THE PRESIDENT FINALLY HAS HIS OWN PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL!

…AG Bill Barr has become Trump’s ‘Roy Coen” type of Attorney General

AG Bill Barr agreed, “Yes, I think spying occurred,” about FBI’s investigations into Russian interference in 2016.

Well, we now know who’s side the new AG, Bill Barr is on.

This AM, Trump went into his “I’m totally vindicated and exonerated by the Mueller Report and the FBI investigation was totally illegal.”

Only hours later, in Barr’s hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Barr states that he thought “spying” on a political campaign occurred by the FBI in the course of intelligence agencies’ investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  This is a startling assertion by the nation’s top law enforcement official and it sends a nasty message to the nation about the nation’s major intelligence organization.

But the real message was to Trump for him to keep saying that the FBI was illegally going after his campaign and now Trump will continue to drive that idea across to his base supporters all the way to the 2020 election.

Barr’s surprising comments echo the attacks that President Trump has falsely been making against the FBI.  This is even as the attorney general later made it clear that he was concerned about the legal basis of the FBI for surveilling political figures.  His words provided fresh ammunition to those who have agreed with Trump and branded the Russia investigation as an illegitimate attempt to derail Trump’s presidency.

“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal,” said Barr, noting that there are long-held rules to prevent intelligence agencies from collecting information on domestic political figures.  “I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at,” he said. “I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily but intelligence agencies more broadly.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) then asked: “You’re not suggesting that spying occurred?”

Barr thought about what Sen. Shaheen asked and he responded:  “Yes, I think spying occurred.”

It was as if Barr had heard Trump’s morning accusations, and he then decided to agree with the president.

Barr’s comments sparked an immediate response from the House, where the Judiciary and Oversight committees jointly spent the bulk of 2018 looking into the FBI’s conduct.  This was during its probes of Trump’s campaign and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C), a close ally of the current president, cheered Barr’s plans to look into allegations of spying, calling it “massive” and in line with evidence the GOP-led investigation uncovered. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), said Barr’s comments “directly contradict” what the Justice Department officials had previously said to the committee.

Barr told lawmakers that his review may scrutinize senior FBI officials’ conduct at the time.  “I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused. I think that is one of the principal roles of the attorney general,” he said.

Later in the hearing, Barr offered a more tempered description of his concerns, saying that he wanted to understand whether there was “unauthorized surveillance” of political figures. “I believe there is a basis for my concern, but I’m not going to discuss the basis for my concern,” Barr said. “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying I am concerned about it, and I am looking into it. That is all.”

The democrats are rightly concerned as the scrutiny and suspicion increase as Mueller report undergoes redaction.  

The redaction process has raised serious suspicions among Democrats that Barr is trying to hide damaging information about the president.  Those concerns have intensified after recent reports indicated that some on Mueller’s team are very unhappy with the apparent support of the president’s comments about his now only being exonerated because of Barr’s initial statements to Congress.  The Democratic leadership think that more could and should be said about the seriousness of what the investigators had found.

The attorney general said Wednesday that none of Mueller’s report was releasable “as I received it, because none of it had been vetted for [grand jury] material.”  Barr would not say whether anyone at the White House has been briefed on the report’s contents, and he told the panel’s senior Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), that he has not overruled Mueller on any recommendations regarding redactions, or whether to omit certain information or leave it visible.

The point is that everything Barr has said has made it very clear that President Trump finally has “his own private ‘Roy Coen’ type Attorney General”.

Copyright G. Ater 2019