Lee Smith has just come out with the best and most thorough commentary so far on Barr's bizarre public statement yesterday--as well as on the Durham appointment as Special Counsel:
Barr Fails to Salvage DOJ’s Reputation With Statements on Election Fraud
There's a lot of substance in the article, so I'll just offer a few highlights to whet your appetite:
Attorney General William Barr signaled on Tuesday that he has washed his hands of the president. He told the media that the Department of Justice has found no evidence of fraud that would change the election results in favor of Donald Trump.
U.S. officials I spoke with do not understand Barr’s motivation for speaking to a press corps typically hostile to him as well as Trump. “There’s no evidence that the DOJ spoke with any of the numerous witnesses with first-hand knowledge of election fraud,” said one senior official. “And many people reached out directly to the FBI and got no response back.”
And forget about the upside to the Durham appointment:
According to Barr, the scope of the investigation he asked the U.S. attorney from Connecticut to lead in May 2019 has “narrowed considerably.” At first, it seemed sprawling. The two men reportedly traveled to Italy and contacted officials in the United Kingdom and Australia to gather information on foreign nationals allegedly involved in Crossfire Hurricane. In August, Durham interviewed former CIA director John Brennan for eight hours. In September, the prosecutor reportedly sought information on the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
Republican officials reasoned that it was precisely because the investigation was so large and thorough that it was taking Durham so much time to deliver indictments. Reports claimed that he kept finding new evidence, was following more leads. On Tuesday, Barr said Durham’s work now “really is focused on the activities of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation within the FBI.”
...
There’s nothing to stop Biden from dismissing Durham. Trump reportedly considered firing Robert Mueller at least twice. But the president’s legal team defended the probity of the coup targeting their client. “I would never have anything to do with any attempts to attack Bob Mueller’s integrity,” said the former spokesman for the White House’s legal team, Mark Corallo. In other words, the aides hired to defend Trump were less concerned with the stability of the U.S. government than the prospect that their reputations would be trashed in the press.
...
It's an ugly picture. Why Barr would publicly humiliate himself in this way is anyone's guess.
Perhaps the D.S. finally found something on Barr in the last few months. Or maybe our President ticked him off one too many times ... so Barr's skin isn't quite as thick as Trump's. Bummer if either one is the case. My only hope is what Andrea Widburg hoped for this morning: that Barr was purposefully giving out disinformation. Just doesn't seem too likely.
ReplyDelete-Chuck
Dyer also has no answer as to why Barr said it:
Delete"For some reason – and you tell me – Barr didn’t say the most normal, typical, common, ordinary, usual, natural thing to say in a situation like this one.
He didn’t say, “It’s too early to comment. We’re still looking at it, and I can’t give you a read on that yet. I’ll let you know when we have something we can share.”
Why didn’t he just say that? I’ll put this out there. He reportedly spent over two hours in a meeting in the White House on Tuesday afternoon."
She doesn't come to any conclusion, but apparently there are clues that the WH expects to have another 4 years.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/12/02/et-tu-barr-heres-what-bill-barr-didnt-say/
Frank
Barr said Durham’s work now “really is focused on the activities of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation within the FBI.”
ReplyDeleteDurham thus has narrowed his focus because he has found that the wrong-doing was concentrated in the FBI's the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Should Durham keep focusing endlessly on other organizations where he already has looked for wrong-doing but has not found any?
He did study the CIA. He interviewed Brennan for eight hours, and he and his team surely interviewed many other CIA officials and examined many CIA documents. Durham might think and report that the CIA's assessment about Russian meddling was stupid, but that's the most that he can do about the CIA.
Seems like he will also look at Mueller's investigation
Deleterob S
Some passage in (I think it was) the Horowitz report revealed unintentionally that Alexander Downer gave his Papadopoulos memo to a female official in the USA's London Embassy.
ReplyDeleteIn many comments, I have speculated that the female official was Gina Haspel, the CIA Chief of Station in London. However, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimblerley wrote that Downer gave the memo to an Embassy official named Elizabeth Dibble.
Since Durham seems to be letting the CIA off the hook, I now feel certain that Downer gave his memo indeed to Dibble (not to Haspel). Therefore, I now am comfortable feeling that the CIA had nothing to do with the Downer-Papadopoulos meeting. I think that meeting too was arranged by the FBI.
“ 'I would never have anything to do with any attempts to attack Bob Mueller’s integrity,'....
ReplyDeletethe aides hired to defend Trump were less concerned with the *stability* of the U.S. government than the prospect that their *reputations* would be trashed in the press."
This is the kind of stuff, of which societal instability/ collapses are made.
The pain and rage I feel, knowing that Barr has played us all for fools, is not aimed at Bill Barr. He acted exactly as it says on the tin - a Bushite swamp creature. It's disappointment in Trump - he had a second go at AG, and failed again. His lack of good judgement of character is his Achilles heel, and it proved fatal.
