President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I'm not sure I agree with you, Alma, but I do think that the perception of Kamala's gotcha moment is very different among the two camps. That's not a profound observation by any means, but my take is that she dinged Barr and made him look bad without really drawing blood. Dems think she nailed him good, and R's think that he fended her off without any real damage. Just another day under Trump.

 

It has something to do with being 6-0 1/2 and 415 pounds.

And certainly getting plugged in the basement bathroom stalls those many years ago might be part of it too.

 

No real consequences = No real damage

 

My point as well. There is no way this ilk can be held accountable.

For example, how could Barr actually be held in contempt of Congress? How on god's green earth could he actually be jailed? He has 24/7 Secret Service protection and they aren't about to let some low-level Capitol Hill security guard cuff him.

 

I wasn't as alarmed by the exchange as you were.

The warning flares for me are in other areas of Trump's presidency more than they are in this area.

I do not think the question was straightforward. I thought it was clever, adding "suggested." Not quite straightforward, and my sense of that is based on the words "hinted" or "inferred" a few seconds later.

What did you think of the other questions? I thought the evidence question was theater. I don't think Bob Mueller was watching that and thought, "yeah, Bill, you should have looked at all the evidence I based my report on to see if I was right." What'd they entrust Mueller for if it wasn't to trust his team to produce a reliable report?

I will agree Barr is pompous. No He didn't think much of any Harris question after the first one. He could answered the others more strategically, but Harris may not have let him.

 

He does not have Secret Service protection. DOJ has its own protective service, the one used by Supreme Court Justices. If the Supremes upheld the contempt charge (in about 2027) then yes, Barr could be jailed. But then all he'd have to do is show up at a hearing. It's not like robbery. Comply with the subpoena, it's all good. The problem for Barr is going back to white shoe law practice with a contempt citation on his record. Also, those big firms have clients from both parties, and could lose a lot of Democratic ones if they hire Barr when he re-enters the private sector.

 

GQ at least bothered to address Harris' second question, though not in a way I agree with.

Barr went on to protest that within the Department of Justice—within any prosecutor's office, really—the higher-ups often make charging or declination calls based on summaries authored by underlings who have reviewed all the evidence. This is fair; forcing each decision-maker to re-examine every document would be wasteful and redundant, as Harris, who served as San Francisco district attorney and as California's attorney general, knows perfectly well. But this is not a routine drug possession case. It is, as she put it, a choice about whether "the person who holds the highest office in the land...committed a crime." Her implicit argument, to Barr and to the American people, is that when the stakes are this high, the facts merit more careful, thorough scrutiny.

I think what bugs me about that analysis is, I mean, that would have taken awhile. It's a massive report. Two years' worth of evidence. After Mueller did the report, the American public wasn't going to stand for several more months of evidence review.

 

If Mueller intended the report to be delivered to Congress as an impeachment referral, then many more months of review would be required. The report was written in a way that the PUBLIC could review it. Why would the public be mad about that?

 

People, I beg of you, demand more of your public servants (yes that's right they are supposed to serve you and me) than this ridiculous charade that Barr and Trump are doing.

This is way beyond Hilary's emails.

This is sickening.

We are talking about the very sanctity of our election system. They guy who wrote a 19 page partisan memo in defense of the subject of the investigation is then put in charge of the investigation? That's well beyond anything I would ever support, from either aisle. That's wrong and biased.

Then he writes a "summary" to mislead? That's the act of a personal lawyer, NOT the person entrusted to be the Nation's Prosecutor.

He blatantly lied to Congress, he testified he did not have any idea of any questioning of his "summary" and yet we have uncontroverted evidence that Mueller had written him a letter before his testimony calling into question the exact summary.

Go ahead and support him and say "everyone lies" well to that I say prove it, who lied and when, and what proves it.

Take the literal words of the oath Barr took when he took office, he swore allegiance to the Constitution, not the President. I still believe in words and the need to hold those accountable for those oaths. I demand it and hope you feel the same way.