[rintintin]

“The only way Barr (who is an old man) could exert some control and discipline on this organization would be for him to descend on them unannounced with a tiger team of people who are personally loyal to Barr.”

He could have - should have - ordered a 24 hour surveillance camera in the cell. And have live feed to his office, and to an assistant during Barr’s sleeping hours. Epstein was an INCREDIBLY important prisoner. And the fears that he’d be silenced were open, commonplace, and well-founded. Special monitoring measures were called for, but Barr treated the case as if Epstein was some run-of-the-mill check kiter, of no special interest to the AG.

[robowombat]

Yes, we would see it that way. But Barr is a career product of the bureaucratic culture. As AJ, he had far more important things to do. Important memos to read on capital improvements, personnel training, IT upgrades. Besides he had important speeches to have written and then rehearsed to the Bar Association of Kansas City, Mo @ Kansas. This is what important people do in the bureaucratic culture. both government and military, and probably in the private sector. Furthermore , what you describe is considered a horrible breach of bureaucratic protocol as it breaks the chain of command and control and inserts direct control by the SJ of an organization about five or six levels below Barr. That truly causes the feces to hit the fan as everyone he jumped over doing that ,is at the least offended by having their niche pushed out of the way. What you describe makes sense, but the bureaucracy civilian and military are dysfunctional entities so it strongly counter indicated in that culture where perception trumps reality and process is more important than product.