Trump's Berman disaster suggests William Barr is not so smart after all
"Five Questions about Geoffrey Berman’s Removal"
Lloyd Green Sun 21 Jun 2020 22.21 AEST
The attorney general lied about the US attorney from New York, had to fire him, and landed the president with a big problem
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For Trump and his attorney general, replacing Berman with Strauss is like jumping from frying pan to fire. If the dynamic duo had a difficult time taming Berman, a Trump contributor and a former partner of Rudy Giuliani, reining in Strauss will prove even tougher.
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Clayton’s shot at the SDNY appears to be evaporating. From the looks of things, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s Democratic senators, will be given the right to spike his nomination. They have already vowed to nix his bid, if Graham is to be believed. Clayton is a savvy corporate lawyer, not a litigator. Being a federal prosecutor calls for hands-on courtroom experience.
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On his way to Tulsa, the president punted on whether he ordered Berman’s dismissal. The delegator-in-chief told the cameras that was a matter left for Barr. In the end, Berman resigned after Strauss’s selection was assured.
Practically speaking, Barr preaches law and order for the many but appears to show little concern for the rule of law when it applies to the privileged few. Back at Horace Mann, he reportedly boycotted a school carnival because its proceeds went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. When peaceful protest stood to impinge on Trump’s staged walk to St John’s in Washington earlier this month, the attorney general nodded at the use of flash-bangs and pepper spray.
The judiciary too appears worried and distrustful of Trump’s AG .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/08/trump-attorney-general-william-barr-flynn-case . Earlier this spring, Barr earned the ire of Reggie Walton, a George W Bush appointee to the federal bench. Walton “seriously” questioned the attorney general’s integrity and credibility. His opinion deployed words like “distorted” and “misleading” to drive the point across, not language generally associated with the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
Barely two months later, John Gleeson, a former federal judge appointed by the court to review the justice department’s decision to drop the Flynn case, leveled a similar charge. His brief used the word “corrupt” nine times, and accused Main Justice of “gross abuse of prosecutorial power”. By this measure, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, attorneys general during the Obama-years, look awesome.
Once before, in 1992, Barr served as attorney general, and emerged as a reliable spear-catcher for a beleaguered George HW Bush. But as Bush’s re-election bid was tanking, Barr witnessed the Los Angeles riots, resisted congressional oversight and defined what the law was. It didn’t end well.
Faced with congressional demands for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate possible administration improprieties in the run-up to the Gulf war, Barr declined. Instead, he offered absolution by bandying about such phrases as “not a crime”, “simply not criminal in any way”, “nothing illegal” and “far from being a crime”. After Bush lost the election, Barr successfully pressed for a series of pardons for Reagan administration officials stemming from the Iran-Contra scandal.
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