In theory, former Attorney General Bill Barr finds himself
in a difficult position. The Republican tapped special counsel John
Durham to investigate the investigation into the Russia scandal, and the
entire three-year effort is proving to be a fiasco. Durham’s failed and misguided prosecution of Michael Sussmann this week was the latest embarrassment, but it doesn’t stand alone.
It
was against this backdrop that Barr turned to Fox News last night to
brag about how “very proud” he is of the prosecutor’s work. The former
attorney general added:
BILL BARR:No, I’m very proud
of John Durham. And I do take responsibility for his appointment. I
think he and his team did an exceptionally able job both digging out
very important facts and presenting a compelling case to the jury. And
the fact that he — while he did not succeed in getting a conviction from
the D.C. jury,
I think he accomplished something far more important, which is he
brought out the truth in two important areas. First I think he
crystallized the central role played by the Hillary campaign in
launching, as a dirty trick, the whole Russia gate collusion narrative and fanning the flames of it.
And, second, I think he exposed really dreadful behavior by the supervisors and the FBI, the senior ranks of the FBI,
who knowingly used this information to start an investigation of Trump
and then duped their own agents by lying to them and refusing to tell
them what the real source of that information was. And that was
appalling.
In all likelihood, Barr knows better. Donald Trump’s Russia
scandal wasn’t just some “narrative,” launched as a “dirty trick”; it
was a genuine scandal about a Republican presidential candidate whose political operation sought, embraced, capitalized on, and lied about assistance from a foreign adversary — and then took steps to obstruct the investigation into the foreign interference.
What’s
more, as the former attorney general also probably knows, Hillary
Clinton and her campaign didn’t “launch” the scandal; federal law
enforcement began scrutinizing the controversy on its own based on ample evidence.
But
putting these relevant details aside, Barr’s on-air rhetoric last night
was jarring for a reason: The Republican effectively made the case that
Durham’s pointless prosecution doesn’t matter because the politicized
special counsel investigation contributed to a partisan smear of Hillary
Clinton.
Sure, federal prosecutors obtaining convictions is nice, but for Barr, fueling anti-Clinton theories is “far more important.”
The
former attorney general isn’t the only one thinking along such
ridiculous lines. Two weeks ago, the editorial board of The Wall Street
Journal published a bizarre piece
with an over-the-top headline — “Hillary Clinton Did It” — claiming
that the former Democratic candidate “approved a plan to plant a false
Russia claim with a reporter.”
Predictably, the piece was a hit in Republican circles — despite being filled with painfully obvious falsehoods.
It might be tempting to think the humiliating demise
of Durham’s case against a former Clinton attorney might lead
conservatives to shift their focus, but there’s ample evidence pointing
in the opposite direction. On Tuesday night, Sen. Marsha Blackburn
published a tweet that read, simply, “Investigate Hillary Clinton.” The
Tennessee Republican — a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee —
didn’t say why, exactly, Clinton should be investigated, but it’s likely
that Blackburn and those who retweeted her missive weren’t overly
concerned with sensible rationales.
A day later, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a leading Republican Senate hopeful, also called for an investigation into Clinton, suggesting GOP leaders “with a backbone” should agree with him.
None of this is healthy.
As regular readers probably recall,
in Trump’s first year as president, the Republican and his party
couldn’t shake their Clinton preoccupation. The then-president couldn’t stop talking and tweeting about his 2016 rival. His aides appeared fixated on Clinton. Congressional Republicans even launched investigations related to Clinton.
By October 2017, the former secretary of state joked, “It appears they don’t know I’m not president.”
The
conditions persisted. In 2019, when Trump launched his re-election
campaign, he excoriated Clinton seven times over the course of 30
minutes in his kickoff speech, apparently indifferent to the fact that
she wasn’t running. As Election Day 2020 grew closer, the then-president
called for Clinton’s incarceration, pushed then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to uncover and release Clinton emails, and lobbied then-Attorney General Barr to prosecute Clinton for reasons unknown.
She wasn’t on the ballot. Trump seemed desperate to run against her anyway.
After
Trump’s defeat, it seemed plausible that Trump and his followers would
finally move on — if for no other reason than because they had fresh
political targets, in the form a new Democratic president, a new
Democratic vice president, a new Democratic Senate majority leader, et
al. Clinton left office a decade ago, and it was finally time for
obsessive GOP critics to find a new hobby.
And yet, here we are.
In February, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley suggested on Fox News that Clinton should be incarcerated. A month later, Trump filed an anti-Clinton lawsuit for reasons that defied comprehension.
Now, Barr, Blackburn, Greitens, et al. are reminding the political world that Republicans still can’t shake their obsession, even when it would be in the GOP’s interests to do so.
NBC News correspondent Yamiche Alcindor worried Democrats would have a difficult time making Americans "care" and pay attention to the January 6 hearings, amid high gas prices, inflation, and a baby formula shortage. Appearing in a MSNBC panel Monday, Alcindor told host Andrea Mitchell that the "biggest challenge" the January 6 House Select Committee faced was getting Americans to have the same level of concern for their investigation. "I think the biggest challenge for lawmakers here as they talk about these sort of huge ideas of American democracy and sort of the experiment that we’re all living and benefiting from possibly being brought to his knees is whether or not they can make people care, Andrea," she said. Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 September 18 Post By Học Để Thi | Breaking News, Latest News and Videos Tranganhnam.xyz ...
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Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon discuss President Donald Trump's comments about race after the 2019 Oscars. Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2019 The left loves to hate on Trump, calling him a racist and what not. I know Trump can be juvenile sometimes – certainly – but the racist and hateful name-calling is just what it is, garbage.
