Saturday, April 6, 2019
The New York Times reports:
"The special counsel’s report on the investigation into Russia’s election interference will be made public by mid-April, Attorney General William P. Barr told lawmakers on Friday, adding that the White House would not see the document before he sent it to Congress.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it,” Mr. Barr wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the congressional judiciary committees."
In the past, special counsel reports were given to congress with few or no redactions in the report or underlying evidence and exhibits. Barr claims he will redact redact from the report material subject to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, material the intelligence community deems could compromise sensitive sources, grand jury material, and material that could affect ongoing matters and information that would infringe upon the personal privacy of peripheral third parties. Despite his claim otherwise, Barr is not required to redact most or any of what he plans to redact. Congressional intelligence committees, or at least key members, routinely get access to essentially all such information, sensitive or not.
President Trump hired Barr to protect himself from the rule of law. Barr applied for the job by submitting an unsolicited memo to Trump that criticized the Mueller investigation. In essence, Barr was telling Trump he would be protected from the rule of law by undermining and/or hiding the Mueller report to the extent he would be capable of doing so.
Barr's lie of omission and the opacity it justifies: In testimony in his Senate confirmation hearing, Barr promised he would be as transparent as possible and release as much of the Mueller report as he could.
What he did not tell the Senate was that what could previously be released would no longer apply. He lied by not telling the Senate he was going to establish new "rules" that would limit information disclosure as much as needed to protect Trump from the both law and from embarrassments to himself and his adult children. That was a massive lie of omission that Barr used to con the Senate into confirming his as Attorney General.
That lie of omission is what will justify Barr's unjustifiable opacity in hiding the Mueller report from congress and the public.
This is yet another authoritarian attack on democracy, democratic norms and institutions, and the rule of law. Barr is hiding truth. Mueller refused to do his job by indicting one or more of Trump's adult children or following through with making recommendations. Congressional republicans and the republican party generally approves of all of this. All of these actions and policies constitute major blows to an already weak rule of law as applied to politics. This is evidence of the rise a rule of law concept where the law is for partisan purposes only. Supporters and the in-party get to ignore the law. Opponents and the opposing party will feel its sting.
America is sliding into a kleptocratic tyranny tinged with a vindictive, rapacious Christian theocracy. Two institutions still stand. The democratic House is one and the 2020 elections is the other. Both are under sustained attack, and if they fall it isn't clear what is left to stop America's slide into dictatorship.
B&B orig: 3/30/19
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