In an interview this morning with Maria Bartiromo, former Senior White House Economic and Trade Advisor Peter Navarro ripped disgraced former AG Bluto Barr. Said Navarro (almost verbatim), Barr should've been fired a year before he was. During the last year Barr was working against the Trump administration.
The context for these remarks was the issue of Executive Orders. As Navarro explained, the last step in getting an Executive Order approved is that the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel has to sign off on its legality. According to Navarro, Barr slow walked many important Executive Orders during the last year of the Trump administration, but fast tracked the 17 Executive Orders that Zhou Baiden signed on Day One of the new regime.
UPDATE:
In a similar phone call from Bill Barr to me, he made it clear that investigating the evidence behind the claims were not his first priority... https://t.co/WGrUkypIyX
— Tony Shaffer (@T_S_P_O_O_K_Y) February 8, 2021
I too was a Barr supporter/apologist. Makes me sick when I think about how he fooled me and so many others….
ReplyDeleteBarr let everyone down big time...!!
DeleteAnd no one in the Trump administration could figure this out until three months after the election? Did the left hand, at any point, know what the right hand was doing? I understand the resistance situation, but for a man who prides himself on his character judgment, Trump sure surrounded himself with a lot of question marks.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, even so, Trump accomplished so much. As he himself is quoted in the Byrne chronicles "imagine what we could have accomplished" if he hadn't been dragged down by all the deceptive sycophants.
DeleteThe existence of which is one of the more disturbing aspects of this nightmare
The problem with all of Trump's bad hires was the pool of people he had to pick from who he could get confirmed by the Senate.
DeleteWithin that group, how many potential candidates for Attorney General (1) were in sync with Trump's agenda and goals, (2) had experience to navigate the bureaucracy and get stuff done, and (3) could command a reasonable level of respect, or at least fear and obedience, from the (largely progressive Dem) staffers?
Anyone who fit (1) probably didn't fit (2) and (3), and vice versa.
ZACKLY! Witness any O6 coming in to command some far flung Army depot full of civilians used to having their own way...a 2 year assignment requiring a significant expenditure of time trying to figure out how to run the place and who actually wields power. Then, if need be, the locals simply run out the clock on any bright idea you might have that would upset the apple cart, so to speak. OTOH, if you made the assignment any longer, even the crankiest colonel will eventually get co-opted, sigh
DeleteOtherwise, watch any episode of "Yes, Minister" or Yes, Prime Minister" to see the battle between bureaucrats and "bosses" up close (and get a good laugh to boot...for my money as a career bureaucrat, hands down, funniest TV show ever written, but I digress)
Can't shake the image of Barr and Rosenstein smiling at each other as Rod left office.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I appreciate the Navarro Report, I don't take anything at face value these days. I assume President Trump had his reasons for hiring and deciding which personnel to keep, and may have even had his use for hostile elements. What is enfolding now is in his own words, "the single greatest achievement in (his) presidency...exactly what (he is) doing right now", restoring "honesty and integrity to our elections." to "restore trust in our system of government." The impeachment and the Molly Ball article indicate the game is afoot, and after the smoke settles there will be time enough to sort out the good guys and the bad guys.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Trump's hirings is are the big untold story of his presidency.
DeleteBut the other side of that story is that it's impossible to get really good people in a populist administration attempting to restore constitutional order and respect for the rule of law. The swamp is entrenched with layers upon layers of protections in place. The remedy has to come from an organization of the states.
DeleteI think this is probably true.
DeleteI assume mistcr meant to say "convention of the states." Question is how do we get 38 states to agree to the right set of amendments?
Delete@anon, I actually intended "organization of states."
DeleteI don't foresee 38 states coming together to subdue the Leviathan (but this would be the best possible outcome).
An organization of the states might be any number of states but would need to be big enough to matter. It's resistance to the Leviathan could take many forms.
