Bill Barr: The "Cover-Up General"

[elleng]

October 27, 1992

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


A federal judge accuses the Justice De­partment of trying to “shape” a case in­volving illegal loans to Iraq. The House Judiciary Committee blasts federal attor­neys for compromising their reputation for impartiality in the investigation of a com­puter-software theft. CIA officials charge a deputy attorney general with advocating the suppression of evidence in a sensitive sentencing hearing.

To even the most avid scandalmonger, these may sound like the ravings of a fe­vered Orwellian imagination. But in fact they are all part of a litany of wrongdoing leveled at George Bush’s Justice Depart­ment in the past two months alone. And at the center of the criticism is the chief artic­ulator of Bush’s imperial presidency, the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of, foreign nationals abroad — Attorney General Wil­liam P. Barr.

So fast has Barr’s star dimmed in recent months that even conservative pundits like The New York Times’s William Safire have taken to calling him the “Cover-Up General.” But so poorly understood are Barr’s ties to the president himself that the fires now threatening the Justice Department have barely singed the Oval Office.

To some Washington insiders, that comes as a surprise, for Barr is surely the closest thing this administration has to a court philosopher. Through the policy deci­sions he has authored, first as assistant at­torney general and finally as the chief him­self, he has fashioned a coherent, radical ideology for a White House that is only ostensibly middle-of-the-road.

While the president, for example, hails a “new world order” based on the rules of law, Barr’s briefs give us broken interna­tional covenants. Though conservative pur­ists pretend that the Justice Department remains reactive, the attorney general, bol­stered by an activist Supreme Court, sets aggressively conservative social agendas on everything from abortion to immigration­ — while stalling off inquiries into a myriad of scandals. Indeed, nothing better sums up the political gospel and failings of George Bush’s reign on the eve of this election than the handiwork of his chief lawyer.>>>

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

[scarletwoman]

1. Great find! It's clear that he would never be a good-faith actor, and any thought being entertained

to the contrary would be wholly delusional.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Very important article...Thank you!

Excerpt:

As the heat intensified, however, so did the weakness in bureaucratic knees. On Oc­tober 8 CIA lawyers, testifying to the Sen­ate Intelligence Committee, declared that a devil at Justice had made them do it – that one of Barr’s subordinates had encouraged them to skimp the truth in the letter to Shoob. Justice officials struck back by play­ing victim. How do you suborn the CIA? they demanded publicly. The CIA again parried by claiming that the early tell-all intelligence reports fingering BNL-Rome had been known to FBI and thus Justice officials since late 1989. Barr in turn or­dered FBI chief William Sessions investi­gated on unrelated ethics charges — a probe that some see as an attempt to buffalo the Bureau at the very moment it might be tempted to investigate Iraqgate on its own.

Geesh.

[elleng]

3. Yes, very important.

Welcome to DU.

[StevieM]

4. He played a huge role in the pardoning of Iran-Contra offenders back in 1992. (eom)