Barr's resignation letter is in the Catherine Herridge tweet, below. I believe Barr is a fundamentally decent man, but he made some misguided decisions--particularly with regard to keeping the public and the president in the dark on important investigations in which both had a right to information. That ended up presenting the appearance of being more concerned with departmental process over simple justice. Those missteps were compounded by his post election statement that was unnecessary and uninformed.
NEW: A DOJ official tells @CBSNews that it was amicable + both the AG Barr + the President agreed to the plan of AG wrapping up over the next week + departing on the 23rd. READ: @ClareHymes22 pic.twitter.com/DOApDOflfi
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) December 14, 2020
From John Solomon's account:
"Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!" Trump tweeted. "As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family."
"Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General. Thank you to all!" the president added.
In his letter, Barr revealed his last day will be Dec. 23 and that the purpose of his meeting with the president Monday was to brief the president about his department's efforts to investigate voter fraud.
So many questions...unanswered...
ReplyDeleteThoughts on Jeff Rosen?
ReplyDeleteNew acting AG Jeff Rosen sounds deep state, based on his bio in Wikipedia. However Richard Donoghue is from Mil and could be the right person to help clean this mess, as part of the executive team. I anticipate Rosen to also resign or get sick before the new Christmas National Holiday, per Trump's latest EO. When Ratcliffe presents his report, per EO13848, the executive team will have to get busy, or it's going to be UASC (United American States of China).
ReplyDeleteI am OK with this. Publicly amicable.
ReplyDeletePardon my obvious fixation, but I wonder if there was a disagreement about EO 13848?
Just my wild speculation but I wonder if the President laid out the next phase for aggressive prosecutions once DNI John Ratcliffe's national security report ordere under Sept 2018 EO due by 12.18.20. Perhaps Barr decided he was not the guy to take the aggressive actions indicated in the draft report likely circulating.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. And I would guess that discussion between Trump and Barr happened right before Barr's sudden statement on TV "no widespread feaud so far". That could explain his irregular pivoting.
DeleteMr Barr preformed exactly as I expected.
ReplyDeleteHe made many strongly worded objective sounding statements while burying every ounce of damaging information possible for the institutions of our government!
Another Republican-uniparty job well done for country and justice Sir.
Most unfortunate. Good guys continue to take a hit. Bummer. Outsider influence and criticism did in his good judgement. Perhaps the positive / rosy comments by Trump mean something positive for DOJ election interference.
ReplyDeletethat WH meeting must have been very short!
ReplyDeleteGodspeed to Barr- his heart may or may not be in the right place, but he did a lot more than anyone else in the FBI/DOJ orbit at the time.
One could say he was honorable to not mention the Biden investigation during the election, but someone else could just say he was merely an enabler to help defraud the electorate. I tend toward the latter, but I wasn't 'raised' inside the DS.
The word resignation is never actually used by either Barr in his letter, or Trump in his tweets.
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteThe most powerful human concept is HOPE.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry all, but if you think any of these 'new' players will move the needle- at all - then "bless your heart"...
Dave
Hope, in fact, is one of the very few things that separates us from all of God's other creatures. It IS a powerful and healing emotion but it can be hard to find in dark times - harder still to pass it on.
DeleteNo doubt.
Delete"...it can be hard to find in dark times...."
DeleteNot at all. Solzhenitsyn spoke of it quite a bit. Hope that one would not be picked for a particularly deadly labor draft, usually not. Hope that the denunciations you had given would be sufficient to stop the torture or spare your parents, wife and children, or brother or sister, almost never. Hope that the boots in the hallway at 2 a.m. would not stop at your door, not likely. Then there's always the Stockdale Paradox. "Hope springs eternal," someone said.
Tom S.
I didn't mean to dismiss hope, although upon reading it back I see the issue. Strong belief of a light at the end of the tunnel is what we all want to see, but some more than others need that push from those who are unbowed.
Delete… besides, Eeyores are a pain…
DeleteBarr was the right guy at the right time last year to end the Mueller report disgrace. Unfortunately, by campaign time, the Boss needed a "wartime consigliere" so to speak and Barr was not the man. In retrospect, probably should have let him go sooner and put Rudy in as acting AG for a few months...
ReplyDeleteSessions to Barr to Rosen?.....Tinker to Evans to Chance had more talent and credibility...
ReplyDeleteThe DOJ is investigating voter fraud? Really? Who knew? I thought Barr and the DOJ already told us that there were no documented instances of substantial voter fraud, and all of those things we've seen movies and pictures of are our lying eyes telling us things that are just. not. true.
