William Barr is on a Mission to Subvert the Rule of Law in America

Yesterday, Atty. General William Barr's Justice Department filed a brief arguing that the federal charges against former Trump official, Michael Flynn, should be dismissed despite Flynn's earlier plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. That deal allowed Flynn to admit to lying to the FBI instead of being tried for serious violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Barr's decision to dismiss the charges against Flynn is a transparent attempt to resurrect Donald Trump's tattered reputation, and the professional prosecutors in the Justice Department refused to go along with the charade.

Lawfare: "The government’s 20-page brief is not an honest document—perhaps the reason that it is signed only by [Barr ally] Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia—and not a single one of the career prosecutors who worked on the case. That may also be the reason why Brandon Van Grack, the prosecutor who has worked the case from the beginning, moved to withdraw from the case entirely just hours before the Justice Department filed its motion."

Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Agency attorney, writing in Lawfare, explains why Barr's argument is dishonest and how his decision to dismiss the charges against Flynn subverts the rule of law.

Hennessey, Lawfare: [Barr's] "account of the history of the Flynn case is not accurate, its account of the government’s own conduct equally flawed. And it all leads up to a conclusion so obviously wrong that one does not need to know anything about counterintelligence to see through it: that there is no reasonable basis even to interview a senior government official when that person has engaged over sanctions imposed against a foreign adversary government that interfered in an election—and who subsequently lied to the vice president of the United States about the substance of his conversation with an agent of that government. Based on this position, the Justice Department today took an even greater leap: that it is perfectly legal for the official, if interviewed under these circumstances, to lie through his teeth repeatedly to the FBI agents who show up to interview him."

Barr's action is indefensible and purely political. And it will embolden our adversaries by convincing them that our legal system is corrupt, a political tool that they can game like they did our election in 2016.

Washington Post: "And national security experts who think Russia was never held accountable for its role in disrupting the 2016 election said they fear the Kremlin would be pleased."

“Russia will see this as a huge victory. A sign both of American weakness and of a corrupt judicial system, in which they can continue meddling in our affairs and get away with it,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who oversaw operations in Europe and Russia at the time of the 2016 U.S. campaign."

With this action, Atty. General Barr is signalling that he doesn't even care about the appearance of impartiality any more; he's Trump's man and he will continue to do Trump's bidding. Period.

#news #law

By: Don Lam & Curated Content