You were real funny out in the game zone. It’s not so funny NOW, is it bitch? Dynamo The Running Man
There’s one overarching image if Bill Barr that I just can’t seem to get out of my mind. And that image is of him standing behind a podium at some conservative function, looking like a college professor that you just know is never going to get tenure, joking to an audience,”I haven’t even been the Attorney General for 100 days yet, and already I;m in contempt of congress. That’s gotta be a record. I must be doing something right”
That was then, and this is now, and somewhere betwixt and between, as the quote above indicates, shit just ain’t that funny anymore. Maybe the thought of losing his ticket to practice (and Barr needs all the practice he can get) law sobered him up. But this is actually the second time that Barr has caved to congress. Under a contempt threat from Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, Barr’s DOJ finally started turning over material from the counter intelligence investigation. And now, apparently Barr has once again succumbed to the pressure, this time from Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, to start turning over critical “underlying documents and evidence” that buttressed the findings of the Mueller report.
Here’s why I say that the dam just broke today. William Barr is the current Attorney General of the United States. If Barr were held in contempt of court, and the committee took him to civil court to force compliance with the subpoena, Barr would be represented in court by DOJ lawyers. Barr’s fold-spindle-and-mutilate under House pressure shows that Barr knows full damn well that the subpoena is valid, and he doesn’t want the stain of being ordered by a court to comply.
But what does that mean to people like Don McGahn, Hope Hicks, and Amy Donaldson? They too are ignoring legal subpoenas from congress, on the express orders of the White House, just like Will-a the Ewok. But they aren’t administration officials anymore, so they don’t get free DOJ representation. They’re paying their own legal fees here. And as anyone who has ever dealt with a lawyer can tell you, while he charges you more than two union plumbers just to read documents on your case in his office, if he has to go to court and open his mouth, the hourly rate doubles at least, if not more.The fact that the Attorney General caved like an old coal mine rather than face a day in court has got to signal to them that this is not a fan that they want to piss into.
And it’s not just them. Wilbur Ross is scheduled to have his contempt charge voted on this week. And ow that the congressional committee chairs know the secret sauce, bolstered by early court decisions regarding Trump’s personal finances, you can expect to see speedy contempt of congress votes in committee on sea slugs like Steve Munchkin Mnuchin and his IRS Commissioner. And with the House voting to expedite the process for committees to advance to court after a committee vote on contempt, it only shortens the wiggle room. Why subject themselves to all of the sturm und drang if the Attorney General has already decided he can’t win the fight?
What we are witnessing is the real difference between what Jon Oliver likes to call “Stupid Watergate” and the real Watergate. Richard Nixon commanded true loyalty, the kind of loyalty that led all of the Presidents men to go to prison rather than roll over on Nixon. Trump is loyal to his people only for as long as it is expedient and convenient for him, and now he’s going to be shocked to find out that the feeling is mutual. It couldn’t happen to a nicer cabal.
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Call me cautiously optimistic (about the dam).
On the one hand, Barr seems dedicated to avoiding being held in contempt. Maybe it’s ego and a concern over his legacy, or maybe he has a more practical reason, but whatever his motivation, knowing he’s inclined to avoid contempt gives Dems a certain amount of leverage.
Where I’m cautious is that when he has testified in the past…contemporaneously and in previous positions…he has a way of being unhelpful, which is a nice way of saying he’s a slimy weasel who will deflect, offer endless red herrings, hedge, make misdirections, etc.
So I would not be surprised if he sits down before Congress and we get endless “I can’t comment,” “I don’t know,” “I’m not prepared to speak to…” and so forth. He’ll offer as little as he can while muddying the waters, then say he did his due diligence.
Honestly…as with Watergate…I think people in the administration will need to start getting prison sentences to motivate others toward honesty and cooperation.
I agree with your caution…Personally, I think that what Barr most fears is possible disbarment hearings and losing his license, at least for a while, based on a contempt ruling when he’s an officer of the court…As for his reticence, you’re right, he has been unhelpful, and even downright deceitful in his testimony…But this agreement doesn’t require him to SAY anything, he is simply being compelled to turn over documents, and THOSE will do the talking for themselves…
Indeed. This will end quite neatly, all-be-it slowly.
I think we all were kidding ourselves about the whole notion of a fast exit or least I did. But the end is in sight and it is going to be a bad day for the folks who thought to profit off Trump’s foolishness.
I have to admit I’ve been puzzled about Barr’s being so terrified of being held in Contempt of Congress. I could understand if they were threatening criminal contempt but (and IANAL) civil contempt I figured wouldn’t have any immediate effect on his law license. Lawyers are loathe to punish each other and while an AG being held even in civil contempt might cause the Bar is whatever jurisdictions he’s licensed to open inquiry it wouldn’t lead to anything. Then again the fact he’s AG instead of some rank & file lawyer might mean just that and that’s what he’s afraid of.