ReplyDeleteBarr may be a fundamentally decent man. However, in the last 12-18 months, he's gone way off course. Sorry that he did that, not sorry to see him go, as a result.
A fundamentally decent man who nevertheless disgraced himself in the end. He seems to have thought that restoring DoJ to traditional norms was sufficient. 1) It was impossible in the current climate, 2) the real task was protecting the constitutional order. Traditional practice wasn't nearly sufficient for that.
Delete> appearance of being more concerned
ReplyDelete>with departmental process over simple justice.
My guess is Barr was trying to make it so the DOJ appeared less political and partisan.
Overall Barr achieved a lot.
Issues I find troubling:
- Not telling congress at time of impeachment of Hunter investigation.
- Persecution of Assange
- Durham waiting till election was over
- comments on lack of election fraud
- no Aswan Brothers investigation
- Weiners laptop
- Seth rich laptop
That's the conundrum. As you say, he achieved a lot. And then you look down that list ...
DeleteYeah, Barr was trying to make it so the DOJ appeared less political and partisan, this after it had appeared, and **been** transformed, into a hyper-partisan orgy.
DeleteSo now, those of us who were told to expect more ("fireworks") from him, are left wondering when each of us will get the knock on the door, for our trip to the guillotine.
While Barr can rest assured, that the DS will let him retire in peace?
You forgot one: Epstein case dead-ended. (pun intended)
DeleteOops. I see Mark already caught that one.
DeleteSo much for the argument that AG Barr was the president’s personal lawyer.
ReplyDeleteI leave it to the attorneys and legal beagles on this site to discuss the details, but it seems to me as if Trump is prepared to fight on. Good for him. His great contribution to our republic was to force its corruption to the surface.
Aletheia
Nobody has mentioned that Epstein didn't kill himself.
ReplyDeleteOr that Trump plans to release the JFK files.
DeleteInteresting you should mention that, Mark. Lin wood had a very intriguing Parler post around 5 pm to the effect that maybe Epstein is not actually dead.
DeleteCare to quote for those us of not on Parler?
DeleteMy to-do list:
ReplyDelete1: Fire Barr so he doesn't further obstruct. (done)
2: Pardon Assange. (tomorrow)
3: Make a speech about how corrupt the DoJ has been refusing to enforce the law. (Wednesday)
4: Release lots of "classified" dirty laundry including names, which confirms #3. (Thursday)
5: DNI issues report exposing election fraud (Friday)
...
6: Fire Christopher Wray (Monday)
Delete7: Appoint Richard Grenell Director of the FBI (Tuesday)
Bless his soul,
ReplyDeleteAletheia
I guess he won’t be naming a Hunter Biden Special Counsel?
ReplyDeletemoe to curly to larry
ReplyDeleteI'm old enough to know this country is a joke. Seems to be a disgrace to all who raised kids with morals, values and work ethic.
ReplyDeleteWhy the resignation now, effective in 9 days, where Trump only has a few weeks left probably?
ReplyDeleteMy guess the exciting saga of Trumps Presidency will continue till Trump is no longer President. Barr’s resignation gives a window for some actions by Trump that Barr does not agree with - My guess is Assange is one of them. I wonder what else?
What else - how about a second special counsel for the Biden's? Remember that Rosenstien was only an acting AG when he appointed Mueller.
DeleteOr that Wray is still there.
ReplyDeleteThe Atlanta vote-counters say that a waterpipe burst or a urinal overflowed at about 6 a.m., but was fixed by 8 a.m.
ReplyDeleteVote-counting started at 8:30 a.m.
Later that day, journalists were told that the flowing-water incident caused at least a two-hour delay in the vote-counting.
At 10 p.m., everyone was told that vote-counting was suspended from 10:30 p.m. until 8:30 a.m.
After the observers departed, vote-counting continued for two hours -- from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. -- to catch up on the two-hour delay.
During the middle-of-the-night vote-counting, Biden's votes zoomed way up beyond Trump's votes.
DOJ/FBI did not see anything to investigate in this situation.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you've seen this.
https://t.co/kTlVJjTcCc?amp=1
I have now. Tx. Somebody else suggested on another thread that there could be more than meets the eye. Like the author, I was intrigued that the Texas Rangers (not the baseball team) were involved.
DeleteFor those who like to know where they are going before clicking on a tiny url:
DeleteCould the SolarWinds Orion raid yield smoking gun evidence about Dominion voter fraud?
Article at NOQ Report based upon info from Gateway Pundit and other sources.
