However Did Barr End Up With A Sterling Reputation?

[Me.]

Considering what a devious, mendacious, cheater of the law he has been throughout his career? I can understand why the public isn't aware of his true colors but those in law, media and DOJ knew or should've. Even Joyce Vance who I like and respect was talking about his as a straight arrow who would do right by the law. Didn't they know how he skirted the law & truth in 1984, urging Bush to pardon the Iran Contra felons on Christmas Eve?

Well, he won't escape with his reputation intact this time, because we all know now how corrupt he is and the condemnation is only going to get worse for this unpatriotic official.

[SHRED]

1. A sports analogy

It's like sports commentators not knowing about a team.
That doesn't happen.

[C_U_L8R]

2. He did what other Republican crooks do.

He hid out, kept his head down and worked the back rooms until everyone forgot what a crook he is.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. The thing he did that was much worse than encouraging the pardons of the Iran-Contra felons

(since that would have been Bush's prerogative anyhow) was when he was with the OLC and wrote an opinion to the effect that the FBI had the authority to arrest fugitives in foreign countries without the permission of those countries, then refuse to release the memo to Congress on the ground it was "confidential" even though OLC memos had always been made public before. Then he finally agreed to, and did, release his summary of the opinion. Eventually Congress subpoenaed and received the entire opinion, which contained material that wasn't in the summary, and other material that contradicted what was in the summary. This was all over the news yesterday. Sound familiar? And why the hell wasn't this brought up during his confirmation hearing?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/william-barr-mueller-report-summary
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/barrs-credibility-faces-new-questions-ahead-mueller-reports-release
https://www.justsecurity.org/63635/barrs-playbook-he-misled-congress-when-omitting-parts-of-justice-dept-memo-in-1989/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/15/precedent-that-raises-questions-about-how-barr-will-redact-mueller-report/?utm_term=.0b885555b2de

[uponit7771]

13. +1

[True Dough]

26. Because

Al Franken wasn't there to ask?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. Oh, don't get me started on THAT!

Al would've asked.

[Jakes Progress]

39. True that.

[diva77]

33. What is "OLC" ??

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

34. Office of Legal Counsel.

https://www.justice.gov/olc

[diva77]

42. Thanks

[NCLefty]

40. Nice links. Thanks :)

[Totally Tunsie]

4. What's wrong with ths picture?

?itok=5hizHPeJ

Answer: Barr's nameplate identifies him as being "Honorable".

[C Moon]

17. They need to add a "dis" in front of Hon and Barr

[diva77]

43. sociopaths come in all shapes and sizes

[doompatrol39]

5. Because there is never any shortage...

....of Democrats who want to appear bipartisan, or "above politics" or who value chummy DC relationships over right and wrong.

Look at how quickly everyone on both sides of the aisle and in the press rushed to Elliott Abrams defense when a fellow Dem rightly pointed out how much of a war criminal he was. Look at how many people still insist that Scalia was a brilliant jurist despite decades of evidence to the contrary.

[murielm99]

9. They always say that DC is a small town.

Everyone knows everyone else.

[spooky3]

30. The Scalia praise always made me sick. He never

Demonstrated having a great mind - legal or otherwise.

[SomethingNew]

31. RBG would strongly disagree with you.

[spooky3]

35. So would Rush Limbaugh. They are entitled to their opinions. Nt

[asiliveandbreathe]

6. Who the hell in the pos's admin have a sterling reputation? If you have no integrity, by way of

your reputation, then you are in....if you """""" then you are in...(too profane to spell out) - let's just call it what it is..
the swamp -

[EleanorR]

7. trump would never choose someone with integrity, we all knew that

He fired sessions because sessions wouldn't protect him. Before confirmation, I read numerous articles critical of Barr, his past decisions, and his unsolicited memo. I saw nothing that suggested he had a sterling reputation, except perhaps on sites like National Review. Can't speak to what the talking heads said as I don't watch the majority.

[Me.]

16. My God, They Practically Genuflected

[GeorgeGist]

8. Oh hello, don't you know...

He's besties with Mueller.

[pdsimdars]

10. Easy, when you're a member of the establishment, there don't seem to be consequences

only promotions

[gratuitous]

11. As George Carlin observed, There is a club

And you ain't in it.

[yaesu]

12. The same way reagan ended up with a sterling reputation, revising history is repugs specialty nt

[Me.]

15. Excellent Point

the great God shining upon a hill until he could no longer remember what a hill was and no one bothered to tell the public that the president was actually Nancy R.

[yaesu]

20. They are still building monuments to the guy

I think every state has a park, school, airport or something named after him. They will do the same for tRump.

[GetRidOfThem]

23. Reagan National Airport is locally simply called

"National Airport". Only geeks and republicans refer to it as "Reagan National Airport". It is the main domestic airport of Washington, D.C.


There is also the Ronald Reagan building. This naming was a compromise done for, I believe, funding reasons. Everybody knows it is a compromise...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. Air traffic controllers always call it National, at least when they aren't on the radio.

They still hate Reagan.

[dlk]

14. White Male Privilege...

The old boy network sticks together through thick and thin. If it were a woman or person of color, that’s another story entirely.

