Reading reports about Attorney General William Barr today, it is a wonder he cruised through the confirmation process. Because the man you read about in the media today is not the level-headed, experienced professional who Democrats hoped would check President Trump. Instead, Barr is a fascist, according to several media outlets — a politically motivated hit man who does Trump’s bidding.
Neither allegation is true. But the Left can’t seem to stop lying about Barr. Take, for example, an event Barr attended on Wednesday night. Barr gave a speech about power, politics, the rule of law, and how the Justice Department juggles all three. At one point, he talked about the constitutional authority given to him by the executive, otherwise known as the president, and he questioned why many in the federal government (including members of his own department!) try to undermine it.
Here’s what one CNN correspondent had to say:
!!! Attorney General William Barr slammed the hundreds of Justice Department prosecutors working beneath him on Tuesday, equating them to preschoolers, in a defense of his own politically tuned decision making in the Trump administration. https://t.co/JvZngoxhx1
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) September 17, 2020
And when Barr questioned the legality of extended coronavirus shutdowns, a Vox reporter said this:
On one hand you have slavery. On the other you have to do Curbside Pickup at Applebee’s. They’re basically the same, according to Bill Barr. https://t.co/R4513ACKfy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2020
Again, neither of these summarizations are true. I know — I was at the event.
Barr did not insult the DOJ’s employees. In fact, he said several times that he respects the men and women he works with. But he did make it clear that the Justice Department, like all other organizations, has a hierarchy of power to which all employees must adhere.
“These people are agents of the attorney general,” Barr explained during the event, which was hosted by my alma mater, Hillsdale College. “As I say, FBI agents, whose agent do you think you are? And I say, ‘What exactly am I interfering with?’ When you boil it right down, it’s the will of the most junior member of the organization who has some idea he wants to do something. What makes that sacrosanct?”
Barr’s point was simple and true: Unelected bureaucrats, lawyers, and employees do not have the right to dictate the will of the federal government. Years of unsupervised governance by bureaucratic agencies is part of the reason our politics is such a mess. Barr not only has the right but the responsibility to keep his department in line, and we should be grateful he’s doing just that.
Furthermore, the only reason Barr’s statement was controversial is because he is a conservative serving under a Republican president. When former Attorney General Eric Holder intervened and dropped charges against former DOJ lawyer Thomas Tamm, who leaked details of a Bush administration wiretapping program to the New York Times, no one in the media or the Democratic Party questioned Holder’s right to do so. They might have disagreed with Holder’s actions, but they could not argue with his authority.
In regards to the coronavirus shutdown, Barr did use a poor analogy when he said, “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.” But he did not downplay the evils of slavery, nor did he suggest that the shutdown was just as bad. Instead, he argued that the shutdown restricted citizens’ rights in a way that people in the United States have not experienced in a long, long time. Again, it was a tasteless comparison. But it was not racist, as some have tried to suggest.
Ironically, Barr predictedhis words would be misconstrued. He acknowledged on Wednesday night that he is no media darling, in large part because he is not what they expected. The Left hoped that, as a career politician who had previously served under a much more moderate administration, Barr would be an ally. But as he made clear on Wednesday, the job of the attorney general is to uphold the rule of law and enforce it — and the law doesn’t pick sides.