What I loved about the Donald was the fact that he WASN'T a lawyer...unfortunately that meant he had to rely on lawyers for legal advice, sigh, and he couldn't sharpshoot them the way another attorney could. Simple fact of life
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the story (probably apocryphal, but who cares) of a turn of century titan (either Carnegie or Morgan) who hired a young attorney straight outa law school. The kid, trying to impress the old man, kept telling him why he couldn't do something until, exasperated, the boss told him: "I didn't hire you to tell me what I can't do, I hired you to tell me how I can do I want to do!"
Such will always be the case, sigh, but I'd never hire an attorney to run an organization...or a state...or a country, but that's just me. Bottom line: I'm impressed with what Mr. Trump was able to accomplish with the forces arrayed against him and I will not snipe at him from the sidelines when, after all, he was the "man in the arena" (H/T to TR)
"Bottom line: I'm impressed with what Mr. Trump was able to accomplish with the forces arrayed against him and I will not snipe at him from the sidelines when, after all, he was the "man in the arena" (H/T to TR)"
ReplyDeleteDitto.
0311
hey Mark, remember this post of yours (and CTH, of course!)
ReplyDeletehttps://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2018/12/are-you-kidding-me.html
There's plenty more where that came from. :-(
DeleteIt really hurts to discover, at this advanced age, that even some of my foundational beliefs and certainties, were wrong.
DeleteBarr wasn't a foundational belief for me. For me the brutal realization has been more along the lines getting smacked with the pervasiveness of moral and intellectual corruption in most aspects of public life. However, I grew up in a house full of books that questioned modernity and modernism in the philosophical sense. That things should be falling apart wasn't the shock, but the pervasiveness of complicity in the corruption.
Deletehttps://amgreatness.com/2021/02/07/the-baby-boomers-dismal-legacy/
DeleteLet me put try to explain it very briefly in this way. Growing up in the 60s, my experience--reinforced by the books and mags I was reading--was of my parents' sense of betrayal both by the clergy in the Church as well as by the Dem betrayal of my parents' ideals of social justice for antinomian radicalism. In school, that experience was reinforced by the intellectual and moral rootlessness of my contemporaries. In that sense, I was prepared for betrayal and always needing to defend my convictions--which haven't changed. Unfortunately, the Reagan years gave us a false hope, and the conservative crusade against the Clintons didn't prepare us for the Bush (and later) betrayals.
DeleteIt really puts his meeting with McConnell in a different light.
ReplyDeleteI really thought Barr was sincere when he complained months ago about the effect that mail-in voting would have on the republic. I still find it difficult to believe that he wasn't sincere. It engenders speculating that they got to him somehow...
I never assumed he was in it to help Trump per se. But I thought his concern for the rule of law aligned with Trump's vision for bounds on the government's powers.
This is really the inherent drawback of supporting an outsider. He was in over his head. But ironically, it was only because he wasn't devious enough or malicious.
It does. I think he was sincere in those things he said about rule of law, etc., but that he was too committed to the Establishment over populist vision.
DeleteAs if something happened to Barr along the way between the assassination of Epstein and the findings on 2016 spygate. Some kind of new revelation he got, regarding how 2016 happened? A new piece of knowledge which caused Trump to "thank him" while "asking him kindly to leave if he wouldn't help"? And cockaine Mitch meeting with him days after the election?
DeleteWill we ever know?
I wonder whether his unrealistic ideal that he would somehow steer DoJ into the path of non-partisan upholding of the rule of law led him astray. As I've said re the FBI, a democratic society is ultimately run by its lowest common denominator. That's, if anything, even more true of the legal profession, which is consumed by radical neo-gnostic ideology of the Left. The people coming out of elite law schools overwhelmingly fit that mold, and to expect that DoJ could be reformed while being staffed heavily by those people is simply unrealistic. I don't claim a solution beyond a radical purging, which is what the Left has largely subjected to, but it seems Barr didn't really have the appetite for that sort of thing.