[robbob]

18. More fine reporting from our liberal controlled media...

Telling us black is white, up is down, there is a debate going on about climate change, and Barr has a sterling reputation.

[zaj]

19. Trump installed an obvious fool in the role before...

... So everyone was just returned to have anybody with a minimal normal qualification.

It was a good strategy.

[neohippie]

21. He tried to stop BCCI scandal indictments in 1991

https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/bcci-indictment-pushed-for-by-mueller-was-blocked-by-trump-ag-pick-william-barr-in-1991/

“Mr. Mueller indicated to Mr. Rivera and to me as well that they would prefer that our indictment — that we work aggressively on it as much as possible… I received a phone call a little bit before noon on August 22 from Denis Saylor who indicated to me that I was directed not to return the BCCI indictment. And I asked who was directing me not to return it, and he said Attorney General William Barr…” (US Atty Lehtinen)

“As Robert Mueller III, the Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department now in charge of the BCCI investigation, testified in October, 1991: BCCI was not an ordinary bank. It was set up deliberately to avoid centralized regulatory review, and operated extensively in bank secrecy jurisdictions. Its affairs are extraordinarily complex. Its offers were sophisticated international bankers whose apparent objective was to keep their affairs secret, to commit fraud on a massive scale, and to avoid detection” (“The BCCI Affair A Report to the Committee on Foreign RelationsUnited States Senate by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank BrownDecember 1992“) https://archive.org/stream/TheBCCIAffair/The-BCCI-Affair_djvu.txt

snip


and it turns out the scandal including dealing with Russia

BCCI and CIA, excerpt. Notice the reference to murdered journalist Khashoggi’s uncle and to the USSR. Remember that Trump dined, at least once, at the home of Khashoggi’s uncle in NYC : “In the case of BCCI, former CIA officials, including former CIA director Richard Helms and the late William Casey; former and current foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil; and principal foreign agents of the U.S., such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair. As early as the mid-1980’s, sources in the United Kingdom were alleging that BCCI was providing services not only to the CIA, but to intelligence agencies of a number of countries, including the Soviet Union.” https://fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm

[Me.]

22. The List Of His Obstruction Grows Longer & Longer

[not fooled]

24. Corporate media, most of the paid commentators, et al. that fell for the barr con

did so because they are DESPERATE to be perceived as even-handed. And as believers in, and supporters of, the "status quo" (a rich white guy who's in the club has honor and does the right thing), and institutions.

They don't understand or want to acknowledge that pukes are blowing up norms and institutions and that the party is a front for an organized criminal enterprise.

[Me.]

25. Interestingly

Listening to the journos tonight they seemed to have dropped that both sides meme. Even Sam Stein and Susan Paige. Trump was described as granular which they said he wouldn't like, though I don't get why that's such a big insult, I can think of better.

[not fooled]

32. Yes

Have to give them credit for finally acknowledging reality after being confronted by multiple skeevy flagrantly unconstitutional actions by barr to defend red don, shredding the independence and credibility of his office in the process.

I've heard several say in effect now "but I thought he'd do the right thing." Oh well, better late than never. I hope they are good and mad about being had by this guy after initially defending him so assiduously.

[Me.]

44. Being Had Is Exactly Right

[Trenzalore]

29. He was a Bushy

It's been 26 years and we've forgotten what an asshole H.W. was when he was Vice President and President.

By comparison to Trump he looks like a saint but Bush was buffered by a Democratic Senate and House the majority of his time in office and the GOP Senators of that time were less worried about primary challengers if they crossed the President.

People assumed they were getting more of a Bush Attorney General than a Trump stooge. They assumed wrong.

[Celerity]

36. this helped, and is still going on

:large

[sarabelle]

37. The white, privileged, power system ascribes all kinds of characterizations to themselves. nt

[H2O Man]

38. Recommended.

It's a hollow reputation. Remember, much of his career was in the CIA under Bush the Elder, then serving Bush as president.

[Jakes Progress]

41. Why not give barr a good reputation

if people are going to try to say what a great statesman and gentleman elder bush was. Any democrat who thinks that ghwb was decent in any way is woefully uninformed. Granted, it is easy to be uninformed when the media spends so much time rewriting and ignoring.

[Me.]

45. ...

[green917]

46. I've asked that question throughout all of this

how could anyone look at his career arc at justice and think he was going to comport himself in any way other than how he has?

he lied and pushed pardons during Iran-contra

he lied and tried to hide the findings of the investigation into Poppy Bush's administration's involvement in the failed coup in Panama.

of course he lied and tried to hide this report as well.

I wish I shared your optimism that his reputation won't survive this. our elected officials have shown themselves to be cowards that sacrifice our need for justice and constitutional norms on the alter of politics. it doesn't matter if they can get a conviction in the Senate or if it may hurt our chances in 2020! impeachment is the only way to remedy this renegade and criminal presidency! to quote a favorite movie:

"you don't just fight the fights you know you can win. you fight the fights that need fighting!'

[Dirty Socialist]

47. Answer:

In today's GOP, the scum rises to the top.