1 May 2019 (Crete, Greece) – This post will bore those of you who think the on-going assault by Trump on the rule of law is NOT the big issue facing us, that the really BIG issues are how to handle TIFF files, “legal innovation”, data privacy, proportionality, TAR and AI.
Or the hot new issue for you GDPR freaks out there: how to handle “Data Subject Access Requests”. On the latter point, over the last several months, my team filed 20 DSARs, recorded all of their phone conversations (plus the email chains) with the corporate minions handling them, plus the email chains and phone conversations with regulators when they had to complain the minions were stonewalling and NOT following the GDPR rules. It was a collective master class in redirection and opacity. I will have a long post next week … in celebration of GDPR’s upcoming first birthday … on how corporations have gamed the GDPR and regulators are flummoxed.
Now as to that other legal thing … the death of the rule of law in America … let’s move on.
Yes, I killed 5 hours of my day today watching Barr’s testimony (which I also recorded on my Sonic AI app so I could create a simultaneous Word document transcript to use to write this post) before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee only to learn that Bob Mueller was “snitty”. That contemptible closing comment may come to haunt Bill Barr. His testimony to the Committee made it clear that he wished to chase Bob Mueller from the scene, and cover-up and misrepresent Mueller’s findings. Mueller’s investigation, as the report told us, is ongoing, because (you all read Appendix D, yes?) among other things the Wikileaks investigation continues. When (if?) Wikileaks and the GRU are proven to have been one conspiracy since 2010, the Trump Team’s actions become crimes.
The sartorial question for the Attorney General is no longer “is he a black hat” but “has he earned an orange jumpsuit?”
Barr actually hestitated in saying that, if North Korean agents offered information on a Presidential candidate to their opponent, that opponent should report it to the FBI.
More importantly, pressed by the Democrats on the Committee, Barr appeared either openly to confess, or to hint at, several crimes that he had personally committed.
Crimes to which Barr openly confessed
Under brilliant questioning by Senator Blumenthal … undoubtedly the star of the hearing … Barr was forced into the classic criminal’s defense we all know and love, the “I don’t recall” defense, when asked if he leaked information about ongoing criminal investigations to the White House.
Barr confessed (see video clip here) to having leaked information about ongoing cases to the White House.
“It’s possible that the name of a case was mentioned,” Barr admitted. He then said he “did not recall’ whether or not he had given substantial or other information about the ongoing investigations to the White House.
Note Mueller’s referred cases include Donald J Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner, for money laundering with the Trump Organization.
It is a crime for the Attorney General, or any other person, to leak the details of an ongoing criminal investigation. If “the name of the case may have been mentioned” and the name of that case was “United States vs the Trump Organization” or “United States vs Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Eric Trump, and Donald J Trump Jr” then Bill Barr just confessed to obstruction of justice on the floor of the Senate.
Lying to Congress
Under questioning from Senator Leahy, Barr openly confessed to lying to Congress. He admitted that he had spoken to Mueller when he denied speaking to “members of Mueller’s team”. Therefore, he admitted lying to Congress, as Bob Mueller is a member of Mueller’s team.
Barr also admitted lying to Congress when he said that Mueller had not wished to redact all the many things that he himself redacted. In his prior testimony, he had stated that he was not making the redactions personally. Clearly, he perjured himself.
Crimes to which Barr “almost” confessed
Barr also almost admitted under sharp questions from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that he and the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) did indeed discuss obstruction of justice in advance. This looks very much like Barr agreeing to stop charges in exchange for the nomination.
Whitehouse: And lastly, can you assure me that nothing related to obstruction or the Mueller Report was discussed at your Office of Legal Counsel “brown bag lunch” on June 27th?
 |
The photograph above is a still from the exact second after Senator Whitehouse asked Barr this question.
Barr: Uh – uh – nothing about what?
Whitehouse: Nothing about the obstruction issue, and nothing about the Mueller Report itself was discussed when you had a ‘brown bag lunch’ on June 27th with OLC?
Barr: Uhm – Yeah I mean it – uh – we didn’t discuss anything having to do with the Mueller Report or Mueller – Mueller’s eventual position on obstruction
Whitehouse: Did you discuss your obstruction memo?
Barr: I – I forgot if it was then, but I think I’ve already said that uh, uh, I mentioned I had a memo and was sending it to uh, to uh, the head of OLC…..
Whitehouse: You have not yet said that it was mentioned at this OLC ‘brown bag lunch’
Barr: Well – well – uh – I don’t think it was mentioned at the brown bag lunch, no
[Barr emphasized the word ‘at’ in the last sentence, admitting that he and OLC had discussed his obstruction memo before]
This then is almost a concession that the OLC and Barr conspired in advance for him to clear the President of obstruction of justice. It is something that, along with leaking the names of the Trump family and others under criminal investigation, one expects not only House Democrats, but also the FBI, to pursue against Bill Barr. Eh, we’ll see. After all, this is Trump World.
