So now Barr slithers out of his hidey hole

[CatWoman]

Barr says Mueller "could've reached a decision" on whether Trump obstructed justice

Tune in to "CBS This Morning" on Friday, May 31, for the full interview with Attorney General William Barr.



Attorney General William Barr said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller could have reached a decision on whether President Trump committed obstruction of justice, regardless of long-standing Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

In his first network interview since being sworn in, Barr said the special counsel, who gave a rare public statement Wednesday reiterating some of the key findings in his more than 400-page report, could have concluded the president broke the law without actually charging him, or cleared him of wrongdoing.

"I personally felt he could've reached a decision," he told CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford during an exclusive interview in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday.

When he became aware that Mueller would not make a determination in his obstruction of justice probe — which investigated 11 instances in which Mr. Trump tried to derail the Russia investigation — Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "felt it was necessary" for them to make decision on the issue.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barr-says-mueller-couldve-reached-a-decision-on-whether-trump-obstructed-justice/ar-AAC9r2i?ocid=ientp

[Ninga]

1. Me thinks Mr Mueller will not take too kindly to Mrs. Doubtfire's assertions. nt

[demmiblue]

2. Just putting this here:

Attorney General William Barr dining at the Trump hotel is a bad look

Attorney General William Barr was photographed dining at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night — a business his boss, President Donald Trump, still owns and profits from, and one that has become something of a de facto clubhouse for businesspeople and government officials looking to curry favor with the president.

Zach Everson, who reports on conflicts of interest stemming from the Trump International Hotel, tweeted that it was his “first time seeing Barr” at the hotel.

Trump was also at the hotel for an event hosted by America First Action, the Super PAC supporting his reelection. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported that the plan was for Trump to address “high-dollar donors” who have contributed to his reelection effort.

ABC’s Ali Dukakis snapped a photo of Barr dining at a restaurant in the hotel.

Link to tweet

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/23/18637013/william-barr-trump-international-hotel-patronage

[malaise]

11. That was last week

He was in Alaska yesterday

[demmiblue]

13. I known (I posted about it).

I just posted it here so people don't forget how far up Trump's arse he is.

[malaise]

14. Cool

Waiting to see if Rosenstein intends to take the fall for Barr and the Con.

Cannibalism is coming

[uponit7771]

17. +1

[tymorial]

33. Instead of AG Barr, the headline should have read, Trump's Personal Lawyer Barr nt

[gratuitous]

3. "I personally felt . . ."

That and five bucks will get you a coffee at Starbucks, Billy boy. Did you, as Attorney General, give official authorization to the Office of Special Counsel, and tell the Special Counsel it wasn't bound by the 1973 DOJ opinion about indicting a sitting president?

Because if you didn't, your comment isn't worth the breath it took to say it.

[SunSeeker]

4. This is the only thing I agree with Barr on. Mueller could and should have stated a conclusion.

Mueller all but stated Trump committed obstruction. He should have just come out and explicitly said it, and not left Barr to fill the vacuum.

[angstlessk]

7. According to everything I have read,

If you cannot indict, you cannot accuse of a crime, because said individual cannot have his/her day in court to face their accuser.

[CatWoman]

10. I've heard that too

[SunSeeker]

24. Mueller had a duty, as Special Counsel, per 28 CFR 600.8 (c), to state his conclusion.

That is the whole point of appointing a special counsel.

[a kennedy]

35. Yup....heard that as well.

Barr giving that “intro to a summary of the report” was just disastrous. Mueller had to come out with something......so his 9 minute “rebuttal” to Barr i’m sure made him feel like he did do his duty as the Special Council. HE SAID, READ HIS REPORT.

[SunSeeker]

22. That would certainly apply to a regular prosecutor, but Mueller was a Special Counsel.

He was required by law to submit a report detailing his findings, per 28 CFR 600.8 (c). Regular prosecutors don't have such an obligation.

Mueller chose not to state his conclusions on obstruction because it would be "unfair" to Trump, since he would have no "opportunity for public name-clearing." (See Mueller Report, Vol. II, page 2.) That is faulty reasoning. When it comes to the president, he certainly is able to "clear his name." He has the biggest megaphone in the world sitting in the White House. And he uses it on an hourly basis, disparaging Mueller and the investigation as a "witch hunt." Plus, he still has the presumption of innocence, and, if and when he gets criminally indicted, Trump would still have his day in court like anyone else. There was simply no ""fairness" basis for refusing to state a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice.

All the report's conclusions amount to is Mueller's opinion. He had a duty, as Special Counsel, to state that opinion in that report.

[malaise]

15. Mueller clearly stated that

As set forth in our report, after that investigation, if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.

