How Barr Is Weaponizing The Justice Department To Help tRump Win

[yaesu]

Former DOJ officials spoke about the attorney general’s efforts to undermine voting and his potential to unleash an “October surprise.”

ON AUGUST 13, a day after President Donald Trump again charged that Democrats’ efforts to expand mail-in voting due to the pandemic will create “the greatest rigged election in history,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr too made unfounded and conspiratorial-sounding claims. Barr told Sean Hannity on Fox News that Democrats’ drive seeking to expand mail-in voting could raise “serious questions about the integrity of the election,” were “grossly irresponsible,” and “reckless.”

That was hardly the first time they seemed to agree. In a July House Judiciary hearing and in a June interview with Fox News, Barr joined Trump in his monthslong and spurious attacks on voting by mail. He told Fox that voting by mail “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud,” adding, without evidence, that “right now a foreign country could print tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots.”

Citing Barr’s words in one tweet, Trump then upped the ante: “MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES,AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”

“Barr has admitted he has no evidence of widespread mail-voting fraud,” former federal prosecutor and former senior official at Homeland Security Paul Rosenzweig told me. “All he is doing is trying, unsuccessfully, to give Trump a basis for challenging the election. This is not the job of the Attorney General.”

Barr has violated numerous fundamental norms as attorney general, using his sweeping powers to carry out actions and judgments that are politically beneficial to the president’s reelection campaign. Many former Justice Department officials say Barr’s actions and public statements are increasingly aimed at helping Trump’s political interests and friends, leading to an unprecedented politicization of the department by the nation’s top law enforcement officer. A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Barr’s actions and views for this story.

Now, with under 70 days to the presidential election, the actions that pose the most consequential harm are those that threaten a free and fair election — especially Barr’s work to undermine, rather than uphold, voting rights and to publicly accuse Trump’s enemies.

“Barr has utterly and completely trashed the norm of DOJ separation from politics,” Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general who served in the George H.W. Bush administration just prior to Barr’s first stint as AG, told me. 1

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/29/william-barr-trump-justice-department/

[spanone]

1. America is under siege from within

[demosincebirth]

2. and what are we doing...seems like sitting on our hands!

[smirkymonkey]

5. So frustrated!!

Beyond frustrated. WTF! I want to see some kind of action. Anything! Just an attempt. I am so tired of the passivity!

[Karadeniz]

3. Fascism at work.

[Initech]

4. Calling Barr a scumbag is underestimating his vileness.

[lastlib]

6. Sure, somebody could *print* gazillions of counterfeit ballots.....

getting them to COUNT would be the problem. There are a helluva lot of checks and balances against fraudulent ballots getting through. Not saying it couldn't POSSIBLY happen, but I don't see a great likelihood of it. In fact, we as Dems need to be on the lookout for it as well--tRump and his cabal are VERY likely to try it themselves.

In fact, I would not put it past him and his party to slip in counterfeit ballots for OUR ticket--just so he could make the CLAIM that WE are cheating, therefore HE is the rightful winner. Any campaign that can sign on to have Roger Stone work for them absolutely CANNOT be trusted!

[Crunchy Frog]

7. There are no norms anymore.

Our side needs to get that figured out.