I heard about this as well. My understanding is that the Solar Winds CEO has already surrendered his passport. I also think the Rangers are probably the most trusted of those on sight, and the passport nugget was supposedly dropped by one of the Rangers.
DeleteI don't believe it will, I think it's completely unrelated.
DeleteI think this "raid" is actually a crime scene trying to figure out what state actor got them in 2018 or 2019.
The CEO is in trouble because they found out their product had a trojan in it several weeks ago and rather than informing their customers they hid it and dumped all their stocks.
Fire and MS had caught this a few weeks ago and have already developed patches. I think the cyber alert was because this was bundled by the hackers into Orion's update packages (brilliant idea IMHO) and their customer base is massive so panic warranted.
The tech side is covering this pretty well.
One part of this that is especially intriguing for me is that Solar Winds provides a patch management tool as part of their security package. In a previous life a few years ago, in a cyber-security paper I wrote, I noted that the ultimate goal for serious hackers would be the hijacking of a patch management system. That would allow them to distribute their malware unimpeded to everyone using that patch management system, and the beauty of that is the carte blanche nature of patch management: anti-virus and other endpoint security systems typically permit the patch management system to install anything it wants, unrestricted. And that could be new software, updates to existing software, scripts, data files, or anything else the patch management system was placing on the target system.
DeleteI don't know if this is what the Solar Winds hackers did, or attempted to do, but all their “security” tools seems to be well-integrated into the overall system, and it's hard to imagine better results if the ultimate target of the hack is not Solar Winds, but some/all of their customers.
Reading his resignation letter is representative, to me, that the US AG, the head of the DoJ, has limited power when there are many in the DoJ completely opposed to you.
ReplyDeleteEven Trump, with his belly full of fire, could not get this massive corruption to yield. Barr did not have that overt, obvious fire, but appears to have done the best that he could without being an Eric Holder.
Problem was Trump needed an Eric Holder or Lynch type AG who was more than willing to personally carry discs of IRS data, meet a former president on a tarmac, get in the face of DoJ IGs, or publicly prosecute political enemies with impunity.
I think Barr is a good AG, but bringing the DoJ to appear respectable and non-partisan backfired yuuugely.
Maybe...
ReplyDeleteLin Wood:
"Bill Barr is a Patriot. His letter to @realDonaldTrump
was excellent. I believe Barr will announce major moves before 12/23 but does not want to stay to prosecute. He has done his job & served country well. New AG & assistants will prosecute the massive number of cases coming."
https://twitter.com/LLinWood/status/1338623862486020096
Frank
I wonder if Barr is getting some "plausible deniability."
ReplyDeleteTrump got sandbagged early on, and subtly sabotaged by the establishment. Plus how the Obama administration set him up was unbelievable. Trump, and most of us, did not comprehend how corrupt, dysfunctional, and biased Washington is. Not to mention China’s influence. Trump has revealed this, and shattered so many no Overton Windows. He has repeatedly shown the emperor has no clothes.
ReplyDeleteTrump basically ran against the entire establishment and won, with very few allies. The good news is Trump has ripped the masks off the establishment players to show their true allegiance. This is Huge!
I’m amazed Trump survived and got as much done as he did.
And Trump is still POTUS.
And I’m sure their will be more significant actions that happen between now and the inauguration. I did not see Barr’s resignation coming. It signals something major up Trumps sleeve.
>Even Trump, with his belly full of fire, could not get this
> massive corruption to yield.
I'll bet that "shattered so many *no* Overton Windows" meant to omit the "no".
Delete"more significant actions that happen between now and the inauguration."
That's what DJT indicated the other day, in remarks to dozens at an indoor gathering, see vid at
https://gab.com/BorkusA/posts/105375506065937022 .
Interesting interview comments from Brad Parscale re their plan to "stop the steal" in 2019.
ReplyDeleteIn Apr 2019 they had a plan to combat what they knew would be rampant fraud: "huge budget for election day op" "have lawyers everywhere" "protect beforehand"
Somehow between July 2020 and Nov 3, that plan got lost.
cued at 9.49
https://youtu.be/K2btDOUGuck?t=589
Frank
Yes! That's what I remembered, and wondered election night--where are all those lawyers?
Delete@Frank
DeleteDid those enormous crowds at Trump rallies persuade them that their lead was so large it was immune to fraud? And then they took their eye off the ball?
