The putsch continues
In William Barr’s first day of confirmation hearings to be attorney general, one of the key topics was special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He’s been pressed on whether he’ll make the final report public, whether he’d consider recusing himself, and whether he’d fire Mueller, and he’s fielded questions on his independence. Here are some of the takeaways from the first day so far:
- Barr suggested he is inclined to think a sitting president cannot be indicted. “For 40 years the position of the executive branch is that you can’t indict a sitting president,” Barr said, adding that he hasn’t read those opinions in a long time, but “I see no reason to change them.”
waves madly
I can think of one! If the president is a flagrant, prolific criminal who is still steadily criminaling while being a sitting /golfing/ lying president.
- It’s unclear if Mueller’s final report on the investigation will be made public. Barr said he wants to make as much public as is consistent with the special counsel regulation, but it’s Barr who has the final say on what is made public, and he suggested that in the event prosecution is declined, those findings may not be made public.
This is no good. He should recuse himself, because he shouldn’t have the final say or any say, because Trump.
- Barr, who has been critical of the Mueller probe, isn’t inclined to recuse himself. He said he will ask Justice Department officials to review any cases in which he should recuse himself but won’t follow any recommendation if he disagrees with it.
In short, the fix is in.
I see absolutely no good reason why a sitting president should be protected from indictment for criminal activities. Oh, yes, I heard all the stuff about confidentiality and need to keep his mind on the job and so forth during the Clinton years when they were deciding if a president could be sued in civil court; I didn’t buy it then (nor did the courts) and I don’t buy it now. If a president breaks the law, he should be subjected to the same investigation/trial/sentence/punishment that non-presidents would face. Otherwise, we have a ruling class with impunity to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill.
As for the report? The public has a right to know. If we cannot know what is happening with our elected officials, we are no longer even an illusory democracy. We are something else – oligarchy, police state, theocracy, or just plain dictatorship, depending on who is running the show (in this case, likely the last).
Barr is openly stating he wants to be Trump’s fixer. Anyone who votes to confirm Barr will be complicit in Trump’s crimes.
They don’t really care about that, because they feel totally safe. They’re protecting the man, the party, and themselves by putting him out of reach.
Yeah, but it would be great if he were confirmed then immediately recused himself. They’d be cleaning bits of exploded Trump off the While House walls with a scouring pad for months.
I’m slightly optimistic.
Consider what I’ll call the most “conservative” AG scenario. Consider Barr becomes AG, and maintains that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and blocks the public from seeing the final report.
Final report aside, the Special Counsel’s Office lists prosecutions and their jurisdictions. Mueller surely has documentation for the Trump Organization committing a raft of financial crimes. Some might involve Trump’s children more clearly than Trump. Mueller could write those up to name Trump’s children but not Trump.
Barr and Mueller could work this out. Barr protects Trump, and protects the rule of law as he sees it. If the rule of law also destroys Trump’s children, and destroys Trump as a brand, then those chips fall where they may. Conversely, I cannot imagine Barr using the position of AG to protect Trump’s children where Trump is not named.
The “resistance” sees a report as a silver bullet, but the investigation is primarily about Russian activity, not a gun aimed at Trump. I see Trump and his family unraveling more like this Steven Pinker essay on the 2ⁿᵈ Law of Thermodynamics in everyday life.
There is also the possibility (likelihood?) of a Deep-Throat style leak. Do we have any media with the gumption to print these days?