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Bill & Bill’s Excellent Road Trip – Bill Hemmer Talks to AG Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr agreed to speak with Fox News host Bill Hemmer during a trip to meet with El Salvador officials to support their efforts in dealing with Justice issues of concern to both the US and El Salvador (e.g., MS-13 gang). According to Hemmer, it was Bill Barr’s first interview in nearly 20 years.
Fox aired the approximately 20-minute interview in small increments interspersed throughout their May 17 “America’s Newsroom” morning broadcast, but I found this uninterrupted audio version.
I don’t agree with Chris Wallace’s view that AG Barr is “protecting this president and advocating his point of view”. Clearly, Barr thinks Donald Trump has reason to object to his presidency having been impeded while an alleged conspiracy that never occurred was investigated in minute detail. He does explain to some degree, but explaining is not at all the same as advocating. In contrast to Wallace, Chuck Ross briefly reported opinion-free on the interview and surrounding facts/events (which is why I often read Mr. Ross).
What stuck with me most about the interview is that while all things Trump have been investigated extensively, Barr said he learned upon taking office that the government’s activities have never been and that some of the answers he’s been given are insufficient. The closest thing to an investigation of the government’s activities surrounding the Trump Campaign/Presidency so far is DOJ IG Horowitz’ FISA review. Robert Mueller only investigated Trump/Russia.
Let that sink in a bit: two and a half years and the government had never investigated why DOJ (and intelligence from the sounds of it) officials broke protocols left, right, and center to spy on an opposing political party.
Of the many impressions and observations I have of Bill Barr, the strongest is that the underlying factor that drives his every word and act can be summed up in the phrase “rule of law”. He understands that while Washington DC is nothing if not politics 24/7, the rule of law at a minimum requires a barrier between law and politics. It’s the very real prospect that barrier may have been trampled in pursuit of Trump that had him willing to take a second run at Attorney General.
UPDATE: Adding video of majority of Barr’s first interview (approximately 15 minutes of it)
Published in Politics
Chris Wallace has been consistently subtly advocating the wrong side(MSM/(D)) of this Obama DOJ/FBI/IC malfeasance scandal, which makes you wonder how long he can get the story dead wrong and continue to be considered credible.
The MSM has ignored the scandal and promoted the Trump/Russia Collusion narrative, so their talking heads can feign ignorance.
Wallace does not have that excuse.
It looks like the Left and media (which are the same) will just get more and more shrill in their protests. I’m baffled, at the very least, at their lack of curiosity. Then again, why would they want to know that the people who are supposed to follow the law broke, manipulated and ignored the law, in every direction. How long will they keep up their blustering protests?
Tickles me that it apparently makes small difference to AG Barr how loud/long media and members of Congress intent on opposing this POTUS honk their horn. AG gonna investigate, take your best shot *grin*.
And that chuckle of his telling about his “icebreaker” asking Pelosi if she brought her handcuffs. Classic.
I think it’s the “witch hunt” moniker part of the interview that has Wallace asserting Barr’s refusal to play ball and denounce the POTUS makes him an advocate. Chris Wallace could be a powerful force in a US press course correction if he were to take a hard look at whether there is any validity to calling the past 2+ year pursuit of Trump a witch hunt.
The AG’s statement there’s been no formal “why” investigation of government activities surrounding the Trump campaign/administration should not be news. Honest journalists in the mainstream would have been noting that fact with each report on the latest leak/Democrat assertion of conspiracy and treason. Point awarded to the witch hunt claim column.
Chris Wallace is a yuge disappointment. I don’t expect journalists to carry water for the president (unlike in the Obama era). I expect them to be “fair and balanced.” The election of DJT has apparently driven Wallace off the TDS cliff.
The full interview of Bob Barr by Bill Hemmer, posted in video format on the Powerline blog.
It’s a brilliant interview. Some of Hemmer’s questions are overly simplistic and ham-handed, but appropriately so – they’re all directly on point.
What strikes me is that AG Barr totally knows where he stands, on the threshold of … of … there aren’t sufficiently strong adjectives. This is big – really big. The highest levels of the federal government conspired with the press and with a political party in an attempted coup d’état.
Barr* volunteered* to return as Attorney General in order to investigate. He also knows that he has the full support of President Donald Trump, who doesn’t back down – e.g., Brett Kavanaugh. In our nation’s history, only Abraham Lincoln stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Founders, and properly so – Lincoln saved the Republic. When William Barr completes his investigations – and the prosecutions that should follow, he very well might join Lincoln and the Founders.