Barr finally deigns to testify before Congress

Fortunately, Rep. Cedric Richmond is no fool and asked Barr to get those studies to him.  Richmond also asked for the data on how many people of color are in the DOJ in every position.

`

How many old black men in prison would like to get the benefit of Barr's concern for their age?

About those federal troops...

So is he admitting he's the one picking all the cities under Democratic control?

Did no one tell him that lying to Congress is a crime?

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

Will he or won't he?

Ball's in your court, Jerry

It's not just empty, it's mislabeled "Honorable".















Now focus on getting Mueller in to testify.

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

How'd Bill do in the Senate? - Addendum to How's Bill doing in the Senate series

The story is that Biden pressured Ukraine to get a a prosecutor dismissed as to protect his son's interests.

At one point, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if then-prosecutor Viktor Shokin wasn’t ousted. Shokin, who had been accused of ignoring corruption in his own office, was soon voted out by the Ukrainian Parliament.

But the Times noted Biden’s son, Hunter, had a stake in the outcome. Hunter Biden at the time was on the board of an energy company, Burisma Holdings, owned by a Ukrainian oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, and making as much as $50,000 per month for his work. And the newspaper said the oligarch had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor.

The former vice president’s campaign maintained Joe Biden was acting to carry out U.S. policy and not protecting the interests of his son. In fact, Biden’s campaign claims he learned of his son’s role in the energy company from news reports.

  Newsmax

Sure, I believe that.



And will she or anyone else do anything about it?  I think I know the answer to that question. Some people, however, have spent some time behind bars for lying to Congress.



Don't hold your breath.

Pelosi also told her colleagues during the meeting that she couldn’t sleep Wednesday night after watching Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he challenged Mueller’s legal theories and framework and endeared himself to Trump and his GOP allies.

She added that impeachment is “too good for” President Donald Trump, reiterating her opposition to launching impeachment proceedings even as a growing chorus of Democrats is calling for just that.

  Politico

[Barr] knows that Senate Democrats don’t have the votes or the power to do anything substantial to impair his tragic choice to protect President Trump from the substantiated allegations against him. And so the nation’s chief law enforcement official and top prosecutor, at taxpayer expense, spent hours spinning like a defense attorney with his client’s liberty on the line.

[...]

It was as disgraceful a performance by an attorney general as I have seen in 22 years as a legal analyst and commentator. And I say that having extensively covered the hapless appearances of Alberto Gonzales. He was the attorney general at the heart of the Bush administration’s U.S. Attorney scandal a decade ago. At least he had the excuse of being as dumb as a rock. Barr is no dummy. He knows precisely what he’s doing. His audience is an audience of one. It always has been. And he made it clear Wednesday, as if it had not been before, that he is no honest broker for the Justice Department. He’s just another hack.

[...]

Barr refused to show a shred of independence from Trump or even pretend he needed to. The attorney general refused even to acknowledge what we all know to be true and what littered the Mueller report: that the president lied and deceived, repeatedly, for a long period, to protect himself and his political interests.

[...]

Never mind the legal definitions of obstruction of justice or conspiracy, or the procedural standards under which federal prosecutors are supposed to operate, or the superheated politics of our time, Barr told lawmakers that he began to work on his letter exonerating Trump before he received the Mueller report. In response to a question by Sen. Kamala Harris, for example, he even conceded that neither he or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have eve[r] reviewed the underlying evidence that the special counsel compiled.

[...]

It’s jarring to get the feeling, through hours of contentious testimony, that Barr wasn’t remotely interested in signaling to lawmakers, or the rest of us, that he can be trusted to shepherd the 14 or so other active federal investigations that Mueller referred to prosecutors in New York and other offices around the nation.

[...]

Maybe I missed it, it’s possible, but I did not see or hear a single Republican member of the committee say a single critical thing about the president in the wake of Mueller’s work. Nor was anyone on that side of the room particularly critical of Barr. Instead, from Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, we got a promise at the end of the hearing that there was no need to call Mueller himself to testify before the committee.

[...]

They don’t want to hear from former White House Counsel Don McGahn, whom Trump asked to lie, or from anyone else who chronicled the ways in which the president tried to cover up his Russia ties. Instead, the same folks who gave us Kenneth Starr and endless Benghazi hearings now say they will spend their time trying to dig up more dirt about Hillary Clinton and trying to bash the FBI.

[...]

It will have to be the House that subpoenas Mueller or McGahn to testify. It will have to be the House that calls Barr onto the carpet for his attempt to trick the American people into thinking Mueller’s report was kinder and gentler to the president than it actually was.

“We’re out of it,” Barr said at one point. “We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.”

  Rolling Stone

As he investigates Hillary and the FBI.

Also, it appears Rudy Giuliani never filed that Mueller report rebuttal they said was coming and that Barr gave them the report before releasing it so they'd have a jump start.  Haven't heard a thing about it since mid-April.

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

UPDATE:



Yes, Pat.  What are you going to do about it?

As expected

Attorney General Bill Barr has canceled his scheduled appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, after the panel voted today to allow an extra hour of questioning by staff lawyers against the objections of the Justice Department. The committee will still hold the hearing without Barr at 9 a.m.

  Axios

How's that gonna work?

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler had previously pledged to subpoena Barr should he refuse to testify. If Barr ignores the subpoena, as several Trump administration officials have done, Democrats on the committee have indicated that they will move to hold the attorney general in contempt of Congress.

I should hope.



God, what a nightmare.  And it's not over.

Interesting admission

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

How's Bill doing in the Senate? - Part 4

I think we know what's with the letter.  Mueller wanted - apparently realized he needed - a written record.



Sure.  He didn't seek the waiver.  Barr's credibility is under water.





Why the fuck not?!



Plus, he's the fucking Attorney General of the United States making calls on this very issue, and about to (or already has) instigate investigations into people who hired the Steele dossier, because the president claims that's how this whole thing started!  He doesn't know?!
















Serious bullshit.  Kamala Harris also asked him if he'd checked in with the ethics folks at DOJ about whether he should stay out of those cases and got a load of bullshit as well.  And for all his bullshitting, he very clearly tells Blumenthal that he will not recuse himself from those investigations.




Seems pretty obvious he has indeed talked with "someone in the White House" about them.



LOL.



Jesus Christ, did he even read the report?  It sure doesn't seem like it.



Tell us how you really feel, Mazie.









He has a lot of trouble explaining the "discrepancy" between Mueller's complaint and Barr's characterization of Mueller's complaint to Blumenthal (Rupar mistakenly says Whitehouse) - and says Mueller's "letter is a bit snippy."





So, will he or won't he show up for his testimony tomorrow in the House?  He should be held in contempt of Congress if he doesn't.

More of Aaron Rupar's video clips are here.

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

How's Bill doing in the Senate? - Part 3

She did have him stammering.  Couldn't miss the look on Cory Booker's face when she took off.



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

UPDATE: