Month: May 2019

Donald Trump Has Finally Found His Soulmate in William Barr

Bloomberg – Politics

Donald Trump Has Finally Found His Soulmate: William Barr
Timothy L. O’Brien, Bloomberg      May 3, 2019
Donald Trump Has Finally Found His Soulmate: William Barr

 

(Bloomberg Opinion) — James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, took to the New York Times opinion pages on Wednesday to examine why seemingly top-drawer people lose their principles, courage, bearings and voices once they enter President Donald Trump’s orbit.

Comey published his column the same day Attorney General William Barr testified in the Senate about how he went about ingesting, publishing and spinning Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report. Barr ran interference for Trump throughout the hearing and the president’s apparent ability to co-opt Barr troubled Comey. The ex-FBI boss thinks Barr succumbed to Trump because the attorney general’s moral backbone has gone missing.

“Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from,” Comey wrote. “Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.”

That’s a fetching bit of analysis. But I think it’s wrong, at least in Barr’s case. He has all the inner strength he needs.

Consider the Senate hearing. Barr was hardly a hostage unshackled to do battle for his master. He absorbed and beat back questions for hours, his jaw set, his gaze defiant, his demeanor alternating from bored to condescending, and his responses weighted and phrased to indicate that his answers were the only correct answers. His tolerance for questions about his motives, methodology and integrity was limited. When members of the House of Representatives got ready for their turn to grill him on Thursday, Barr simply blew them off.

He’s doing all of this, I suspect, because he believes in it (and because he came to the administration ready to do the handiwork that protected and enhanced the powers of the presidency). He has always favored an unfettered, imperial White House and has gone out of his way over the years to insulate the executive branch from prying eyes and congressional oversight.

Barr originally got an audition for the attorney general’s job after openly taking pot shots at the bona fides of the Mueller investigation. I imagine his interview with the president about filling Jeff Sessions’ shoes must have revolved around a willingness to go to bat for Trump. Barr knew what was expected of him, but he was already comfortably in his own philosophical zone. He proved it early on in his new job when he stood next to the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and told the world, on cue from Trump during a promotional stunt, that the president had the legal authority to declare an emergency on the U.S. southern border.

The roots of this run deep and pre-date Barr’s arrival in Trump’s White House. As Charlie Sykes noted in The Bulwark this week, Barr “has for 30 years been the go-to guy for protecting a president, covering up scandals, and obstructing investigations.” The late Times columnist William Safire labeled Barr “General Coverup” in 1992 when, as George H.W. Bush’s attorney general, he failed to appoint an independent counsel to closely examine funding for Iraq’s then dictator, Saddam Hussein. Safire used the same label for Barr after he derailed an independent counsel’s probe of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Amid the recent controversy surrounding the Mueller report, Barr has proven adept at using the language of the law to present himself as an institutionalist mindful of process and an evidentiary approach. At the same time, he has ignored or misinterpreted evidence while running roughshod over process in an effort to control the narrative and public perceptions of the report.

Barr rushed to provide a summary of the Mueller probe when it landed on his desk in late March because, he claimed during Wednesday’s hearing, the “body politic was in a high state of agitation.” Perhaps. But his need for speed also allowed him to interpret a report that the general public had yet to see. Barr used that opportunity to actively misrepresent some of Mueller’s findings. Click here for a comparison between what Mueller actually said in certain sections of his report and how Barr cherry-picked the phrasing to cast them in often inaccurate and more favorable light.

When Barr testified before House and Senate committees in early April he was in possession of a letter from Mueller complaining that his summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s report. Barr didn’t mention the letter or its observations during the hearings — even though one congressman specifically asked him if Mueller’s team was concerned about the Barr summary.

Barr’s effort to control the narrative — rather than act like a process-oriented lawman — reasserted itself two weeks ago when he released a redacted version of the Mueller report. Before doing so he held an odd press briefing in which he repeatedly landed on one of Trump’s talking points (“No collusion!”) and revisited his original summary of the report. (And Barr still hadn’t disclosed the Mueller letter’s existence or observations.)

The hearing on Wednesday was also loaded with misdirection and stage management rather than the close adherence to the law that Barr kept emphasizing as paramount. This rundown from Lawfare’s Ben Wittes is a good, comprehensive overview of Barr’s conduct from someone who has previously gone out of his way to support his approach. “Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject,” Wittes observes. “Barr has consistently sought to spin his department’s work in a highly political fashion, and he has done so to cast the president’s conduct in the most favorable light.”

Barr was astute enough to try to turn the table on arguments like this during the hearing itself, even though the facts still weigh against him. “Two years of his administration have been dominated by the allegations that have now been proven false,” Barr said on Wednesday. “And, you know, to listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think that the Mueller report had found the opposite.”

It’s not true that all of the allegations leveled at Trump have been proven wrong. Possible obstruction of justice still looms large around all of this, for example. Barr no doubt knows this. But he’s playing a longer game. He’s in this to secure the priorities and the prerogatives of the executive branch, and that has nothing to do with the White House or Trump taking bites out of his soul. It’s just who William Barr is, and always has been.

To contact the author of this story: Timothy L. O’Brien at tobrien46@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Timothy L. O’Brien is the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. He has been an editor and writer for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, HuffPost and Talk magazine. His books include “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.”

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Bill Barr

New York Times – Opinion

James Comey: How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Bill Barr
Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive this president.

By James Comey      May 1, 2019

Mr. Comey is the former F.B.I. director.

Credit: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times

People have been asking me hard questions. What happened to the leaders in the Trump administration, especially the attorney general, Bill Barr, who I have said was due the benefit of the doubt?

How could Mr. Barr, a bright and accomplished lawyer, start channeling the president in using words like “no collusion” and F.B.I. “spying”? And downplaying acts of obstruction of justice as products of the president’s being “frustrated and angry,” something he would never say to justify the thousands of crimes prosecuted every day that are the product of frustration and anger?

How could he write and say things about the report by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, that were apparently so misleading that they prompted written protest from the special counsel himself?

How could Mr. Barr go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and downplay President Trump’s attempt to fire Mr. Mueller before he completed his work?

And how could Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, after the release of Mr. Mueller’s report that detailed Mr. Trump’s determined efforts to obstruct justice, give a speech quoting the president on the importance of the rule of law? Or on resigning, thank a president who relentlessly attacked both him and the Department of Justice he led for “the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations”?

What happened to these people?

I don’t know for sure. People are complicated, so the answer is most likely complicated. But I have some idea from four months of working close to Mr. Trump and many more months of watching him shape others.

Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them. Sometimes what they reveal is inspiring. For example, James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, resigned over principle, a concept so alien to Mr. Trump that it took days for the president to realize what had happened, before he could start lying about the man.

But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.

It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence. In meetings with him, his assertions about what “everyone thinks” and what is “obviously true” wash over you, unchallenged, as they did at our private dinner on Jan. 27, 2017, because he’s the president and he rarely stops talking. As a result, Mr. Trump pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent.

 

I must have agreed that he had the largest inauguration crowd in history because I didn’t challenge that. Everyone must agree that he has been treated very unfairly. The web building never stops.

From the private circle of assent, it moves to public displays of personal fealty at places like cabinet meetings. While the entire world is watching, you do what everyone else around the table does — you talk about how amazing the leader is and what an honor it is to be associated with him.

Sure, you notice that Mr. Mattis never actually praises the president, always speaking instead of the honor of representing the men and women of our military. But he’s a special case, right? Former Marine general and all. No way the rest of us could get away with that. So you praise, while the world watches, and the web gets tighter.

Next comes Mr. Trump attacking institutions and values you hold dear — things you have always said must be protected and which you criticized past leaders for not supporting strongly enough. Yet you are silent. Because, after all, what are you supposed to say? He’s the president of the United States.

You feel this happening. It bothers you, at least to some extent. But his outrageous conduct convinces you that you simply must stay, to preserve and protect the people and institutions and values you hold dear. Along with Republican members of Congress, you tell yourself you are too important for this nation to lose, especially now.

