Posted on 02/14/2019 10:13:53 AM PST by jazusamo
The Senate voted Thursday to approve William Barr as attorney general, giving the Justice Department its first confirmed chief since President Trump ousted Jeff Sessions last fall.
More than 50 senators voted for Barr’s nomination, giving him enough support to be confirmed. The vote caps off a relatively low drama fight over Trump’s second nominee for the post. Barr was largely on a glide path after he cleared the Judiciary Committee and a procedural vote without any missteps that threatened GOP support for his nomination.
Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) appeared to be the only Republican who would vote against Barr on Thursday, while Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Doug Jones (Ala.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) broke with their party and supported him.
Democrats have 47 seats in the Senate. With Manchin, Jones and Sinema voting earlier in the week to advance Barr’s nomination, Democrats would have needed to flip six Republicans in addition to Paul to sink his nomination.
But Republicans largely rallied behind Barr, who previously served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush and is returning to the helm of a department that has been at the center of Trump's longtime criticism over the federal Russia probe.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, characterized Barr as an “outstanding” pick to lead the agency, which has been under the leadership of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker since Sessions was ousted in November.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the former chairman and current member of the Judiciary panel, added that Barr will be “a straight shooter and an individual who is willing to engage in productive discussion with Congress.”
Democrats have raised concerns for weeks over Barr’s views on executive power and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the 2016 election. As attorney general, Barr is set to take over oversight of the investigation, which is also reportedly examining whether Trump sought to obstruct justice by interfering in the probe.
Trump's fight with former top law enforcement officials was brought back into the forefront on Thursday after former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe revealed that he opened a probe into whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
McCabe also said that top Justice Department officials were so concerned about Trump’s decision to fire Comey that they discussed an effort to remove him from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has been overseeing the special counsel's Russia probe since 2017, has denied the 25th Amendment talk.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote on Barr on Thursday that the circumstances around Mueller’s probe make the threshold for supporting an attorney general nominee higher than normal.
“The next Attorney General must be a public servant in the truest sense, with the integrity, the force of will, and the independence to navigate the Justice Department – and maybe our democracy – through treacherous waters. Mr. Barr’s attitude: leave it to me. That is not good enough,” Schumer said.
He added that Barr “does not recognize nor appreciate the moment we’re in."
Barr circulated an unsolicited memo on Mueller’s probe last year, including with the White House, describing the investigation as based on a “fatally misconceived” theory and would do “lasting damage” to the presidency.
Barr told senators during his confirmation hearing last month that he would let Mueller finish his investigation, that Trump would not be allowed to "correct" his final report and that he would make Mueller's findings public in accordance with the law.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), who is running for his party’s 2020 nomination, also pointed to Barr’s views on criminal justice reform and racial inequality within the justice system as part of his reason he voted against the nomination.
“We need an Attorney General that grasps the urgency of the moment, who is aware of the impact of the Department of Justice on communities across this country,” Booker said, “and who is willing and prepared to protect our most fundamental rights.”
Paul, the only Republican to vote no, said he had concerns about Barr’s views on privacy. Paul has frequently sparred with GOP leadership on surveillance and foreign policy issues. He voted against CIA Director Gina Haspel last year and threatened to vote against Mike Pompeo’s secretary of State nomination before doing a last-minute reversal.
“I have too many concerns about the record and views of this nominee. Bill Barr was a leading proponent of warrantless surveillance, and his overall record on the Fourth Amendment is troubling to me. I remain concerned that Bill Barr does not agree with our bipartisan efforts to reform our criminal justice system,” Paul said after an initial vote earlier this week.
He added that he believed Barr also has a “troubling record on the Second Amendment.”
Barr served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under Bush. He’s also spent more than a decade in corporate roles before joining the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
He’ll succeed Whitaker in the top Justice Department spot. Whitaker, who was previously Sessions’s chief of staff, has been filling the role in an acting capacity. Whitaker’s views on Mueller have earned him criticism from Congress, including his suggestion that Mueller would be crossing a “red line” by investigating Trump’s finances.
I’m guessing far more than 3.
After all, Republicans believe in “reaching across the aisle”, right?
WTH will they ever learn?