ReplyDeleteIn hindsight, Trump should've pushed for a Ric Grennell type AG, and declared open war on McConnell if he obstructed.
For him to have declared open war on McConnell, at that time, would've been hugely risky.
DeleteIf there was any time, that would've been rather less risky, it would've been after the IG report, which, for all it's limits, did so much to vindicate most of what DJT had been saying.
Correction: "for all ITS limits".
DeletePossessive, not contraction.
I disagree, Mouse. Most rank and file Republican voters are unaware of the Uniparty dynamic and McConnell's opposition to Trump. McConnell would never have convicted Trump on impeachment - he'd have signed his own death warrant and lost this past Nov. 3rd himself had he done so.
DeleteThe only way to truly drain the swamp is to burn down the GOP in it's current incarnation - and assuming POTUS loses the election, he won't have the pulpit to do it anymore.
Trump, for all of his virtues, has numerous flaws, specifically his own penchance for the gravitas of existing institutions. For me, I placed my trust in him to overcome those weaknesses. I trusted Barr, not because I trusted Barr, but because I trusted Trump who trusted Barr. Now that that trust has been broken, what next?
I wonder, why did Mitch meet with Barr and Haspel, one after the other, soon after the election night?
DeleteThat question certainly takes on new interest. I suppose the most obvious (and innocent) explanation for Barr would have been to inform Mitch that there was an SC--he had not informed anyone at that point.
Delete"His lack of good judgement of character is his Achilles heel, and it proved fatal."
DeleteI can't condemn Trump so vehemently. "Who knows the heart of another man." What makes Trump Trump, what drew normies to him, was that he believes in America and Americans, old school true belief. He didn't, or like many of us couldn't, believe that there is no such thing as an honest man that will serve in gov't. He had to choose based on resumes, personal recommendations (looking at you Chris Christie), political considerations, and maybe a one hour face to face interview with the most practiced liars in the universe. Unlike the personnel he hired in the business world, who shared at least the common goal of profits, every applicant had a hidden agenda, which was largely to thwart Trump's. It's not Trump's fault that our nation has such sneering contempt for virtue that we have outsourced gov't to the most venal, self-serving, duplicitous, villainous class of plunderers any body politic has ever been cursed with. This is of our doing. It is unfair to hold Trump accountable for being unable to turn around 75 years of moral sloth on the part of America in four short years, single-handedly.
Tom S.
Tom S.
One reason why John Brennan has been suspected of shenanigans was that he briefed Harry Reid about the alleged Russian meddling in the US election, and then Reid sent an angry, public letter to James Comey, complaining that the FBI was doing too little to investigate that problem. Furthermore, Reid's letter indicated that Reid had been informed somewhat about Steele's Dossier.
ReplyDeleteNow that Durham seems to be letting the CIA off the hook, I am coming around to exonerate Brennan on that point too. Now I think it's likely that Brennan's briefing of Reid did not include any mention of Steele's Dossier.
Rather, it's quite likely that Reid received some information about Steele's Dossier informally from some DOJ/FBI official. That particular leaker would not be Comey, because Reid immediately sent his angry letter to Comey. There's plenty of other DOJ/FBI officials who might have supplemented Brennan's briefing with some Dossier dirt.
I don't like Brennan, but he might be rather innocent in this history.
No, not innocent, just not culpable enough to damn.
DeleteSorry, he gave an interview prior to the 2016 election in which he, with a gleam in his eyes and self assuredness, declared Trump would not be president.
Sorry, he was in on it, but had the smarts to hide it.
Mike --
DeleteWho do you think Halper and Mifsud were working for?
Talk to Nunes about Brennan's briefings. Brennan testified under oath that he gave all Go8 the "same briefing". Nunes has already said unequivocally that he didn't receive the same info. So there's that just for starters...
DeleteSince I don't seem to have other options, I have no choice to ride off the cliff with Trump and Barr.
ReplyDeleteEither Barr will turn out to be a real white hat....or not.
There are other options.
DeleteMaybe person(s) unknown creditably threatened Barr's family. That's a sure fire way to change a mans stance. Especially, if the unknown person(s)works for the DS.
ReplyDeletePlausible. But it seems like that would have been a play that would have been tried before now... And why not threaten Flynn and Sydney Powell while they're at it? He's actually seen people blown up...
DeleteDon Surber, one of the more interesting minds around, writes his take on the Durham appointment here:
ReplyDeletehttps://donsurber.blogspot.com/2020/12/biden-is-muellered.html
Turley's assessment of Barr's SC decision relative to Biden...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/12/02/durham-special-counsel-give-biden-problems-column/3793099001/