Why Bill Barr Is So Dangerous

The Atlantic ^ | June 30, 2019 | Donald Belton Ayer, former US Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush

[tired&retired]

Per Wiki:

Political party: Independent

Ayer graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1971, with great distinction. In 1973, he graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Arts in American History, and received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1975.

He clerked for Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, followed by a year with Associate Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1976 Term.

From 1977 to 1980, Ayer served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated Ayer as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, and he held that position from 1981 to 1986. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, and as Deputy Attorney General from 1989 until May 1990, when he was succeeded by William Barr.

In a June 2019 Atlantic article entitled “Why Bill Barr Is So Dangerous,” Ayer wrote of Bill Barr, then the attorney general and Ayer’s successor as deputy attorney general in 1990, that “the primary effect of Barr’s conduct to date has indeed been to befuddle and mislead, and create a public misimpression, for those who have not read Mueller’s report, that [President Trump] may not have interfered with the investigation,” but that, “a careful review of Barr’s conduct suggests that his mission is far more grandiose that just misleading people about the facts,” adding, “in Barr’s view, the only check on gross misconduct by the president is impeachment, and the very idea of an independent or special counsel investigating the president is a constitutional anathema.”
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Ayer wrote a political opinion article for the Washington Post:
Comey’s Mistaken Quest for Transparency October 30, 2016

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Thornburgh Denies Shielding Aide : Justice Dept.: The attorney general says he didn’t try to hide the official’s failure of a lie detector test.

Los Angeles Times May 20, 1990

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh on Sunday denied that he had tried to hide the fact that his chief personal aide had flunked a lie detector test during a sensitive department investigation.

“Absolutely not,” Thornburgh said when asked about the allegation of Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald B. Ayer, the department’s No. 2 official, who has turned in his resignation, effective on Friday.

“Mr. Ayer is sadly misinformed about the facts,” Thornburgh said.

“There was no evidence that tied any person on my staff to the unauthorized disclosure.” Thornburgh was referring to a leak of information during an investigation of alleged financial irregularities in the office of House Majority Whip William H. Gray III of Pennsylvania.

Later, in a statement issued Sunday, Thornburgh said he found it “unfortunate that Mr. Ayer has chosen to conduct himself in this manner with respect to his former colleagues.”

After he resigned, Ayer contended that he had been blocked from performing the deputy’s duties by Ross.

The statement released by the department did not deal directly with Ayer’s allegation that Thornburgh had tried to keep the leak investigation away from the department’s internal watchdog unit and, failing that, refused to follow the unit’s recommendation for further investigation.

Instead, the statement noted that Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr’s review of the investigation concluded that there had been no reason for Thornburgh to remove himself from the case—as Ayer had unsuccessfully sought to persuade him to do.

The statement also noted that Thornburgh was acting within his discretion in deciding not to discipline anyone over the leak. The statement said that Starr also had considered the concerns of the department’s watchdog unit, which had called for further investigation and possible discipline.

Note: If I read this correctly, Thornburg was accusing Ayer of being the leaker, thus he resigned rather than being prosecuted. He was replaced by Barr.

[nathanbedford]

This article is quite simply outrageous. It is easy to set the record straight word by word:

Donald Trump disdains, more than anything else, the limitations of checks and balances on his power. Witness his assertion of a right to flout all congressional subpoenas;

Quite the contrary Trump, like virtually every president since George Washington (and including George Washington), has resisted congressional subpoenas as is their duty in order to protect the office of the presidency and maintain separation of powers.

his continuing refusal to disclose his tax returns, notwithstanding Congress’s statutory right to secure them;

The author suggests that submitting the matter to an article 3 court is somehow evidence of a "distain" for checks and balances. Seems to me that he is protecting the office of the presidency, he is observing separation of powers by submitting the matter to a court, hardly evidence of "distain."

personal attacks on judges who dare to subject the acts of his administration to judicial review.

The judges he "personally attacks" have "dared" to judge Trump's actions. Why is it evidence of "distain" for the president to exercise his First Amendment rights to express his views, the author offers no evidence that the president in any way interfered with or obstructed the operation of these daredevil judges.

More blatant yet are his recent assertion of a right to accept dirt on political opponents from foreign governments

Why in the world as it " blatant" to do opposition research? Why is it unreasonable to assemble information as the chief law enforcement officer and, as Trump made clear, forward it to the FBI if warranted?

and his declaration of a national emergency

Trump was explicitly authorized by statute to declare an emergency when, in his exclusive judgment, the situation warranted. He merely said that he had other options but preferred to address an emergency "much faster," not an unsurprising response to emergency.

After distorting these facts concerning the president, the author then proceeds to put the Attorney General on the psychiatrist's couch. One need not bother dealing with that sort of pettifoggery.

[tired&retired]

Professor Ayer currently teaches a course in Supreme Court Advocacy at Georgetown University Law Center and Duke University Law School.

[Zathras]

Does he run around beating people with crowbars?
I don’t think so but The Atlantic backs people who do.

[FreeReign]

Note: If I read this correctly, Thornburg was accusing Ayer of being the leaker, thus he resigned rather than being prosecuted. He was replaced by Barr.

That's my understanding of it too. Good find.

[Yardstick]

These dorks all sound the same.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

our president’s endless stream of lies

Prove it.

Name three lies he's told.

Two

All right, name just one lie Trump has told.

[FreeReign]

Does he run around beating people with crowbars? I don’t think so but The Atlantic backs people who do.

Yup. And so does Mitt Rom Knee.

[Mathews]

Dangerous? I haven’t seen anything of any substance come form him or his office. When I see some progs getting frog marched into a waiting SUV at gun point at zero-dark-thirty... then I might believe him to be a dangerous man. Until then... just another bureaucrat.

[iontheball]

Sad, the entire article is nothing more than the expressions of a mind suffering from Trump derangement syndrome.

[HotHunt]

Seems you forgot to mention one "tell" that this Ayer guy is a liberal democRAT.

He writes for the far Left, radical The Atlantic. About as far to the left periodical as you can get.

[Hatteras]

DiGenova has been saying “just wait, in the next couple of weeks” for the past 6 months now.

[Mathews]

Dangerous? I haven’t seen anything of any substance come form him or his office. When I see some progs getting frog marched into a waiting SUV at gun point at zero-dark-thirty... then I might believe him to be a dangerous man. Until then... just another bureaucrat.

[GoldenPup]

Buried behind our president’s endless stream of lies and malicious self-serving remarks are actions that far transcend any reasonable understanding of his legal authority.

Usual and customary whiney, fake Bullshit from the communist press.

[FreeReign]

Not if this Swamp Rat Ayers is soiling himself over Barr in print.

Hopefully this op-ed is Ayer genuinely soiling himself. And I do think it's most likely that Barr is the real deal.

That said, the swamp does have a track record of using head fakes. Take for example, John Huber, albeit a very transparent head fake example.

[353FMG]

I am still not convinced that we shall get to the truth of what took place in 2016.

[tired&retired]

Ayer is just a sore loser as it appears he got caught leaking information in his old job, forced to resign by Thornburgh, and Barr replaced him.

[tired&retired]

He is listed as political affiliation: Independant

But working in a Republican administration as an Independent means he really is a lib demonrat.

[kiryandil]

“You Know He’s A Little Bit Dangerous” - Roxette does Bill Barr

[kiryandil]

Political party: Independent

Ayer is OK with Democrats being appointed to the federal bench.

Therefore, he's a Democrat.