Why Should We Trust Bill Barr?

In these slow news days, it may be useful to revisit the extensive interview that AG Bill Barr gave to Jan Crawford of CBS on May 30, 2019. The interview was very professionally handled by Crawford and, toward the end, elicited some remarks from Barr that have a direct bearing on the question of what he is seeking to accomplish as Attorney General--and why we should trust him. Recall that at the time of his confirmation Barr stated that he wanted to be of help in this circumstance--which, of course, could only be taken to mean the crisis of the Russia Hoax:

“I feel I’m in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences. In the sense that I can be truly independent,” Barr said.

He added: “I had a very good life. I have a very good life. I love it. But I also want to help in this circumstance, and I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong, and I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong. ... I’m going to do what I think is right.”

We saw the results of that determination to do what's right in Barr's handling of Team Mueller's attempt to sabotage the Trump presidency. His lack of concern for the firestorm of slander against him was apparent. That's the backdrop to the closing exchange of question and answer with Crawford:

JAN CRAWFORD: You are only the second Attorney General in history who's served twice. I think the first one was back in 1850. 

WILLIAM BARR: Right. 

JAN CRAWFORD: But you are working for a man who is- I mean you are an establishment figure in a way. You've had a long career in Washington but you are working for a man who is not establishment. And some of his tweets about officials and the rule of law, how do you react when you see those? Are you on Twitter? Do you read his tweets?

UPDATED: Did You Know Bill Barr Is Attorney General? You Do Now.

CBS has put out a full transcript of Jan Crawford's lengthy interview of AG Bill Barr. IMO, Crawford did a terrific job. I've edited the transcript to bring it down to usable proportions and to highlight the most important points. For example, I've removed all of Crawford's questions and substituted my own versions. I've also inserted some comments. The two biggest points that emerge are

1. Bill Barr is Attorney General in full, and

2. He's fully determined to sort out the Deep State.

Away we go:


Q: What do you think of Mueller's claim that the OLC opinion prevented him from coming to a conclusion on obstruction?

WILLIAM BARR: I am not sure he said it prevented him. I think what he said was he took that into account plus a number of other prudential judgments about fairness and other things and decided that the best course was not for him to reach a decision. I personally felt he could've reached a decision but--he could've reached a conclusion. The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office but he could've reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity but he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained and I am not going to, you know, argue about those reasons but when he didn't make a decision, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I felt it was necessary for us as the heads of the Department to reach that decision. That is what the Department of Justice does, that is why we have the compulsory powers like a grand jury to force people to give us evidence so that we can determine whether a crime has committed and in order to legitimate the process we felt we had to reach a decision.

[Mueller's claim was BS. Anyway, I'm AG and I'm not about to demean myself by getting into a public debate with the likes of Mueller, who behaved like a political actor.]

Q: Mueller suggested that Congress should take it up.

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting but, you know, the Department of Justice doesn't use our powers of investigating crimes as an adjunct to Congress. Congress is a separate branch of government and they can, you know, they have processes, we have our processes. Ours are related to the criminal justice process we are not an extension of Congress's investigative powers.

[Mueller was speaking totally outside the mandate of a DoJ prosecutor.]

...

Q: It seems Mueller didn't do his job--which was to provide an opinion on criminality.

WILLIAM BARR: Right but on the other hand he did provide us a report and what he viewed to be the relevant facts. And that allowed us as the, as the leaders of the department to make that decision.

[Right. So we sent him home with a participation T-shirt.]