Posted on 07/28/2020 3:25:36 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
Get ready. Barr’s testimony is going to be epic. – Attorney General William Barr appears before the House Judiciary Committee for testimony today, and boy, if you think he’s going in feeling timid and cowed, do you have another think coming.
The Democrat members of the committee, chaired by Gerrold Nadler and including such rank dimwits as Eric Swalwell, Hank Johnson, Stephen Cohen, Sheila Jackson Lee and Ted Lieu, have made clear they intend to use this hearing to demonize Barr and set the pretense to hold impeachment hearings targeted at the AG. All of their bluster is designed to frighten Barr into holding fire on issuing any indictments of the coup plotters until after Election Day in November. You can be sure that pretty much every Democrat will pound on this point.
Mr. Barr is having none of it. The AG released his opening statement last night, and he is coming out with both guns blazing. Here are some excerpts for your reading enjoyment:
Ever since I made it clear that I was going to do everything I could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus “Russiagate” scandal, many of the Democrats on this Committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that I am simply the President’s factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions. Judging from the letter inviting me to this hearing, that appears to be your agenda today. So let me turn to that first.
As I said in my confirmation hearing, the Attorney General has a unique obligation. He holds in trust the fair and impartial administration of justice. He must ensure that there is one standard of justice that applies to everyone equally and that criminal cases are handled even-handedly, based on the law and the facts, and without regard to political or personal considerations. I can tell you that I have handled criminal matters that have come to me for decision in this way.
The President has not attempted to interfere in these decisions. On the contrary, he has told me from the start that he expects me to exercise my independent judgment to make whatever call I think is right. That is precisely what I have done.
From my experience, the President has played a role properly and traditionally played by Presidents. Like his predecessors, President Trump and his National Security Council have appropriately weighed in on law-enforcement decisions that directly implicate national security or foreign policy, because those decisions necessarily involve considerations that transcend typical prosecutorial factors. Moreover, when some noteworthy event occurs that potentially has legal ramifications – such as leaks of classified information, potential civil rights abuses by police, or illegal price fixing or gouging – the President has occasionally, and appropriately, confirmed that the Department is aware of the matter. But the handling of the matter and my decisions on criminal matters have been left to my independent judgment, based on the law and fact, without any direction or interference from the White House or anyone outside the Department.
Indeed, it is precisely because I feel complete freedom to do what I think is right that induced me serve once again as Attorney General. As you know, I served as Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush. After that, I spent many years in the corporate world. I was almost 70 years old, slipping happily into retirement as I enjoyed my grandchildren. I had nothing to prove and had no desire to return to government. I had no prior relationship with President Trump.
[End]
The AG also addresses the Democrat/media’s lies about what is taking place in Portland every night in a very direct manner:
Finally, I want to address a different breakdown in the rule of law that we have witnessed over the past two months. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests to wreak senseless havoc and destruction on innocent victims. The current situation in Portland is a telling example. Every night for the past two months, a mob of hundreds of rioters has laid siege to the federal courthouse and other nearby federal property. The rioters arrive equipped for a fight, armed with powerful slingshots, tasers, sledgehammers, saws,knives, rifles, and explosive devices. Inside the courthouse are a relatively small number of federal law enforcement personnel charged with a defensive mission: to protect the courthouse, home to Article III federal judges, from being overrun and destroyed.
What unfolds nightly around the courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest; it is, by any objective measure, an assault on the Government of the United States. In recent nights, rioters have barricaded the front door of the courthouse, pried plywood off the windows with crowbars,and thrown commercial-grade fireworks into the building in an apparent attempt to burn it down with federal personnel inside.
The rioters have started fires outside the building, and then systematically attacked federal law enforcement officers who attempt to put them out—for example, by pelting the officers with rocks, frozen water bottles, cans of food, and balloons filled with fecal matter. A recent video showed a mob enthusiastically beating a Deputy U.S. Marshal who was trying to protect the courthouse – a property of the United States government funded by this Congress – from further destruction. A number of federal officers have been injured, including one severely burned by a mortar-style firework and three who have suffered serious eye injuries and may be permanently blind.
Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even superficial attempts by the rioters to connect their actions to George Floyd’s death or any legitimate call for reform. Nor could such brazen acts of lawlessness plausibly be justified by a concern that police officers in Minnesota or elsewhere defied the law.
Remarkably, the response from many in the media and local elected offices to this organized assault has been to blame the federal government. To state what should be obvious, peaceful protesters do not throw explosives into federal courthouses, tear down plywood with crowbars, or launch fecal matter at federal officers. Such acts are in fact federal crimes under statutes enacted by this Congress.
As elected officials of the federal government, every Member of this Committee –regardless of your political views or your feelings about the Trump Administration – should condemn violence against federal officers and destruction of federal property. So should state and local leaders who have a responsibility to keep their communities safe. To tacitly condone destruction and anarchy is to abandon the basic rule-of-law principles that should unite us even in a politically divisive time. At the very least, we should all be able to agree that there is no place in this country for armed mobs that seek to establish autonomous zones beyond government control, or tear down statues and monuments that law-abiding communities chose to erect, or to destroy the property and livelihoods of innocent business owners.
