There are countless crappy people serving the the Trump administration to prop up the president’s racist policies and allow him to commit his daily high crimes and misdemeanors with impunity, but perhaps none is quite as odious as William “Bill” Barr.
This guy, who has been working behind the scenes to support Republican policies for decades, feeding on evil like some terrible sponge creature that fear the light of day, has risen to become the star player in the Trump administration’s quest to keep the President above the law. It’s both ironic and depressing that a the most powerful attorney in the land has no respect for the Constitution, the law or anything resembling human decency.
Why are we talking about Bill Barr today, when he’s out there being terrible every day? Well, he’s getting attention this weekend for a speech delivered to the uber-conservative Federalist society. Barr lambasted democrats for attempting to “incapacitate the executive branch” and whining to his cronies about the “avalanche of subpoenas” that the Democratic congress has issued to the White House which Barr (wrongly) believe they have the right to ignore.
Barr’s speech to the Federalist society was focused on theory of the unitary executive, something Barr has been advocating for since he joined the justice department under George H.W. Bush. Then and now, and also under George W. Bush, Barr believed that the president is pretty much exempt from congressional oversight in certain arenas, especially foreign policy.
Barr basically thinks presidents – or at least republican presidents – are free to be tyrants and act above the law when it’s for the good of the nation or some nonsense. The unitary executive theory – which has been the subject of much discussion in the Supreme and other courts – holds that presidents are totally allowed to do things like authorize torture, build secret prisons and now, I guess, collude with a foreign power to produce false attacks on a political rival.
This is, of course, utter horse dookie.
The Constitution was written to assure checks and balances precisely because the founders feared a tyrant like Trump would take power. Congress is doing it’s job in holding a corrupt executive accountable and Barr is shaming his office and the entire legal profession by refusing to cooperate with a co-equal branch of government.
But this isn’t the only way that Bill Barr is the worst. He’s shown again and again in his tenure that he is a conservative extremist bent on taking America back tot the dark ages. Last month in a speech delivered at the catholic Notre Dame university, Barr spoke of how his Catholic faith guides him in his job chief Law enforcement officer of the US (yikes already!).
He then further went off the rails to claim that Christianity is the target of “organized destruction” by “secularists and their allies among progressives who have marshalled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia.” Oh, also we “modern secularists” are to blame for every “social pathology.” including drug abuse, suicide rates and I guess kids being born to single parent?
Okay, here’s the thing, Billy boy. We “secularists” aren’t coming after your religion. We, unlike you, care about the Constitution and the fact that it explicitly establishes America as a secualr state. Freedom of religion is a thing that we’re cool with, unlike you. We believe that America should be a welcome, supportive place for all no matter thei faith, race, gender, sexual orientation or anything! That’s the whole point of America.
To have a man in charge of the justice department who so deeply misinterprets the Constitution and who has such clear, deep contempt for the people he theoretically serves is just horrible. But hey, there’s hope. Barr was very likely part of the Ukraine scandal that is the focus on the impeachment inquiry and will hopefully be taken out for his own crimes and corruption as congress continues to investigate and, you know, do it’s job.
Hopefully he’ll also lose his legal license in the process so I can use the “dis-Barred” headline that we all want to read.
(via: CNN, image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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