You Will Anyway: Barr, leaving office, is trying to rehabilitate his reputation

Monday, December 21, 2020

Barr, leaving office, is trying to rehabilitate his reputation

Don't cut him a break. He doesn't deserve one.

Attorney General William Barr said Monday he sees no reason to appoint a special counsel to lead the ongoing federal investigation into Hunter Biden or to further probe President Trump's claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

NPR

Which is part of the reason for his ouster, no doubt. Watch for a special counsel to be appointed in January. Or maybe even as early as after Christmas.

Barr's ability to influence events all but disappears Wednesday when he will step down as attorney general.

[...]

The comments from Barr, delivered at what was likely his final news conference as attorney general.

There's no "likely" about it.

Barr has previously said the department looked into allegations and found no evidence of systemic fraud that would change the election's outcome. On Monday, Barr said he stood by those remarks.

"If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would name one but I haven't and I'm not going to," he said.

More reason he's being booted. Whoever Trump names acting AG will do the job.

Trump reportedly raised the idea of naming Sidney Powell, a lawyer who represented Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, for the role [of special counsel for alleged election fraud].

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Powell says Trump actually offered her the position.

"I've been blocked from speaking to or communicating with the president since I left the Oval Office on Friday night," Powell told Zenger's David Martsoko, "by apparently everyone around him."

Powell also said she was verbally offered the position of "special counsel" by Trump during Friday's meeting, but has been unable to present him with paperwork to make it official.

"I am not a Robert Mueller-style special counsel," Powell told Zenger News, adding:"[T]here was a discussion about me being a special White House counsel."

"It has not come to pass, because it seems it was blocked after Friday night, or undone, or I'm not sure what you'd call it," she added.

The Hill

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.