Surely they knew the opportunity for mischief in the Blue cities was enormous. The historical record was staring them in the eye. Robert Cahaly (Trafalgar Group polling org) said repeatedly and publically in the run up to election day that Trump would have to win PA by 4 or 5 points or more to overcome 'illegal' voting. If he knew it, the Trump Campaign knew it. What did they do to stop it?
One of the recurrent themes in the Texas Complaint (which the Supreme Court rejected) was that friendly 'settlements' between state election authorities and the Democrat Party in various states allowed for illegal and unconstitutional voting practices. Why weren't the State Republican parties party to those lawsuits and why didn't they object?
So many questions...
...and where is a curious and vigorous press...hallmark of a 'free' country... to ask...and answer... some of those questions?
DeleteMy wife and I are watching a Swedish crime series called 'Blinded'. The plot isn't relevant to this comment, but what is relevant is the actions of a journalist who simply won't stop asking questions and digging. She goes to extreme lengths to expose the truth...rejecting all of the 'pat' answers supplied by a crooked bank to hide its criminality. It shouldn't be surprising...its what journalists (are supposed to) do.
Delete@Cassander
DeleteEverytime I watch a clip from Lou Dobbs I almost want to cry because he is the last of his kind. His age is very much showing but he is completely irreplaceable.
What a stunning example of what a news anchor use to be.
Barr was naive in the end analysis, and this is me acknowledging that Biden will be sworn in 4 weeks from now. This was always the problem with Barr's approach- it made it all but certain that Trump would lose and all the reforms Barr was intending for the DoJ are now moot as the criminal themselves now control the prosecutions and institutions. In the end, Barr was a colossal failure- full stop.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't disagree, there's this: If Barr was naive, what was Trump? The buck for appointments stops somewhere, and Trump made some colossally bad appointments. Mattis, Tillerson, Sessions, etc.
DeleteI believe that Trump, despite being one of the most 'woke' of how deep and wide is the swamp, was still surprised by a few of his appointees.
DeleteAt some point as an exec you have to trust even when Spidey Senses are off the chart.
What if Barr, Mattis, Tillerson, Sessions, etc. were the "best", that DJT could get confirmed by Mitch etc.?
DeleteAnd we the people are sheep to allow this to go on.
ReplyDeleteNo. Quite the contrary. We are trying to live by our principles. As this way becomes closed down we will find a new way. Believe it.
Deletebush-1 bush-2 and all the past and present rino hacks have stabbed President Trump and his voters. Waiting for a movement that works.
DeleteAgree but RINO is a misnomer for REPUBLICAN. Accept them for what they are and for what they do. Not for their words and especially not what we wish the party to be.
DeleteConservatives have to get smart and move on!!!
Mattis I’m still surprised how swampy he is.
ReplyDeleteSessions acted like the typical Charlie Brown Republican with Democratic Lucy snatching away the ball. I never would have expected this Russian Collusion Gambit to be so successful and with such powerful backing including the senate intel committee, McCain, Obama holdovers, FBI, CIA, various foreign governments, and the Democratic leadership in the house and senate. Plus the GOPe that sided and abetted it. I never would have imagined pre Trump administration this was possible in the US.
And look at how many GOP politicians are still in denial over the election fraud - prime example is Chris Christy.
The GOP Senate did not easily approve the people Trump wanted, which tells you a lot about how pro Trump the GOP in the senate really are.
>Trump made some colossally bad appointments.
"how many GOP politicians are still in denial" over the election fraud?
DeleteHow many are on the ChiCom payroll?
I don't think many people going in thought Mattis, Tillerson or Sessions were bad appointments. In fact, I can remember thinking how solid they were, Sessions in particular. He was a good senator, one of the few.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget too, no one wanted to work for Trump. That's how he ended up with that Manafort slug. The Deep State had a fatwa out on anyone who ended up working for the Donald. This had a terrible effect, I believe.
Look how everyone in the world wants to be a part of the Great Biden Grift. Sickening.
Of the three, the one that had me fooled was Sessions. I'll admit it. He talked the talk. And that was it. Mattis and Tillerson didn't impress me.
DeleteThis Barr news has overshadowed other major stuff, esp. that GOP Legislatures chose Alternate Electors in NV, WI, GA, PA, AZ.
ReplyDeleteAnd, from Red Eagle Politics
@RedEaglePatriot
RINO Michigan Speaker of the house Lee Chatfield ILLEGALLY closed the Michigan Capitol, preventing the GOP legislature from contesting the election results
Andy McC was just on Fox, dissing the Dems' whining vs. the noises Barr made on probing SpyGate, but covering for Barr's "doing all he could".
ReplyDeleteTo say the least: Too Little, Too Late.