The Attorney General is the Man of the Moment

by

       Zeno Potas

      After the American people have endured 8 years of the past president’s Department of IN-Justice that thumbed it’s nose up at the Constitution and the rule of law, the appointment of William Barr seems refreshing and hopeful that the Republic has not perished quite yet. His demeanor and even-handed approach to the position seems to re-establish credibility to the position much to the chagrin of the Left and their poison pen media.

      In a recent televised interview he spoke of what he sees as, although he does not call it this, a coup attempt and an attempt at undermining the entire country and the Constitution by high officials within the government. Since this idea is one that President Trump has been railing about for years, the Left is attacking him as a lackey for the president. Decide for yourselves if this sounds like a stooge or perhaps the last honest man in Washington? Being at the end of his career and with nothing to loose, we feel that more than ever that he might be exactly the right person to navigate the country through this tumultuous period.

On his appointment:

      “I realize we live in a crazy hyper-partisan period of time and I knew that it would only be a matter of time if I was behaving responsibly and calling them as I see them, that I would be attacked because nowadays people don’t care about the merits and the substance. They only care about who it helps, who benefits, whether my side benefits or the other side benefits, everything is gauged by politics. And as I say, that’s antithetical to the way the department runs and any attorney general in this period is going to end up losing a lot of political capital and I realize that and that is one of the reasons that I ultimately was persuaded that I should take it on because I think at my stage in life it really doesn’t make any difference.”

On whether the Mueller report was biased:

      Mr. Mueller “said that he could not say that the president was clearly did not violate the law, which of course is not the standard we use at the department. We have to determine whether there is clear violation of the law and so we applied the standards we would normally apply. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction. As a matter of law, we didn’t agree with the legal analysis- a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department. It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law but then we didn’t rely on that. We also looked at all the facts, tried to determine whether the government could establish all the elements and as to each of those episodes we felt that the evidence was deficient. We would have to prove corrupt intent, the report itself points out that one of the likely motivations here was the president’s frustration with Comey saying something publicly and saying a different thing privately and refusing to correct the record.”

On criticism the he is protecting the president: 

      “Well, we live in a hyper-partisan age where people no longer really pay attention to the substance of what’s said but as to who says it and what side they’re on and what it’s political ramifications are. The Department of Justice is all about the law, and the facts and the substance and I’m going to make the decisions based on the law and the facts and I realize that’s intention with the political climate we live in because people are more interested in getting their way politically. So I think it just goes with the territory of being the attorney general in a hyper-partisan period of time.”

On the spying on the Trump campaign:

        “Was enough was done? Probably not. You know, I think Bob Mueller did some impressive work in his investigation, you know, identifying some of the Russian hackers and their influence campaign and you sort of wonder if that kind of work had been done starting in 2016, things could have been a lot different. I have no idea (why). That’s one of the things I’m interested in looking at you know– I’m wondering what exactly was the response to it if they were alarmed. Surely the response should have been more than just, you know, dangling a confidential informant in front of a peripheral player in the Trump Campaign and look, I think if we, are we are worried about foreign influence in the campaign? We should be because the heart of our system is the peaceful transfer of power through elections and what gives the government legitimacy is that process. And if foreign elements can come in and affect it, that’s bad for the republic. But by the same token, it’s just as, it’s just as dangerous to the continuation of self-government and our republican system, republic that we not allow government power, law enforcement or intelligence power, to play a role in politics, to intrude into politics, and affect elections. There were counterintelligence activities undertaken against the Trump Campaign. And I’m not saying there was not a basis for it, that it was legitimate, but I want to see what that basis was and make sure it was legitimate.”

      “I think it’s important to understand what basis there was for launching counterintelligence activities against a political campaign, which is the core of our second amendment- I’m sorry, the core of our first amendment liberties in this country. And what was the predicate for it? What was the hurdle that had to be crossed? What was the process- who had to approve it? And including the electronic surveillance, whatever electronic surveillance was done. And was everyone operating in their proper lane? And I’ve selected a terrific career prosecutor from the department who’s been there over thirty years, he’s now the U.S. attorney.”

On how this happened:

      “Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest, the better good. They don’t realize that what they’re doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have. They start viewing themselves as the guardians of the people that are more informed and insensitive than everybody else. They can- in their own mind, they can have those kinds of motives. And sometimes they can look at evidence and facts through a biased prism that they themselves don’t realize. The fact that today people just seem to brush aside the idea that it is okay to you know, to engage in these activities against a political campaign is stunning to me especially when the media doesn’t seem to think that it’s worth looking into. They’re supposed to be the watchdogs of, you know, our civil liberties. ...the media reaction is strange. Normally the media would be interested in letting the sunshine in and finding out what the truth is…... but I do and I will.

On his attempt to get to the truth:

      “I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I’d get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions, and that some of the facts that- that I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened. That’s all I really will say. Things are just not jiving,”

On who he thinks are responsible:

      “I think the activities were undertaken by a small group at the top which is one of the- probably one of the mistakes that has been made instead of running this as a normal bureau investigation or counterintelligence investigation. It was done by the executives at the senior level out of headquarters. I’m just not going to get into the individual names at this point. But I just view that- I don’t view it as a bureau wide issue. And I will say the same thing for other intelligence agencies.”

On the agency’s communications:

      “Well it’s hard to read some of the texts with and not feel that there was gross bias at work and they’re appalling... and on their face they were very damning and I think if the shoe was on the other foot we could be hearing a lot about it. If those kinds of discussions were held you know when Obama first ran for office, people talking about Obama in those tones and suggesting that “Oh that he might be a Manchurian candidate for Islam or something like that.” You know some wild accusations like that and you had that kind of discussion back and forth, you don’t think we would be hearing a lot more about it?”

On whether this behavior is a danger to the Republic:

      “In my mind, they are, sure. I mean, republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state. And you know, there is that tendency that they know better and that, you know, they’re there to protect as guardians of the people. That can easily translate into essentially supervening the will of the majority and getting your own way as a government official.”

On the president:

      “I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it’s President Trump that’s shredding our institutions. I really see no evidence of that, it is hard, and I really haven’t seen bill of particulars as to how that’s being done. From my perspective the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring.”

      Despite William Barr’s past association with the Deep State this man seems to want to get to the truth. As the underlying powers that be attempt now to discredit and destroy his reputation, time will tell where this leads and where we go as a nation.