Let’s be clear: Trump consigliere Bill Barr serves only his client, and if we have a problem with that, he couldn’t care less. The attorney general/criminal defense attorney exudes authoritarian arrogance with each sneering breath, and he’s gonna do as he pleases until the blessed day when he and his client begin to recede in history’s rear mirror.
So there’s no point in hoping that the House Judiciary Committee Democrats changed anything yesterday when they sought to hold Barr accountable for his assaults on the rule of law – which are so flagrant and extensive that more than 1,900 former Justice Department employees, Republicans and Democrats alike, have demanded his resignation. Barr treated his Judiciary inquisitors as if they were lint on his suit.
We’re well aware by now that he’s nothing more than a water boy for Trump’s Twitter feed. But even though he basically droned his Greatest Hits – his blatant lie that the Trump-Russia scandal is “bogus,” his baseless belief that voting by mail is rife with fraud (watch for that one in November), his baseless belief that cops use deadly force against whites at a higher rate than against blacks, his baseless belief that Trump-Russia convict Roger Stone didn’t belong behind bars – he still had some very bad moments yesterday, moments when he was gutted like a fish on a slab.
And that made the hearing worthwhile. Since he was always destined to lie and parry and play word games and plead ignorance, the Democrats seeking to hold him accountable had only one real option: To serve the public interest by venting the facts.
Which brings us to Parmila Jayapal, the congresswoman who spoke truth to power about the Trump-Barr re-election strategy. The Don and his Tom Hagen are sending federal goons into American cities for the purpose of stoking violence and supposedly convincing Americans that only a second-term Trump can cure Fear of Crime. Jayapal knew, as did we, that Barr’s explanations would be worthless, so she did the next best thing:
She laid bare Barr’s rank hypocrisy. He repeatedly tried to interrupt the woman of color, but, ultimately, he had to sit there and take it.
Jayapal: “Let’s look at how you respond when the protesters are supporters of the president. On two separate occasions after President Trump tweeted ‘liberate Michigan’ to subvert stay-home orders to protect the health of people in Michigan, protesters swarmed the Michigan capitol carrying guns, some with swastikas, Confederate flags, and one even with a dark-haired doll with a noose around its neck. Are you aware that these protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot, and beheaded?”
Barr: “No.”
Jayapal: “You’re not aware of that?
Barr: “I was not aware of that.”
Jayapal: “Major protests in Michigan, you’re the attorney general, and you didn’t know that the protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot, and beheaded? So obviously you couldn’t be concerned about that – “
Barr: “Well, there were a lot of protests around the United States, and on June 1 I was worried about the District of Columbia.” (Um. The armed Michigan protests were on May 14.)
Jayapal: “In certain parts of the country, you’re very aware of those. But when protesters with guns and swastikas – “
Barr: ” – I am aware of protesters – “
Jayapal: “- Excuse me, Mr. Barr. This is my time and I control it. You are aware of certain kinds of protesters, but in Michigan, when protesters carry guns and confederate flags and swastikas and call for the governor of Michigan to be beheaded and shot and lynched, somehow you’re not aware of that. Somehow you didn’t know about it. So you didn’t send federal agents in to do to the president’s supporters what you did to the president’s protesters. In fact, you didn’t put pepper balls on those protesters. So the point I’m trying to make here, Mr. Barr, that I think is important for the country to understand, is that there is a real discrepancy in how you react as the attorney general, the top cop in this country, when white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to quote, ‘activate you.’ Because they’re getting the president’s personal agenda done. But when Black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism, and the president’s very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president. You take an aggressive approach to Black Lives Matter protests but not to right-wing extremists threatening to lynch a governor if it’s for the president’s benefit. Did I get it right, Mr. Barr?”
Barr lamely insisted that he couldn’t have intervened in Michigan even if he’d known about it (rest assured, he knew about it), because he only has jurisdiction over federal property (omitting the fact that Trump’s private police force has snatched people off the streets of Portland without probable cause, and that his goons have also been sent into Kansas City, with plans for more urban invasions). But Jayapal didn’t buy his BS:
“Mr. Barr, let me make it clear. You are supposed to represent the people of the United States, not violate people’s First Amendment rights. You are supposed to uphold democracy and secure equal justice under the law, not violently dismantle certain protesters based on the president’s personal agenda.”
At that point, Jayapal’s time expired – but not before she cut to the core of the Trump-Barr cabal. The countdown to November 3 is 97 days.