AG should serve the people; Barr serves only Trump

Oct. 4, 2019, 3:36 PM EDT
By Jake Maccoby, former chief speechwriter for Attorney General Eric Holder

... Before Barr ever took control of the Justice Department, it was clear that he was expected to focus on Trump’s needs more than the country’s. In 2017, Barr was invited to discuss joining Trump’s legal defense team. In 2018, he sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department and lawyers close to Trump about the special counsel’s investigation, arguing that the probe relied on a "fatally misconceived" theory. At his confirmation hearing, Barr hemmed and hawed when Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., asked whether the White House had already asked him to launch an investigation into anyone before declining to answer the question.

Once in office, he claimed to Congress with no evidence that “spying did occur” against the Trump campaign in 2016 and launched a third probe of the FBI investigation into Russian interference — attempting to enlist foreign governments in an effort that has the potential to undermine our intelligence agencies and legitimize conspiracy theories. At the close of the Mueller investigation, Barr gave a news conference in which he misled the public about the special counsel’s findings, repeating “no collusion” as if he were reading it off the president’s Twitter feed and insisting that any obstruction of justice should be ignored because “the president was frustrated.”

Recent news has revealed the extent to which Barr has debased his office in order to please his patron, from the Justice Department’s decision to ignore damning sections of the whistleblower report to its shuttering of the probe in just three weeks. At the conclusion of Trump’s now-infamous call with Ukraine’s president, Trump said he would instruct Barr to follow up on his attempts to have the foreign government investigate Joe Biden’s family — demonstrating that Trump, at least, expected the willing participation of his attorney general in an international shakedown. Even as Barr's actions in the Ukraine scandal were being scrutinized this week, he moved the department to join a lawsuit shielding Trump’s tax returns from legal scrutiny in New York state.

Americans should know that this behavior is not normal. During the Obama administration, I served at the Department of Justice with conscientious men and women who had worked under both Republican and Democratic leaders. In some cases, I knew their party affiliations; in many others, I didn’t. It would have been unthinkable for anyone to bring personal politics to bear on their work, or to act as a hired stooge for political authorities ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/attorney-general-should-serve-people-william-barr-serves-only-donald-ncna1062521