Even before that interview he gave from Alaska where he said he didn’t care about his legacy I figured he’d already made that pretty clear by his actions on behalf of Trump. OTOH while Mueller is loathe to appear in front of Congress if called upon to do so he will show up and I’m starting to think that some of what Mueller has to say about that Feb. 5 meeting might have Barr worried – worried that between what was said then and his subsequent actions he might be subject to obstruction of justice charges himself. Maybe someone reminded him of the fact he wouldn’t be the first AG (or former one since it wouldn’t happen until the new administration and a new AG) to go to prison. Barr might not care about his legacy but he damned sure doesn’t want to spend even a single night in prison.
In a sense, he’s done what he was hired to do which is muddy the waters r.e. the Mueller report. His toxic brew of misinformation has marinated in the brain housing groups of the goobers in Trumplandia for months now & anything that comes up now will be met with granite encase in titanium wall of “fake news” reactions. He’s slow walked things regrettably well, and perhaps has come to the point where he can only get away with so much additional slow walking although I have no doubt he will continue to push the envelope.
I think the key point going forward is one you raised about the rules being changed to allow Contempt citations to be fast-tracked. Once in place all it will take is a threat from a committee chair and Barr will roll over which means instead of delaying something indefinitely or at least for months he can only slow it down for a week or two. That’s still too much as it will give the administration a head start on spin but it’s better than where we’ve been.
I get it…But a couple of things…First, Barr is an “officer of the court” as a lawyer, and who knows, IANAL either, but a contempt citation from congress could lead to punitive actions from his state bar association, such as a suspension of his license…Second, if the Democrats take him to court, even in civil court, and he defies a court order to comply, then he’s in contempt of court, not congress, and the judge can order him to be incarcerated until he complies…
Damn. I hadn’t considered the part about what happens if he defies a court order. I’m not sure a Judge would throw him in jail right away but I bet Barr himself would be ordered to show up in ‘Court and even face direct questioning from the Judge on just why he should go to jail right then and there. And, as you say defiance of a court order would indeed crank up the investigative monster of whatever State Bar licenses him.
Given all that I think Nadler should sit down with Barr privately and issue an ultimatum including that he (Nadler) will make the ultimatum public and then follow through on it should there be anything less than full and swift production of documents and witnesses (from the DOJ at least) from this point forward. And Nadler should twist the knife regarding his son-in-law who moved from DOJ to the WH Counsel’s Office that he too could find himself in contempt if there’s any whiff of him taking part in blocking witness testimony or document production!
A favorite tune I love bringing up in conjunction with the general direction we seem to be heading is the blues tune “When The Levee Breaks”, popularized by Led Zeppelin. Every time Trump gets a new underling and pushes his luck with them just a little too far, something like this happens. We are a long, long way from the end of all this but this serves as continuing proof that others will follow Trump only so far.
We are past the end of the beginning and are now perhaps past the beginning of the end.
A patch on Churchill? But yeah, we’re squarely in the middle of this.
This, I believe, is what Pelosi’s strategy has been since 2018. I further believe as facts continue to come to light in all their heinousness, pressure builds on those GOP leaders who previously felt no urgency to act to save their own asses. Yes, Barr’s spin bought that idiot traffic cone months to spin the shit out of the Mueller Report, but that spin’s getting tired and increasingly shrill. Sure, the Deplorable Base will holler “Fake News!” and return to amusing themselves, calling the cops on black people doing normal things, but it’s a big ol’ country, and IMO that part of the idiot traffic cone’s base represents only about 28% of registered Republican voters. It’s up to the rest of us to help the House make its case, not only for impeachment, but with any luck at all, prison sentences for this whole criminal enterprise: hijacking the U.S. government to serve their agenda.
Me, I’m a regrettably impatient woman. I have hated–HATED–waiting for Justice to work its slow but inexorable way through the court system. I have chafed under the fear the courts have been so stacked, Justice cannot be done. If it were up to me, I’d just set fire to the lot of ’em, but thank goodness it’s not up to me, and thanks, Murf, for the news and the glimmer of light it seems to promise.
I don’t disagree, I also think that Pelosi wanted to follow the Watergate example of mo e by hearings to shift public opin ion, but to my mind, she waited far too damn long by pinning her star on Muellers damn report…And now, unless she has a sucden Hitchcock moment, by the time she finally moves the public needle, we’ll be too close to the election to impeach…That’s why we need it to be an impeachment INQUIRY immediately!!! We can call the same witnesses, but won’t have to waste time calling them again for an official “impeachment” even…
I couldn’t agree more about the lost ground. She did what she figured was best to do on many, many fronts, much of them wholly successful, but took steps toward impeachment so cautiously, we’re behind the momentum. I wish Pelosi Godspeed, though. Right now we need her to be the best Nancy Pelosi she’s ever been—and then some.
Oh, we definitely need her now more than ever, for her experience and guile…{Plus she still has the magic touch to drive His Lowness absoutely insane by remote control, which is always nice…
All the president’s horses and all the president’s men will never be able to put trump back together again.
Yes, I assume that it became clear that the arguments for obstruction would pass no muster in the courts, and that contempt of congress means something. Poor Donny is losing again, and his “Roy Cohn” is simply a garden-variety piece-of-shit who will dump Donnie at the first sign of real danger to himself. I agree, the Trump wall of obstruction will come crashing down, and soon.