That's as clear as day - the Con is guilty of a crime

[SunSeeker]

25. Not clear enough. It allowed Barr to step in and make the conclusion for him. nt

[malaise]

31. Barr is a proven LIAR

He should be disbarred

[SunSeeker]

39. I agree. nt

[lunatica]

26. What vacuum?

Mueller’s statement was pretty clear for people who read and speak English.

[SunSeeker]

28. No, it wasn't. And Mueller himself denies he made a conclusion.

Kinda hard to argue Mueller made a conclusion when Mueller himself said he did not.

I agree that certainly the report lays out all the elements of obstruction, and it is obvious to everyone reading the report that Trump committed obstruction of justice. A lot.

But Mueller insisted he would not say that he thought Trump committed a crime, claiming it would be "unfair" to Trump. Which is ridiculous.

[lunatica]

30. He said that if a clear crime were committed it would be in the report

Then he said that Trump was not cleared to the point where Mueller could say he was innocent.

[SunSeeker]

37. Right. Which makes no sense.

If he can say Trump didn't commit a crime, why can't he say Trump did? Either way, he's just stating his opinion. Trump still has the presumption of innocence.

[tymorial]

34. Nope

[genxlib]

5. One of my favorite song lyrics of all time

Is from RUSH - Free Will

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice

Methinks that Mueller made his choice pretty clear when he said he would have cleared him if he could have.

[malaise]

6. Barr deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report

PERIOD. He and Rosenstein were wrong to make a decision on the issue and he did nothing to clean up his lies after Mueller sent two letters.

[empedocles]

8. traitorbarr

[malaise]

9. Disbarr

and impeach

[empedocles]

12. When would be best time to disbar and impeach?

[uponit7771]

19. +1

[spanone]

16. barr is an enemy of the United States

fuck him and rosenstein

[malaise]

32. +1,000

[spanone]

36. these MFers

[Iliyah]

18. The unredacted Mueller's report needs to be exposed.

[Blue Owl]

20. He leaves a slime trail just like Cruz

n/t

[spanone]

21. I don't believe a word this guy says. Not. One. Word.

[coti]

23. Oh, well if Mueller could have come right out and said that Trump should be indicted, why didn't you

tell him then?

[nuxvomica]

27. Yeah. Someone needs to ask him that question.

I'm genuinely curious as to what his wild-ass excuse would be because I can't imagine one.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. Barr isn't really built for slithering.

But I get your point.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

38. Oh fuck off, you corrupt walrus!! nt

[Kid Berwyn]

40. Bill Barr: The "Cover-Up General"

"At the center of the criticism is the chief artic­ulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"

by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019



The Village Voice, October 27, 1992

“Attorney General William Barr is the Best Reason to Vote for Clinton”

Excerpt....

SON OF THE CIA

It was 21 years ago, in 1971, that I first encountered William Barr. Both of us were working for the CIA at the time, he as a novice China analyst, I as a member of the agency’s Vietnam task force. Jovial and un­assuming, he took his cues easily from an overly politicized office chief. It was a to­ken of things to come.

Three years before, we had brushed shoulders unknowingly on Columbia Uni­versity’s roiling campus. Both of us were on the other side of the barricades as antiwar demonstrations there blasted our genera­tion into a decade of rage. Barr, a conserva­tive student spokesman, preached tough­ness to the university administration, of which his father, then dean of the engineer­ing faculty, was a leading light. Years later, this same damn-the-torpedoes zeal would commend Barr to his ultimate father figure, George Bush. When Cuban refugees penned up at an Alabama prison rioted and took hostages in the summer of 1991, depu­ty attorney general Barr ordered the place stormed. Soon afterward, Bush tapped him for the attorney general slot itself.

Barr first met Bush in the CIA. In 1976, having shifted to the agency’s legislative office, he helped write the pap sheets that director Bush used to fend off the Pike and Church committees, the first real embodiments of Congressional oversight of the CIA. Intimates say the experience was for­mative for Barr, turning him into an impla­cable enemy of congressional intrusions on executive prerogative.

“The most radical period I had probably was when I was sort of a moderate Republi­can,” he later acknowledged. Sure enough, Barr stayed safe within conservative clutch­es even after leaving the agency in 1977. Armed with a night-school law diploma, he asked for — and got — Bush’s backing for a clerkship appointment to Malcolm Wilkey of the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. Years later, as attorney general, Barr would name Wilkey to investigate the House Banking scandal. Wilkey repayed the favor with a wrenchingly partisan in­quiry. Feeding the press overheated charges of wrongdoing, he scored points off the Democratic Congress just as the adminis­tration itself was being pilloried for its failed economics.

Source...

https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/

Chapter and verse since Jimmy Carter crossed paths with the Safari Club, Capitalism’s Invisible Army sends its own fixer... So it’s Big Oil to the Rescue and the Seven Sisters Escape Justice Once Again with this guy Barr.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

41. Trying to protect his man Trump