The most basic responsibility of government is to ensure the rule of law, so that people can live their lives safely and without fear. The Justice Department will continue working to meet that solemn responsibility.
[End]
Boom. This is a brilliant statement with which to open this hearing, and we can be sure that Mr. Barr will give as good as he takes.
That is all.
Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.
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Yawn.
So sick of this do nothing asshole. Making Jerry Nadker look like an idiot doesn’t need anybody else besides Jerry Nadler
We don’t need theatre bagpipes. Do your friggen job. Fat Sessions.
It's a trap: the organized Left wants the federal officers to try mass arrests or even better, to kill someone. That's why they keep escalating things and are at it, night after night.
If they succeed in getting federal officers to respond violently, their narrative is preloaded to blame the President to sway voters to abandon him in November. You've already seen the distortion in the media - "peaceful protesters" with no mention of the blinding lasers or the burn casualties.
Our federal officers are being heroic in the face of nearly unbelievable provocation.
I've seen exactly the same garbage before in 1970, as the violent Leftists attacked police and rioted in the streets and the press called it "anti Vietnam War protests". Same kind of people, same objectives, same tactics.
That time, they got the President and caused the enemy to win.
Every democrat on the House Judiciary Committee should be stood against a wall. Give them each a last cigarette...already lit and put the cherry out on there eyeball.
Strong statement from Barr, really quite brilliant and encouraging. Barr is a great legal writer, up there with Clarence Thomas (who is better than the sainted Scalia, and who never gets the credit he deserves.)
But we simply do not know what evidence Durham has, and so it is impossible logically to apply Barr’s statement to the Durham investigation.
I do think the following statement is justified: if there are indictments, the evidence will be far stronger and airtight than even our side knew (as opposed to justifiably suspecting).
And if there are no indictments, Barr will explain the inaction on an eloquent justification of prosecutorial discretion.
Here’s a subtle hint, Bill:
Bring video. Pictures are worth a thousand words.
The biggest crime of the last two months is media malfeasance of what is really going on nightly in Portlandstan.
Make them show the “peaceful protestors”
RLTW
Re # 5: 100% agree.
These riots are purely about a Kent State moment, and the rioters know that. They are consciously trying to provoke a “massacre.” Every rioter involved aspires to be a martyr, knowing that only a few are needed and so the chances of being “the one” are quite small.
The rioters are inspired with a heroic vision of themselves as willing to sacrifice their lives in order to spark a bigger, more violent situation involving millions. The inspiration (IMO) is fueled by drugs, brainwashing, delusions of grandeur, and the high of inflicting destruction.
The true wonderment is that both law enforcement and our side in general have been almost miraculous in not taking the bait. It is frustrating to see, but necessary to avoid Kent State, which would truly be a smashing communist success and the start of general chaos and violence which we have not seen since the Civil War.
If nothing happens as far as indictments by October then the fix is in. I just hope they’re waiting for maximum effect. Also it appears that the left has America on its heels at the moment but this is a race. The left will keep pushing their social justice commie garbage till the end but I feel the tide will turn in our favor at the right time. I pray.
Those images did more damage than the Tet Offensive.
Hasn't the Congress done this to him once before? What is going to be the result of this, more grist for the leftist media mill? What else could come of it? A Congressional epiphany? The scales will suddenly fall from their eyes? Don't make me laugh.
Why the hell have we seen NO INDICTMENTS of Obama underlings and deep-staters whom the incoming Administration in 2016 monumentally failed to purge from positions of control and authority?
And who have from day one acted against the will of the American people in what is most certainly a THIRD OBAMA TERM under a duly elected president?
A president whose administration Obama-appointed federal judges and government functionaries have literally isolated, paralyzed, and held hostage, in an arrogant obstruction of executive branch authority, for the past four years?
Barr has removed NO ONE from the inherited Obama DOJ. What is it about Republicans' pathologic fear of house-cleaning? Had Trump kept Eric Holder on board, things would be no different today.
The only way the bagpipe blowhard’s testimony will be epic is if he brings along some grand jury indictments for Traitornadler and his fellow Demonicrats.
For 60 days and yet no arrests of people who are funding these animals. Any infiltration of their meetings to get their orders, how to destroy, how to hurt, maim, kill for maximum press impact?
If this was Right to bear Arms protests you all know damm well there would be people already arrested, hog-tied, charged and convicted, jailed.
At this stage in the election cycle, minds are made up and the die is set for Nov 3. Frog-marching a bunch of coup plotters is not going to tilt the scales either way. Trump haters will NEVER vote for Trump. On the other hand, Trump supporters will crawl through broken glass to vote for him.
Now I'm all for the coup plotters being rounded up and frog-marched off to jail. But it's not going to help or hurt Trump either way at this point - from an electoral perspective.
Wrong. America is on its knees, and covering its face in shame.
Did I miss the time of his testimony? and is it on the tube? Thanks.
Talk, but no indictments. Fox Business had a commentator on last night who indicated that Durham had not even interviewed crucial witnesses to the preparation of the Steele dossier yet. The clock is going to run out and all of this will simply vanish down the memory hole if cardboard cutout Biden is elected or the fraud is so vast that voting no longer matters.
If we’re on our knees it’s because we’re praying to God for deliverance from this evil that is covering our land and our hands are brought up to our face in a gesture of prayer.
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