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 expect that he will look at the law and follow where it takes him. That will be a big change and there is plenty to do.
Trust Sessions II.
Trust the Plan.
Picture, please.
” she also looks kinda hot today.”
funny, i saw her yapping in the senate chamber in the background and kept glancing waiting for someone else to move out of the way so I can get a better view!
I’d tap it.
I tend to agree from what I’ve read.
Why, that's amazing,Grace.
I hope the office was disinfected of sleeping sickness....
My hope for Barr is that he will be a sleeper agent.
With no one expecting him to be any better than the lap dog he replaces; maybe, just maybe, he will be a kickass surprise and start head chopping, firing, and issuing indictments and arrest warrants immediately.
(No - you cannot have what I’m smoking.)
It might harder to be better than Sessions than it appears on the surface. We could end up worse off.
Sessions did nothing to reel in the Mueller fishing expeditions, but he did work hard to improve enforcement of immigration law and border security.
Barr could end up letting Mueller go on as long as he cares to and also abandon Sessions work to improve immigration law enforcement. Enforcing immigration law was never a concern of Bush administration officials.
Mostly disagree. There is some truth to your statement, but if there weren’t a budget reconciliation loophole in the filibuster rule for tax reform, do you see them nuking the filibuster to get something that they universally supported? I don’t. They’d have been perfectly happy to have zero legislative achievements and keep the filibuster in place.
The only reason they nuked the remainder of the judicial filibuster was because of the preposterously selective way in which Harry Reid left in place for SCOTUS nominees that only the Democrats had a history of using. If he hadn’t touched it, we’d have two Merrick Garland-type replacements in there instead of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
Senators love the filibuster because it gives them more power and leverage for political favors, which helps incumbents get reelected. R’s also seem to think that because the D’s didn’t completely eliminate it during the Obama years, it will be around forever to enable them to block future leftist legislation. Fact is, if Obama hadn’t lost the House in 2010, they would have eliminated it already as they will undoubtedly do next time they hold all the cards.
If they had eliminated the filibuster sometime in 2017 or 2018 and still lost the House, I suspect that 9 days into the shutdown McConnell would have found 50 votes for the wall budget before the new congress was seated with no other end to the shutdown in sight.
So Kyrsten Sinema broke with DNC and supported Barr. For whatever reason this Cheating Communist did that it’s for no good.
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.
Possibly. But would an outsider know the DC system well enough to get anything done?
I don’t have a ton of faith in Barr, but at least he knows the system, and if he doesn’t know where the bodies are buried, he certainly knows where to look.
I’d bet Sinema’s just following the lead of Joe Manchin so as not to appear too far left in a state that’s voted Republican in recent presidential elections.
Always there when you don’t need him/her, as some conservatives recently observed about Manchin.
Yep, just checked the AG vote in the senate. Dims voting for Barr were Manchin, Sinema, and Jones of Alabama. All three there when Republicans didn’t need them.
Finally Trump has an AG - we wait and see - but we not wait LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK Barr?
Sinema voted for. Flake would have voted against. LOL
The Establishment (both the Dem and Rep sides) will NOT confirm anyone who is even remotely likely to look into THEIR crimes, or to trouble anyone who might take revenge by exposing Establishment crimes.
DC is the home of "mutually assured destruction". None of the major players can be investigated, because they each know too much about others.
Finally Trump has an AG - we wait and see - but we not wait LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK Barr?
Yep, I think he would have too, it’s great the jerk is gone. :^)
Me too. Those fears are somewhat assuaged by the fact that 45 democrats voted AGAINST Barr.
Unfortunately if you’ve even so much as taken a vacation to D.C. the past 50 years, some people will swear you are a “swamp creature”.
I’m going to let this guy have a shot considering some of the same people trashing this guy swore the last one was going to be amazing.
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