didn’t do his job. He was desperately afraid of being impeached. You remember when the Democrats were saying, ‘We’re going to impeach Bill Barr.’ There was no reason to impeach him. But they were going to impeach Bill Barr. He was petrified of being impeached,” Trump said.

“We had unbelievable people as you know, in the administration, but we also had some that we got wrong and Bill Barr was a mistake. And you know, too bad — but he was a mistake,” Trump said.

Barr was attorney general during the Trump administration until he left the Justice Department in December 2020, breaking with Trump to state publicly that the FBI and DOJ had found no evidence to back up the then-president’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

Barr has critiqued the characterization of Trump as a victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” as “ridiculous” as he faces down the latest indictment.

Trump minced no words in referencing Barr on Stone’s show.

“I fired him for just not doing his job,” Trump said of Barr on Stone’s show, suggesting that he directed Barr to depart the DOJ.

“And, you know, I’m not going to do this anymore. I said, ‘Give me a paper of resignation.’ And he did. He gave me a paper of resignation. And then they say, ‘Oh, they left.’ They didn’t leave. I said, ‘Give it to me.' I could name others too,” the former president said, calling the indictment “a disgrace.”

Stone was sentenced in 2020 on charges that included witness tampering and lying to Congress in connection with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but Trump later commuted the sentence and then pardoned Stone at the end of his presidency.