The confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s attorney general nomination are underway, and on Tuesday William Barr assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would preserve the Justice Department’s independence if he is appointed to serve as the nation’s chief lawyer.
Barr, who will obtain oversight of the special counsel’s Russia collusion probe if confirmed, testified that he would not follow the president’s orders if he were asked to shut down the special counsel or fire its top prosecutor “without good cause.”
Senate interrogation
“I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong — by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president,” Barr told the committee. “I’m going to do what I think is right.”
Barr previously served as U.S. attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration. However, the practical experience he gained during these years wasn’t enough to assure Democrats that he is the best man for the job.
For the president’s liberal critics, Barr raised questions about his impartiality when he dared to criticize the special counsel’s investigation in an unsolicited June memo to the Justice Department. The former attorney general was concerned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller “fatally misconceived” the theory that Trump could have obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Barr contended that presidents cannot be held criminally culpable for exercising their constitutional authority. He also took exception with the overwhelmingly Democratic makeup of the special counsel team, arguing that Mueller’s prosecution team should have been more politically “balanced.”
Barr told the judiciary committee that he has sent similar memos in the past, including a letter which cautioned the Justice Department against prosecuting Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez in a corruption trial. However, this failed to console Senate Democrats, who maintain an active interest in portraying the special counsel as exceptionally vulnerable to the whims of a vengeful and unruly president.
Refusing to take the bait
Tuesday’s hearing quickly turned to concerns regarding the special counsel. “So, the current regulations on the books right now prevent the attorney general from firing, without cause, the special counsel,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) reminded Barr. “They require misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict. Will you follow that standard?” he asked.
“Of course,” responded Barr. Next, Coons asked the nominee how he would respond if he were asked to “rescind or change” the special counsel’s orders.
Barr answered, “I think those special counsel regulations should stay in place for the duration of this investigation, and we can do a postmortem then. But I have no reason to think they’re not working.”
Next, Coons provided Barr with a history lesson, explaining how Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused to follow President Richard Nixon’s orders to fire the special counsel charged with investigating the Watergate scandal — an analogy frequently cited by Democrats seeking to provoke fears that Trump would do the same. Barr answered that he would “not carry out that instruction.”
Manufactured crisis
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has called Democratic efforts to protect the special counsel a “manufactured problem.” Although Trump has repeatedly referred to Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax,” he has just as often pledged to keep the special counsel intact.
“I’ve been reading about it from you people. You say, ‘Oh, I’m going to dismiss him.’ No, I’m not dismissing anybody,” he said in August 2017. He echoed that promise in December 2017, just after Mueller succeeded in surreptitiously obtaining thousands of emails from the Trump transition team.
In August 2018, he reassured reporters once again that he had no intention to interfere with the Russia investigation. “I’ll stay out,” he said.
Yet, Democrats continue to sow disorder by creating the illusion that the only consideration keeping Trump from dumping the special counsel is Democrat Party supervision. Since the summer of 2017, Congress has tried on multiple occasions to pass legislation that will protect the special counsel from being unduly terminated.
While the Senate continued to negotiate over the latest version of that bill, the first day of the Barr confirmation hearing followed the same predictable script. Fortunately, the seasoned Washington prosecutor refused to take the bait.
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