You can’t say this out loud — maybe not even to your family — but in a time of emergency, with the nation led by a deeply unethical person, this will be your contribution, your personal sacrifice for America. You are smarter than Donald Trump, and you are playing a long game for your country, so you can pull it off where lesser leaders have failed and gotten fired by tweet.

And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.

James Comey is the former F.B.I. director and author of “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”

Bob Mueller’s Extraordinary Letter to Bill Barr

New York Times – Opinion

Bob Mueller’s Extraordinary Letter to Bill Barr

The special counsel publicly upbraided the attorney general for his sketchy summary of the Trump investigation.

By The Editorial Board             May 1, 2019

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Image CreditCredit: Arianna Vairo

 

Robert Mueller is a stickler for the rules. The special counsel team he led was a leakproof box, his spokesman seldom spoke and his only public statements came in the form of indictments and court filings.

But on March 27, three days after Attorney General William Barr cleared President Trump of criminal wrongdoing in a misleading and incomplete summary of Mr. Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, the special counsel felt compelled to protest. In a letter made public on Wednesday, just as Mr. Barr was preparing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the American public got its first glimpse of how the special counsel thinks and speaks about his work.

Mr. Mueller’s tone and tenor are remarkable — and a sharp rebuke to Mr. Barr:

“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions,” Mr. Mueller wrote in a letter addressed to Mr. Barr, whose characterizations of Mr. Mueller’s investigation have also come under fire by members of the special counsel’s team.

The special counsel notes in his letter that just a day after Mr. Barr’s effort to spin the findings of the investigation (which Mr. Trump crowed was a “Complete and Total EXONERATION”), Mr. Mueller raised “concern” about all the confusion and misreporting that the attorney general had caused.

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation,” Mr. Mueller wrote. “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

(Mr. Barr referred in his testimony to Mr. Mueller’s letter as “a bit snitty,” and suggested it had been written by an underling.)

For an institutionalist like Mr. Mueller, who never once spoke up to defend himself or his work from relentless attacks from the president and his Republican allies, the letter is an unusual (and welcome) breach of protocol. It is rare for a senior Department of Justice official to so sharply criticize the attorney general in a written communication that would soon be made public.

Clearly, Mr. Mueller deemed it necessary. Beginning in early March, he and Mr. Barr were in close contact and seemed to have reached a gentlemen’s agreement about the timely public release of the special counsel’s findings without compromising grand jury material, intelligence sources and methods or current criminal investigations.

Mr. Mueller noted that he had prepared detailed and accurate summaries of the two volumes of the report, one on contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, the second on potential obstruction of justice:

 

At this time. In late March, the special counsel wanted the crux of his findings delivered to the American public immediately, to clear up the misconceptions Mr. Barr had left with his four-page summary letter to Congress. Instead, Mr. Barr took another three weeks to release the summaries and the full report, saying he needed to go through it line by line to redact any privileged material.

In congressional testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Barr justified the delay by saying he didn’t want to release the report “piecemeal,” and said that Mr. Mueller’s summaries were “underinclusive.” He asserted that the report became his responsibility after the special counsel submitted it, which is true in a formalistic sense: The regulations governing Mr. Mueller’s work call for a “confidential” report to the attorney general at the conclusion of the inquiry, which the attorney general may then release if he determined it “would be in the public interest.”

That Mr. Mueller quoted from this regulatory language in his letter to Mr. Barr shows that he cares about rules, perhaps to a fault. But it also shows that Mr. Mueller sensed the urgency of his conclusions — and that he couldn’t sit idly by as the chief legal officer of the United States actively undermined them.

Dear Republicans: Stop using my father, Ronald Reagan, to justify your silence on Trump

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Dear Republicans: Stop using my father, Ronald Reagan, to justify your silence on Trump

By Patti Davis              April 30, 2019

Patti Davis is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Wrong Side of Night” and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.