When does he open an investigation into this Deep State attempt to overthrow the lawfully elected President of the United States?
LOL! Perfect!
That was quick.
Good!
I still don’t see why the president insisted on Barr.
Oh well. We are stuck with him now. I know very little about him. The President has all the facts about this man. I hope for the best.
The die is cast. No matter how severe my reservations about Barr, his grace period starts today.
If he gets the prosecutions of highly placed traitors rolling in a big way, all past sins will be forgiven.
I’m still amazed at what a horrendous pick Sessions turned out to be. There are several guys in jail, facing jail or who’ve had their lives literally ruined because he was too stupid to see what the media/left was trying to do. Lawfare is the left’s stock in trade. How did that dullard not see that one coming? Did he not see what they did to Sarah Palin, Ted Stevens, and Tom DeLay?
I don’t doubt that your gut is right about Barr either. I’d be thrilled to be wrong, but unless any pick is a fire-breathing conservative activist, you can fully expect him/her to get rolled by the swamp if they aren’t of the swamp themselves.
Well, you can’t nominate somebody who doesn’t want the job in the first place.
And good people, for the most part, don’t want to get involved with the Government these days.
We’ll know soon enough.
Someone is going to go looking for the Keebler Elf, I mean, Jeff Sessions. They will attempt to ask him ‘what he thinks’ of the new Atty. Gen.?
If Sessions is in a particularly bitter mood, he may take the bait, and say something vaguely insulting about the choice. To which, I expect the President will immediately respond on Twitter.
You’re kidding right?
I pray that AG Barr doesn’t turn into the gun-grabbing, privacy-violating person that we feared he would be.
Or worse yet, I pray that he doesn’t become another “Sleepy” Jeff Sessions.
It’s creepy when the Dems don’t bring any drama. Sort of like swimming around with blood in the water, and you don’t see any sharks circling...yet. Why don’t they try slandering him? Could it be he’s one of them? But to say such a thing on a purely negative basis would be to mistrust the judgment of the Obiwan. And he’s our only hope. May the Force be with him.
He may have been picked because he is one of the few candidates that the Clintons don’t “have something” on. Let’s hope! They should be tried, convicted and imprisoned.
I can think of two reasons:
1. Barr had long been a staunch advocate of an independent executive branch that would operate with little or no Congressional oversight other than for budget appropriations and Senate confirmation of senior presidential appointees.
2. For all the talk about Barr being a "D.C. swamp creature," he hadn't worked in government since January 1993 and has spent the last 25+ years working in corporate counsel and board of director roles for some major corporations.
This is true. I suspect it is true largely because every appointment tends to become politicized and picked apart by hostile media who have nothing better to do with their time.
One’s entire life after age 12 becomes fodder for discussion on CNN. Some very qualified people may choose not to put their spouses, their family members through such artificial inquisitions. No one wants all their ‘dirty laundry’ hung out for public scrutiny, even if you’ve lead the most boring life in history. It’s your private life. I hope this changes within the next decade or so.
Without looking, it was definitely more. The GOP became known as the Stupid Party for a reason.
IMHO, the only silver lining to the left someday controlling all the levers of power again is the elimination of what’s left of the filibuster. They think they’re taking the Senate and Presidency next year, and they’re already talking about doing it.
Then, all the stupid fossils on the right waxing nostalgic about the filibuster will no doubt be shaking their fists in the air about this Great Loss to the Deliberative Body. They had the opportunity to roll back so much of the leftist program the last two years and they freaking blew it over an arcane rule that anyone with 2 brain cells knew the left was going to eliminate anyway.
None of the President’s staffing decisions for DOJ/FBI make sense. Even if you give him a free pass on Judas Sessions (none of us could have predicted his betrayal), his appointments of Wray and Barr are suicidal. The President needed an independent AG from one of the deep red states with no connection to Washington, to clean house from top to bottom. Anything less than a purge of the Deep State was destined to haunt him.
Good. Now Barr needs to declare that any future refferals to Meuller MUST go through him first.
Schiff’s #1 job is to keep resetting the clock on the Meuller investigation by nonstop petty referrals via his committee. Barr needs to lay down the law in advance.
If Schiff gets his way, Meuller will never end, and thus no declassifications.
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