DeleteDoes "a radical purging, which is what the Left has largely subjected to"
Deleterefer to "what the Left has largely subjected *DoJ* to"?
Certainly.
DeleteMy head feels like it’s going to explode through what I thought was reality, being shattered, with new information.
ReplyDeleteI’m shocked at this accusation about Barr, probably true.
Trump really was being attacked from all sides, including Doj. Trump’s actions was being slow walked by doj, vs Biden that is being fast tracked.
It may sound strange but Barr did exactly what I expected if him, just as most of Trump's adminstration did as I expected of them.
ReplyDeleteI think too few paid enough attention to the early months of cabinet positions and hiring issues that transpired. Once spygate took off most of the focus was lost. The Bannon, Flynn, Gorka clan vs Priebus, Mattis, Pence and the LONG list of unconfirmed Senate shoot-downs and stalled nominations. Radical reformers vs establishment (Repub game players) favorites.
To me (at least) the obvious seemed to be written on the wall. It very much looked like intentional handicapping and injection of bad actors, aka establishment supporters, being fed into the mix to derail or control the Trump reformer agenda.
In the end the majority like Barr showed their cards but from day one I kept thinking WTF is with these known pro Big Government, Pro Establishment people being injected?
If you throw in a dyed in the wool systemic protectionist like Barr into the washer and expect clean linen in the end, you're making a serious mistake. He was a protector of the Government's version of "the office of the president" and not a protector of "president Trump".
I self admit my cynicism, I am bleak, I am cruel and I make no apologies for it. My ilk of government is based upon the simple idea that the government and it's career supporters are always going to support the Government's interest, not mine, not the people's, and certainly not law the law or equal application of it.
Barr's history of defending very bad and sometimes highly controversial CIA and FBI / DOJ actions said to me his moral compass never existed to begin with beyond public projection.
It didn't take a William Barr to kick Muller to the curb, the office title meant I could have done that as AG. But it took a William Barr to do that with a wink and a nod to the establishment while selling the cover up to the public.
The wheels of justice turn as fast or as slow as they want them to. When the prosecutions didn't start within 6 months of the bad actors, Durham became the typical thing of DC myth and legends. Just like you didn't need Durham in a SC position (that he can't legally hold to begin with as a AAG) to maintain a investigation he obviously wasn't investigating with intent. But you did need that to bury the grand jury materials (aka evidence, regardless of classification) into a untouchable and never to be disclosed legal black hole of hiding.
I'm ranting, but like COVID or anything else to exploit the masses It's just too obvious anymore.
What's Durham up to anyway?
ReplyDeleteBeing a cynic provides great insulation against disappointment. But like a broken clock, which is right two times a day, the cynics are only occasionally right. That makes them feel good, but the rest of the time they live in a cold, lonely, rather bitter place. One doesn’t have to be a dupe, one can be a healthy skeptic, without descending into that lifelong hell.
ReplyDeleteI am having a hard time not being cynical when dealing now with most political statements and actions.
DeleteTrump was an exception, and what happened the last 4 years has been eye opening. I am still in a state of shock over how corrupt, biased, and incompetent the US Political and Judicial Establishment is. The we have to pass a bill to see what is in it statement blows me away.
When I think about it (out of auto pilot), I start asking the question about the who, what, and why when reading an article or statement. Mark made a very insightful comment about that Time Magazine Article, asking WHY it was written. Something I missed entirely when the article was first brought to my attention.
I don't think I am a conspiracy theory nut, but the world is a lot stranger than I thought it was.
>Being a cynic provides great insulation against disappointment.
After lunch I'm hoping to do a post that addresses some of what you're saying.
DeleteI don't get it... didn't Bill Barr resign effective 12/24/20? Is he still at Justice, or was he on Inauguration Day when Biden took over and started signing his Executive Orders? I assumed Barr was gone and someone else in charge in an interim role?
ReplyDelete