President Ronald Reagan gives a thumbs-up sign to the crowd as his wife, first lady Nancy Reagan, waves from a limousine during the inaugural parade in Washington on Jan. 20, 1981. (Associated Press)

Dear Republican Party,

I have never been part of you, but you have been part of my family for decades. I was 10 years old when my father decided to stop being a Democrat and instead become a Republican. From that point on, you were a frequent guest at our dinner table — and an unwelcome one to me. I wanted to talk about my science project on the human heart, or the mean girls at school who teased me for being too tall and for wearing glasses. Instead, much of the conversation was about how the government was taking too much out of people’s paychecks for taxes and how it was up to the Republicans to keep government from getting too big.

You went from an annoying presence at the dinner table to a powerful tornado, lifting up my family and depositing us in the world of politics, which no one ever escapes. I know it’s not completely your fault. My father’s passion for America, his commitment to try to make a difference in the country and the world, and his gentle yet powerful command over crowds that gathered to hear him speak made his ascent to the presidency all but inevitable. He would have gotten there one way or another; it just happened to be as a Republican.

You have claimed his legacy, exalted him as an icon of conservatism and used the quotes of his that serve your purpose at any given moment. Yet at this moment in America’s history when the democracy to which my father pledged himself and the Constitution that he swore to uphold, and did faithfully uphold, are being degraded and chipped away at by a sneering, irreverent man who traffics in bullying and dishonesty, you stay silent.

You stay silent when President Trump speaks of immigrants as if they are trash, rips children from the arms of their parents and puts them in cages. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that my father said America was home “for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness.”

You stayed silent when this president fawned over Kim Jong Un and took Vladimir Putin’s word over America’s security experts. You stood mutely by when one of his spokesmen, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said there is nothing wrong with getting information from Russians. And now you do not act when Trump openly defies legitimate requests from Congress, showing his utter contempt for one of the branches of our government.

Most egregiously, you remained silent when Trump said there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis who marched through an American city with tiki torches, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

Those of us who are not Republicans still have a right to expect you to act in a principled, moral and, yes, even noble way. Our democracy is in trouble, and everyone who has been elected to office has an obligation to save it. Maybe you’re frightened of Trump — that idea has been floated. I don’t quite understand what’s frightening about an overgrown child who resorts to name-calling, but if that is the case, then my response is: You are grown men and women. Get over it.

My father called America “the shining city on a hill.” Trump sees America as another of his possessions that he can slap his name on. A president is not supposed to own America. He or she is supposed to serve the American people.

In their book “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warned: “How do elected authoritarians shatter the democratic institutions that are supposed to constrain them? Some do it in one fell swoop. But more often the assault on democracy begins slowly.”

Trump has been wounding our democracy for the past two years. If he is reelected for another term, it’s almost a given that America will not survive — at least not as the country the Founding Fathers envisioned, and not as the idealistic experiment they built using a Constitution designed to protect democracy and withstand tyranny.

My father knew we were fragile. He said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.”

So, to the Republican Party that holds tightly to my father’s legacy — if you are going to stand silent as America is dismantled and dismembered, as democracy is thrown onto the ash heap of yesterday, shame on you. But don’t use my father’s name on the way down.

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Mashable

April 6, 2019

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Harvesting food using sunlight and seawater

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Posted by Mashable on Wednesday, April 3, 2019

How Sweden went from dependence on cheap foreign oil to a world leader in renewable energy

Climate Reality

April 24, 2019

Go, Sweden! (via World Economic Forum)

This is How Sweden Went From Depending on Cheap Foreign Oil to Being a World Leader in Renewable Energy

Go, Sweden! (via World Economic Forum)

Posted by Climate Reality on Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Barr! A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Randy Rainbow

May 1, 2019

Barr! A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

While Bill Barr threatens not to testify, the dems may subpoena, but has anyone tried a Disney musical?

IVANKA! THE BAGUETTES! HURRY UP!

Bonjour!

