How Far Bill Barr Has Fallen
Many observers breathed a sigh of relief when Bill Barr was confirmed as attorney general. Here was a respected professional who had served in the post once before in an honorable administration. Now, just a year and a half later, what a disappointment he has proved. The man cannot be trusted.
Think of the intentionally misleading account he gave of the Mueller report, at a time when the public and Congress had only Barr’s word to go by. Or the brief he allowed his Justice Department to file with the Supreme Court in the case about including a citizenship question on the 2020 census, whose rationale the Court later characterized as “contrived” and “pretextual.” Or his false account of the use of armed forces to clear Lafayette Square for the president’s photo op. Or his statement that U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman asked to step down, when Berman had done no such thing. And now we have damning testimony this week about the politicization of the Department of Justice in the prosecution of the Trump ally Roger Stone.
The attorney general is entitled to his opinion on the policies underlying these matters, and to argue forcefully for them. But as a lawyer, as a high official, as an officer of the court, he must not misrepresent the facts or the authorities. Americans need not agree with the attorney general’s arguments or conclusions, but they must have absolute confidence that he will not try to deceive them.
How did a man with a good reputation allow himself to mislead time and time again? Barr proclaims himself—as in recent speeches to the Federalist Society and at Notre Dame—a man of deep moral principles and is proud to espouse stern, rigorous Roman Catholic convictions. There are, of course, strong differences of opinion on the morality of abortion, LGBTQ rights, and the separation of Church and state generally. Some Christian groups have embraced all of these; to others they are anathema and symptoms of moral degeneracy.
But on one moral principle, all must come together: the supreme value of truth. Satan, Jesus says in the Gospel of John, is the father of lies. As Saint Augustine explains in De Mendacio, the Ninth Commandment is not limited to injuring another by false testimony in a court proceeding, but extends to any communication intended to deceive. In his Divine Comedy, Dante consigns deceivers, liars, and falsifiers to the eighth circle of hell—the circle of fraud.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/how-far-bill-barr-has-fallen/ar-BB1627D0?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=DELLDHP
I'm one who didn't have high hopes for Barr. I just didn't think he'd be this bad.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and that first sentence? 
