{"id":3049,"date":"2020-07-10T17:16:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T17:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3049"},"modified":"2020-07-10T17:16:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T17:16:07","slug":"its-ideologue-meets-grifter-how-bill-barr-made-trumpism-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3049","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s ideologue meets grifter\u201d: How Bill Barr made Trumpism possible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\n\n&#8220;In any other administration, the firing of a US attorney who had been conducting investigations of the president\u2019s allies would be scandalous. But this is not a typical administration and this is not a typical Department of Justice. Under Barr, the DOJ has become a political instrument for the president. Whether it\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2019\/4\/18\/18485465\/bill-barr-summary-clipped-quotes-mueller-report-collusion-coordination\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">misleading the public<\/a>&nbsp;about the Mueller report or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2020\/6\/1\/21277530\/trump-speech-police-violence-dc-tear-gas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">using tear gas<\/a>&nbsp;to disperse peaceful protesters so that Trump could&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/6\/1\/21277624\/trump-episcopal-bishop-church-tear-gas-photo-op-mariann-budde\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stage a photo op<\/a>, or trying to fire Berman, Barr has repeatedly sacrificed the dignity of his office in order to please his boss.&#8221;&nbsp;<br>&#8230;<br>&#8220;He believes the president should be more powerful than Congress and the courts. In his mind, that\u2019s the only thing that can keep the country safe when it is threatened by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse.&#8221;<br>&#8230;<br>&#8220;it\u2019s funny watching interviews with him. He\u2019s very measured in how he speaks, but what he is saying is very far right and deeply conservative across the board. And his actions are extraordinary, at times unprecedented, for an attorney general, from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wusa9.com\/article\/news\/local\/protests\/attorney-general-barr-justifies-national-guard-in-dc-mayor-bowser-letter\/65-de803277-1a5c-460d-8836-7a9882c17aa1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dispatching National Guard troops<\/a>&nbsp;from multiple states all over DC, to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/21\/us\/politics\/barr-berman.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">setting up a command bunker<\/a>&nbsp;where he oversaw all of that, to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2020\/06\/21\/barrs-botched-effort-remove-prosecutor-who-probed-trump-allies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">removing prosecutors<\/a>&nbsp;and pushing for lower sentences&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/2\/13\/21134569\/barr-roger-stone-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">for the president\u2019s allies<\/a>. He speaks carefully but his actions are anything but measured.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2020\/6\/24\/21281485\/bill-barr-donald-trump-berman-doj-david-rohde\">https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2020\/6\/24\/21281485\/bill-barr-donald-trump-berman-doj-david-rohde<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In any other administration, the firing of a US attorney who had been conducting investigations of the president\u2019s allies would be scandalous. But this is not a typical administration and this is not a typical Department of Justice. Under Barr, the DOJ has become a political instrument for the president. Whether it\u2019s misleading the public about the Mueller report or using tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters so that Trump could stage a photo op, or trying to fire Berman, Barr has repeatedly sacrificed the dignity of his office in order to please his boss.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He believes the president should be more powerful than Congress and the courts. In his mind, that\u2019s the only thing that can keep the country safe when it is threatened by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;it\u2019s funny watching interviews with him. He\u2019s very measured in how he speaks, but what he is saying is very far right and deeply conservative across the board. And his actions are extraordinary, at times unprecedented, for an attorney general, from dispatching National Guard troops from multiple states all over DC, to setting up a command bunker where he oversaw all of that, to removing prosecutors and pushing for lower sentences for the president\u2019s allies. He speaks carefully but his actions are anything but measured.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[817,280,818,221,170],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-bill-barr","tag-criminal-justice","tag-department-of-justice","tag-donald-trump","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3050,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions\/3050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}