I have a question for Bill
Barr which no one seems to have asked yet. Barr's
legal, judicial and constitutional philosophy is one of a strong all
powerful chief executive. The nation has long debated that ideological
question. For decades it has been the subject in the formulation of our
Constitutional republic, through the institution of slavery, to the
20th century's Great Depression and beyond. I, too, when formulating my
political opinions wrestled with the concept of a strong chief
executive. I did so because those on the right were decrying, for
example, FDR's New Deal and John Kennedy's actions on behalf of civil
rights, as well as Lyndon Johnson's advocacy for human rights. The
right wing for years thought it was a breach of the balance of power the
Founders created for the president to stray into areas which either
belong to other branches of Congress or more properly reside in the
states. Many viewed FDR's New Deal as tyrannical.
What is the role of the Chief Executive when working to
ameliorate the effects of a Great Depression, waging war, or even providing health
insurance? Up until FDR the president thought his powers were
limited and that there was nothing more that could be done during the
Great
Depression by Herbert Hoover except to let the economy adjust on its
own. Meanwhile
millions were starving and millions were sick. Later persons of color
who served the nation in war were not let into all white colleges and
universities or drink from water fountains labeled "white." These
mammoth injustices which since FDR called out for strong executive
power. I advocated for a strong executive when justice had to prevail
or when the existential life of the nation was in question.
Since
Trump the trajectory of that power for which I once advocated can be
seen through his plethora of executive orders that come down heavy not for the least of these but against those who have the least.
He has relegated those seeking protection from tyranny to mandating a
new Trumpian tyranny. He has relegated children vying for safety in
this nation to cages, he has signed Muslim bans, he has cozied up to the
worst of world dictators, celebrated with Russian ambassadors over a
firing of an FBI director, encroached through eminent domain on private
property for his wall to keep desperate immigrants out, imposed
economically destructive tariffs, advocated for the attorney general to
lower sentencing on a convicted felon in a case where the defendant was
his friend. This has never happened before. He has nominated judges
who do not meet even the standards of the American Bar Association. He
has sent federally empowered ICE into states which have sanctuary cities
to arrest those who have been given state protection. He lowered
pollution standards in streams and waterways that provide drinking
water. He eliminated standards for fossil fuel drilling and for the
extraction of dirty coal. He cancelled the nuclear proliferation
agreement with Iran which was working, and he denies the scientific
certainty of climate change while our nation drowns in floods and
suffers along with other nations many other catastrophic weather related
disasters. Ask Australians if they believe in climate change.
Much
of the power which the president thinks he has and Mr. Barr thinks
lives within his presidential right to wield is dedicated to undoing the
justice of many decades of injustice. Trumpian power is inhumane,
cruel, vicious and is dedicated to inflate his bank accounts and
maintaining power while he existentially destroys our nation.
I
therefore ask Bill Barr if he believes in a strong chief executive does
he do so if the the president were a Democrat? Does he think a unitary
strong executive should prevail only if the president is Republican
advocating for the richest in the nation and above the law our Founders
feared?
This is a running commentary on contemporary social, political and religious issues. From the Introduction of James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty -- Truth, Lies and Leadership" "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary" Reinhold Niebuhr
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Bill Barr Must Resign -- By Donald Ayer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush
The attorney general
is working to destroy the integrity and independence of the Justice
Department, in order to make Donald Trump a president who can operate
above the law.
Former Deputy Attorney General Shares Dire Warning If William Barr Does Not Resign--By Josephine Harvey
Donald Ayer, a deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, predicts a
grim outcome for America if Barr continues to serve Trump.
A former deputy attorney general in George H.W.
Bush’s administration has warned that the integrity of the Justice
Department has been compromised by the current attorney general, William
Barr, paving the way for “virtually autocratic” leadership by President
Donald Trump.
In an op-ed for The Atlantic published Monday,
Donald Ayer, who has known Barr for more than four decades and once
worked with him at the Department of Justice, warned of a grim future if
his former colleague is not removed from office.
Reflecting on Barr’s first year of service, Ayer
concluded that he has “appeared to function much more as the president’s
personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and
government of the United States.”
Any optimism that Barr would stand strong against
attempts to inject politics into the department’s work was misplaced,
Ayer wrote, highlighting a series of “disturbing” events beginning with
his “public whitewashing of Robert Mueller’s report, which included
powerful evidence of repeated obstruction of justice by the president,”
and ending with the “worst of all”: Barr’s reported intervention in the
criminal prosecution of Trump’s friend Roger Stone.
“For whatever twisted reasons, he believes that
the president should be above the law, and he has as his foil in pursuit
of that goal a president who, uniquely in our history, actually aspires
to that status.”
The fundamental reason that Barr is unfit for
office, according to Ayer, is that he does not believe in the central
tenet of America’s democracy: that “no person is above the law.”
“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go,” Ayer concluded.
“It is a banana republic where all are subject to
the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that,
we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately,
or failing that, be impeached.”
Ayer is just one of more than 2,000 former
prosecutors and DOJ officials to call for Barr’s resignation in the wake
of the extraordinary events of the past week. Last Tuesday, four career
prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case after top Justice Department
officials overruled their sentencing recommendation. Seemingly
confirming concerns that Barr had intervened on his behalf, the
president openly applauded Barr for “taking charge” of the case on
Twitter. Later in an interview, Barr said that constant tweets and
commentary were complicating his job.
Barr’s push back was faulted widely as an attempt
to cover up what critics suggested was a coordinated attempt between him
and Trump to defuse the firestorm over the preferential treatment given Trump’s longtime ally.
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