Those in the Trump camp really don’t seem to be losing their martyr complex as time goes on. In recent days in a talk to new graduates of the FBI’s academy, noted Trump shill and Attorney General William Barr compared him taking on his present position to the Allies’ soldiers who stormed France as part of the D-Day invasion back in 1944 during World War II — no seriously, he really made that comparison. He’s literally comparing the present political situation to war.
As he put it:
‘I’m a two-time offender. This is my second stint as attorney general. As we’ve been watching the coverage of June 6, 1944 — D-Day — I had the thought that my arrival this time felt a little bit, I think, like jumping into Sainte-Mère-Église on the morning of June 5, trying to figure out where you could land without getting shot.’
AG Barr: “As we’ve been watching the coverage of June 6, 1944 D-Day, I had the thought that my arrival this time felt a little bit, I think, like jumping into Sainte-Mère-Église on the morning of June 5, trying to figure out where you could land without getting shot.” pic.twitter.com/D36xU0uYSj
— The Hill (@thehill) June 8, 2019
Barr first served as attorney general under Republican President George H.W. Bush. Although before assuming the position as part of the Trump administration, he’d marked himself with positions adversarial to the rule of law, while in office, he has driven wildly down that path even further. For instance, he has repeatedly and by all appearances deliberately misrepresented the findings from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, leaving the public for weeks with nothing but his cherrypicked revelation that Mueller had declined to bring an obstruction of justice case against the president. In reality, Mueller found evidence of obstruction but filed no charges because of standing Justice Department precedent against indicting a sitting president, since the argument is that move would unduly interfere with the fulfillment of his responsibilities. The issue was not a lack of guilt, as Barr suggested.
In response to scrutiny of his handling of the Mueller probe, Barr has simply shored up the Justice Department’s metaphorical defenses and refused to cooperate with House Democrats. After they planned a hearing with him to discuss the Mueller report, he abandoned those plans and didn’t show and also refused to comply with their subpoena for the unredacted version of that report, which the panel responded to by voting to hold him in contempt of Congress. A similar vote in the full House is planned for the coming days.
Barr has “jokingly” acted like he’s being persecuted in this situation before. At the May National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service in D.C., he asked fellow event attendee House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) if she “brought… handcuffs.” Pelosi had previously accused him of lying to Congress, since he told them he had no idea what issue Mueller’s team might have had with his handling of their findings despite receiving a letter from Mueller himself outlining his concerns about what Barr had not released prior to an unredacted version of their full report becoming public.
In his more recent comments to FBI Academy graduates, he acted like it’s some precarious mission to avoid these kinds of situations — but it’s really not that hard. House Democrats simply want Barr to hold Trump to the standard that any other American would be held to and simultaneously comply with their attempts at completing their constitutionally-mandated oversight and investigative responsibilities. Barr, however, continues to refuse to cooperate, right in line with the rest of the going modus operandi from the Trump administration. They continue to refuse to comply with requests for testimony, other forms of information, and subpoenas for the same.
Featured Image via screenshot
