Bill Barr, Like Jeff Sessions, Acted on Principle
For full disclosure purposes, I should begin by saying that I know Bill Barr slightly and spoke with him on the phone a while back about matters not involving either the election or the Supreme Court. With that out of the way, let me say this: It’s time for Barr’s enemies to step up to apologize for their numerous false and scurrilous attacks on him. He has proven to be a worthy successor to Jeff Sessions — another man who put principle before ambition — and has shown himself to be an honorable leader of the Justice Department.
The National Review captures the most recent revelations — revelations that starkly disprove the allegations against Barr:
Everyone who ever called U.S. attorney general a partisan hack who put President Trump’s personal and political interests ahead of the law, please line up to make a very public apology.
Attorney General William Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least this spring, a person familiar with the matter said, and worked to avoid their public disclosure during the heated election campaign.
Republicans and President Trump have pressed Mr. Barr for months to pursue Mr. Biden, especially as his father, Joe Biden, gained momentum in his ultimately successful bid for president. Mr. Barr has staved off pressure from Republicans in Congress for information into the investigations, the person said, without elaborating on his actions.
Think about how often you heard allegedly well-informed, allegedly astute political talking heads insist that Barr was a “ruthless, relentless political hack and a thug,” “the most dangerous member of the Trump administration,” and accusations that Barr was “interfering in the election” and “weaponizing law enforcement.” Or the number of times you heard Barr was “aiding Trump’s collusion with Putin,” “turning America into a dictatorship,” and “a danger to democracy.” Remember Eric Holder insisting Barr was “unfit to lead the Justice Department”?
Does any of that fit a man who knew that his department was in the early stages of a criminal investigation of the son of the Democratic nominee, and kept it out of the newspapers?
This comes after Barr publicly declared that he has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” infuriating every Trump fan who thinks the election was stolen and undermining the arguments of Trump’s legal team. Now we know Barr kept quiet about the Hunter Biden investigation — even when the Trump campaign was metaphorically screaming at the top of its lungs about Hunter Biden. Barr kept quiet because the Department of Justice is not supposed to influence the outcome of the election — even if that denies a potential advantage to the attorney general’s boss. Barr could have “pulled a Jim Comey” and shaken up the race with a dramatic revelation as Americans were casting their ballots. He chose not to do so.
William Barr is the guy who follows the law and preestablished procedure and the evidence to the truthful conclusion, whether it is good for his side or not, and whether it is what he wants to see or not. Of course, Barr is a conservative Republican, he has a clear viewpoint on what constitutes justice and how law enforcement should operate, and he’s going to have fierce disagreements with liberals. But William Barr is largely the same man, with the same viewpoints, as he was when he was attorney general under George H. W. Bush. He’s always believed in extensive powers of the executive branch. He’s always been comfortable taking an unpopular stance. He didn’t develop these views because of Trump.
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