Is Barr a Bother?

What should bother us about Barr? Today Senators got their first glimpse at questing Trumps choice to be the newest head of the Justice Department. Yeah the new guy who would oversee the Mueller Investigation this time without a recusal to distance himself from the tug of war arena. Trump’s hope is that the new guy will just put the entire investigation on a bookshelf and decide NOT to make the findings public or prosecutable if serious crimes are disclosed further into Trump himself. Can the new guy do that? Yes! If he decides to. Will he? Who knows!

William Barr is Trump’s pick to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. With the Republicans controlling the Senate we can expect that he will be confirmed. It will be his second going around as our nation’s top cop. He served under George H.W. Bush in his younger years and should be looking forward to retirement now but instead has answered the call from Trump.  Trump has hope for this guy to be just another loyal soldier in his camp of thugs. On June 8, 2018 Barr wrote a memo on the Special Counsel Investigation that said in part that “Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived.” And that is music to Trump’s ears.

Today he testified that he may not be able to release the Special Council’s report instead of perhaps release a summary. Democratic   Senators including at least three expected to run in the 2020 Presidential Election grilled him on other subjects too like press freedom, sentencing reform, border security and immigration. Barr has a reputation as an immigration hardliner. Another BINGO win for Trump. As the head of the Department of justice he will have authority over immigration issues including asylum and refugee status. Will he be fair and different? Who knows?

What we do know is that Jeff Sessions did rulings on domestic violence not grounds for asylum. So this country could care less if you are running here when your husband tries to beat you to death. He ruled that gang violence is not grounds for asylum. We know that gangs have taken over citizens lives in Mexico but this country could care less if you run to the border to escape those threats. He ruled that immigration judges cannot close low-priority cases. This country will let them rot in jail even on not so serious crimes. All these rulings make it harder for migrants to gain asylum. And now Trump is blackmailing federal employees by not paying them wages in exchange for a stupid wall. Will Barr rule differently than the humanitarian disaster we have now? Who knows?

In previous administrations the abuse of power was never so blatant but in Trump world he uses his power to make serious changes to this democracy on a haphazard quick decision. Barr will probably fit in well in Trump world and I don’t think that is good for our democracy. When he was Attorney General for Bush in the early 1990’s   Barr made it harder for refugees fleeing Haiti to receive asylum. Congress could take over some of these Attorney General’s power but it won’t. Let’s see what will happen in the next reality show episode Trump has made America become a drama unsettling for all.