William Barr assures senators he will not interfere with Russia probe, addresses controversial memo
Senate Judiciary Committee question President Trump's attorney general nominee; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
After Tuesday’s masterful performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, if Senate Democrats still decide to oppose William Barr to be our next Attorney General, it means one thing. It means that they will oppose anyone President Trump nominates because they hate this president more than they love our country.
Here’s the truth. By any measurement, President Trump made an outstanding decision in nominating William Barr to be our nation’s next Attorney General. At Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr proved himself to be an extraordinarily qualified nominee and someone who deserves robust bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.
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As a former attorney general during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Barr is a well-respected senior statesman and patriot who could have easily chosen retirement and leisure but instead chose duty and country during a trying time in America. Barr repeatedly made it clear that he will be not be swayed by politics in his decision making but instead guided by the rule of law and Justice Department policies and procedures.
Quite predictably, Senate Democrats are attempting to make hay out of a memorandum Barr wrote last year speculating about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s possible pursuit of obstruction of justice charges against President Trump. Barr argued that President Trump cannot be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because it’s within the president’s constitutional authority to hire and fire whom he pleases in the Executive Branch of government, including the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Barr is the right man to clean up the political gamesmanship that corrupted the upper echelons of the Justice Department and FBI under the previous administration and should be confirmed without delay.
That being said, Barr testified in no uncertain terms that he would allow Mr. Mueller to finish his 20-month old investigation and that he favored transparency with regard to any final report that Mueller’s office decides to submit to the Justice Department. I agree with Mr. Barr on this point wholeheartedly, because the American people have the right to learn how the special counsel’s investigation was conducted, since it has been subject to no public oversight whatsoever.
But Barr - in a show of independence - also gave new Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham his word that he would look into how the FBI counter-intelligence investigation of President Trump reported in the New York Times last week began. In an enormous backfire, that report did nothing more than cconfirm onceagain that a handful of former bad apples at the FBI are still playing politics to cover up for their shameful improprieties. The American people deserve to know who leaked the existence of this investigation and whether it was launched in retaliation for the firing of James Comey.
Despite the hyper-partisan call by Senate Minority Leader and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Chuck Schumer for President Trump to withdrawal Barr’s nomination, as the day went on, Barr gave Senate Democrats nothing to grab onto politically. It’s obvious that Barr is not a political actor, but rather a well-known Washington quantity and consummate professional who served in the administration of establishment Republican Bush 41 in the early 1990s.
Any Senate Democrat who voted to confirm Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch for Attorney General would look overtly political and downright silly in voting against William Barr. After all, Barr has never described President Trump as his "wingman" as former Attorney General Eric Holder described his boss President Barack Obama, and Barr has certainly never conspired to obstruct justice like former Attorney General Loretta Lynch seemingly did by secretly meeting with President Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix while deciding whether or not to prosecute his spouse.
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After Tuesday’s hearing, it doesn’t look like Senate Democrats will go "full-Kavanaugh" on Barr by asking him for his high school yearbooks and whether or not he enjoys drinking beer. The truth is that if the Democrats oppose someone like William Barr, there is no one that they would support. After their Kavanaugh debacle, Judiciary Committee Democrats would be wise to approve Barr instead of coming completely unhinged on national television once again.
Mr. Barr demonstrated Tuesday that he will make the American people proud as our next Attorney General. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for opting to return to public service at a time when our country needs him most. Barr is the right man to clean up the political gamesmanship that corrupted the upper echelons of the Justice Department and FBI under the previous administration and should be confirmed without delay.
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