Barr out, DAG Jeff Rosen to serve as Acting Attorney General

[superchuck500]

Deputy Attorney General (DOJ's #2) Jeff Rosen does not have a background at DOJ or as a prosecutor. He has primarily been in private practice, a partner a Kirkland & Ellis where his client list included Jeffrey Epstein. He was OMB general counsel for a stint in G.W. Bush's second administration and before being confirmed as DAG in May 2019 on a 52-49 vote.

Who is Trump’s acting attorney general Jeff Rosen?

Barr’s No. 2 expected to fill role for less than 30 days before Biden takes office

www.independent.co.uk

Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump ally Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that after the electoral college vote, it appears that there is now going to be a race between "the inaugural committee and the Justice Department, so we will see how the emails turn out." Apparently Cramer is positing that somehow DOJ's investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop will keep Biden from being inaugurated.

 

[zztop]

Heard about that on NPR earlier today. My first thought was: rats fleeing a sinking ship

 

[Maxp]

Every time one guy leaves a worse person takes his/her place. This guy has a month to do major damage.

 

[Xeno]

Heard about that on NPR earlier today. My first thought was: rats fleeing a sinking ship

He was quit-fired for sure. I just appreciate the media not taking the obvious bait and continuing to cover the election instead.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

He was quit-fired for sure. I just appreciate the media not taking the obvious bait and continuing to cover the election instead.

Yep. Someone posted the letter in the Trump tracker thread. It's almost as if Barr showed up at that meeting and Trump was like "sign this letter of resignation or feel my true wrath."

 

[superchuck500]

Every time one guy leaves a worse person takes his/her place. This guy has a month to do major damage.

So that's the one important aspect of this - the rest of it is basically trivial. Is there anything Rosen can do (and/or will do) that will have any effect? He's a legit lawyer, not some "elite strike force" bozo, so I don't think it's likely that there would be some unusual DOJ push to aid Trump in the next six weeks. But who knows.

 

[superchuck500]

 

[insidejob]

Donald Trump really is a giant piece of shirt. I can't wait until he's sidelined.

 

[saintmdterps]

Donald Trump really is a giant piece of shirt. I can't wait until he's jailed.

FIFY

 

[J-DONK]

For everyone talking about how Barr is a Peice of work. We should all recognize what he did during the election. He sat on the Hunter Biden investigation(A honestly upstanding move on his part). He ran an investigation, and publicly announced he found no fraud to overturn the election. My opinion has changed from a corrupt henchmen to a man who believes in the very flawed unitary executive theory.

 

[MT15]

No, he didn’t have a choice on the Hunter Biden investigation. If he could have figured out a way to defy the DOJ policy, he would have done it, IMO. It wasn’t a stand up action on his part.

Second, after he spoke the truth about the election, and got chewed out by Trump, he walked it back.

My opinion of his character hasn’t changed. He lied to the public, and intervened in criminal investigations to help Trump. He was willing to do performative investigations at Trump’s bidding. Easily the worst attorney general we’ve ever had in my lifetime.

 

[superchuck500]

I think it's a little of both. He definitely appears to have lines that he won't cross - but he has been quite accommodative of his president, who has very few if any lines he won't cross, or at least strongly consider and the rail on those who tell him not to.

I disagree that Barr was legally constrained by DOJ policy on investigations in the lead-up to an election. The AG has power and discretion to deviate from policy - it's not a legal limitation. But that long-standing policy is well-founded, fundamentally and anyone who takes it seriously (all AGs should take DOJ policy seriously) should abide by it.

I think Barr at least sees himself as a man of the law, even if the interpretations that justify his actions are not conventional. His views on executive power are what got him the job. Its obviously debatable whether his record could be defended as legitimate versus dangerous. I'm going to be curious as to what comes out in the history of his tenure. Behind closed doors, just how much of an enabler or a checker was he in the Trump administration.

 

[MT15]

I wasn’t saying he was legally constrained, but I think he knew he would have had mass resignations and huge blowback had he politicized the tax case against Hunter Biden. Thus he had no real choice in the matter. I’m not inclined to give him credit for not blowing up the DOJ over a fairly minor tax case. If he thought he could have gotten away with it, I think he would have done it in service to Trump.

We knew immediately that he cared nothing about telling the public the truth as soon as he mischaracterized the Mueller Report. He twisted that around to protect Trump, and it may be that he thought he was protecting the presidency rather than the man, we can’t be sure from that action.

But, his willingness to intervene in DOJ proceedings against Trump cronies is possibly an indication that he served the man rather than any principles, no matter how misguided are his principles about executive power. I think you are right that he probably thinks of himself as a man of the law, but that is pure self-delusion. I think history will judge him rather harshly.

 

[SFIDC3]

I think Barr is the perfect example of a sniveling coward. He services Trump up until the time that doing so would put himself in potential legal peril....Fark him, hope he goes to jail, he was basically acting as Trump's personal attorney....

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Barr doesn't care about Dear Leader anymore...

Barr says no need for special counsels to investigate election or Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

Attorney General William Barr on Monday rejected several of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory and unfounded statements regarding the presidential election, saying at a news conference that he doesn’t plan to appoint a special counsel to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter or...

www.cnn.com

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

Barr doesn't care about Dear Leader anymore...

Barr says no need for special counsels to investigate election or Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

Attorney General William Barr on Monday rejected several of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory and unfounded statements regarding the presidential election, saying at a news conference that he doesn’t plan to appoint a special counsel to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter or...

www.cnn.com

I think Barr is the perfect example of a sniveling coward. He services Trump up until the time that doing so would put himself in potential legal peril....Fark him, hope he goes to jail, he was basically acting as Trump's personal attorney....

QFT

 

[bdb13]

I disagree that Barr was legally constrained by DOJ policy on investigations in the lead-up to an election. The AG has power and discretion to deviate from policy - it's not a legal limitation. But that long-standing policy is well-founded, fundamentally and anyone who takes it seriously (all AGs should take DOJ policy seriously) should abide by it.

And it's the exact type of thing (a norm or a rule/policy with no enforcement mechanism behind it) that Trump has been flouting since day one of his Presidency.

Barr knew Trump and the rest of the Trump-world would be enraged with him when this came out and, coupled with his statement regarding the lack of substantial or systemic fraud that's been found... I think we should probably at least acknowledge that Barr did have choices to make here and in these two instances he chose the route more honorable than unbridled Trump sycophancy.

I know, shocked the shirt out of me too.

 

[bdb13]

I think Barr is the perfect example of a sniveling coward. He services Trump up until the time that doing so would put himself in potential legal peril....Fark him, hope he goes to jail, he was basically acting as Trump's personal attorney....

I don't think he would have been in any sort of legal peril if he had made the Hunter Biden investigation publicly known.