BARR! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

***NEW VIDEO***While Bill Barr threatens not to testify, the dems may subpoena, but has anyone tried a Disney musical? IVANKA! THE BAGUETTES! HURRY UP! 📖🌈🎶💕🤓🥖

Posted by Randy Rainbow on Monday, April 29, 2019

Trump depicted in Mueller report feared being called a fraud

Associated Press

Trump depicted in Mueller report feared being called a fraud

Michael Balsamo,  Associated Press                May 1, 2019
Attorney General William Barr testifies before Congress on Mueller report handling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The fear was persistent.

As the Russia investigation heated up and threatened to shadow Donald Trump’s presidency, he became increasingly concerned. But the portrait painted by special counsel Robert Mueller is not of a president who believed he or anyone on his campaign colluded with Russians to interfere in the 2016 election.

Instead, the Trump of the Mueller report is gripped by fear that Americans would question the very legitimacy of his presidency. Would Trump, the man who put his name on skyscrapers and his imprint on television, be perceived as a cheater and a fraud?

To Trump, his victory over Hillary Clinton was both historic and overwhelming, though he won millions of votes less than did the Democratic candidate.

If people thought he’d won with the help of Russia, that glorious victory might be tainted.

Just a month after Election Day, on Dec. 10, 2016, reports surfaced that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded Russia interfered in the election and tried to boost Trump’s presidential bid.

The next day, Trump went on Fox News and called the assessment “ridiculous” and “just another excuse.” The intelligence community actually had “no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody,” he argued.

“It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place,” the Republican president-elect added.

The president’s public narrative quickly shifted. He blamed Democrats and accused his political opponents of putting the story out because they “suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics.”

But the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to sow discord among American voters and to help get Trump elected was his “Achilles’ heel,” one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, would tell investigators.

In the months that followed, Trump reacted strenuously to investigations into links between the Russians and his campaign and transition teams.

Michael Flynn, who served on the transition team and would go on to be national security adviser, spoke with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Flynn asked that Russia not retaliate against the United States because of sanctions announced by the Obama administration; the ambassador later told Flynn that Russia would hold back.

In the weeks that followed, Trump paid careful attention to what he saw as negative stories about Flynn. He grew increasingly angry when a story broke pointing out that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak.

By mid-February, Flynn was forced to resign.

A day later, as Trump was set to meet with FBI Director James Comey, the president had lunch with his confidant and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. He told Christie he believed the Russia investigation would end because of Flynn’s departure.

“Flynn met with the Russians. That was the problem. I fired Flynn. It’s over,” Trump said.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The fear — and Trump’s anger — continued for months as the Russia investigation ensnared some of his closest confidants. Over and over, he would tell advisers that he thought the public narrative about Russian election interference was created to undermine his win. It was a personal attack, he insisted.

On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey. Trump would later admit in an interview that he had considered “this Russia thing” when he decided to fire Comey.

Days later, Trump held an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House lawyer Don McGahn and Sessions’ chief of staff Jody Hunt to interview candidates to be the next FBI director.

Sessions walked out of the room to take a call from his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. When he returned, he informed Trump that Rosenstein had appointed a special counsel to investigate possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Trump feared that his presidency, still in its infancy, could be over. And he was furious his aides hadn’t protected him.

The president slumped back in his chair.

“Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f—ed. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

For months, as the Russia investigation grew and more people in Trump’s inner circle appeared to be under intense scrutiny from federal investigators, Trump became completely preoccupied with press coverage of the probe. The message was persistent: It raises questions about the legitimacy of the election.

At rallies and on Twitter, Trump decried what he said was a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

In the end, the redacted version of Mueller’s report cleared the Trump campaign of colluding with Russian efforts to influence the election.

Trump crowed that the report found “No Collusion.” But he ignored Mueller’s finding that Russian meddling was very real and was intended to support Trump’s campaign.

Did Russia’s efforts lead to Trump’s victory? Mueller doesn’t venture an opinion, much as he does not decide whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.

But how could Trump have obstructed justice if there was no collusion to hide?

The lack of an underlying crime doesn’t really matter, Mueller argued. Trump still had a motivation to obstruct the investigation — fear that people would question the legitimacy of his election.