Over at Lawfare, Robert S. Litt, former associate attorney general (under Clinton) and former general counsel for the Director of National Intelligence (under Obama), makes short work of Attorney General William Barr’s thimble and pea sleight of hand that converted Michael Flynn’s arrant lies into airy nothingness on the grounds that they could not be “material” to a federal investigation because there was no legal justification for the FBI to be asking Flynn questions. As Litt points out, what Barr is arguing is that Flynn’s false statements could not be considered criminal because they
“were not ‘material’ to any viable counterintelligence investigation ... initiated by the FBI.” [Litt quoting Barr] Or, to put it differently, the FBI can’t investigate whether someone is a Russian agent unless it already has evidence that the person is a Russian agent.
First of all, Litt points out, lying to the FBI, or any other federal agency, can be criminal “in any matter within the jurisdiction of” the federal agency [quoting 18 U.S.C. §1001]. There does’t have to be any investigation. Barr’s argument, that, first there has to be an investigation, and secondly that an investigation isn’t “legal” unless it results in a conviction for the crime being investigated, is doubly duplicitous. And, according to Forbes, plenty of former Department of Justice employees agree with Litt (and me):
Almost 2,000 former FBI agents and Department of Justice officials wrote an open letter Monday calling for Attorney General William Barr to resign over his handling of the Michael Flynn case, after the Justice Department abruptly dropped criminal charges against President Trump’s former national security advisor last week, despite Flynn’s earlier guilty pleas.
You should read the full, damning letter for yourself, but here is an excerpt:
Despite previously acknowledging that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” President Trump has repeatedly and publicly complained that Flynn has been mistreated and subjected to a “witch hunt.” The President has also said that Flynn was “essentially exonerated” and that he was “strongly considering a [f]ull [p]ardon.” The Department [of Justice] has now moved to dismiss the charges against Flynn, in a filing signed by a single political appointee and no career prosecutors. The Department’s purported justification for doing so does not hold up to scrutiny, given the ample evidence that the investigation was well-founded and — more importantly — the fact that Flynn admitted under oath and in open court that he told material lies to the FBI in violation of longstanding federal law.
Naturally, after his latest victory, Trump went into full berserk mode, snorting and bellowing like a hippopotamus in musk, or whatever it is hippos go into when they’re feeling particularly stupid. Politico has the details of our president’s latest ragefest:
After the Justice Department’s abrupt decision last week to drop the criminal case against Flynn, Trump shifted his public focus over the weekend to mount a three-day tear against his predecessor on Twitter, accusing Obama of committing the “biggest political crime in American history.” Trump sought to popularize the hashtag “Obamagate,” which he said makes the Watergate scandal “look small time.” Trump also said Obama “got caught” and later retweeted comments by Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, who said Obama was part of an effort to frame and entrap her client.
Politico assures us that Republicans in Congress aren’t interested in investigating Obama himself. Just everyone who worked for him. Big difference. And if they aren’t interested in investigating Obama, Barr will be.
We are clearly reaching the point that people like Garry Kasparov have warned us about, where Trump’s constant deceit, cruelty, and contempt for the law become the new normal. The attorney general of the United States frees the president’s criminal pals whenever the president presses the tweet button? What else is new?
What else indeed? The simple fact is, Donald Trump is a fascist, and so is Bill Barr. We are fortunate indeed that both men are so fat, which ensures us against the sight of the two in jodhpurs, which both would surely affect, complete with swagger stick, were it not for their protruding guts. Trump is a fascist out of allegiance to his grotesque self-love, while Barr is a fascist out of his self-righteous Catholic “rage” at modernity, aka people enjoying themselves. Barr, and those like him, see Trump as the “flail of the Lord”, sent by God to do His work by, well, by whatever means necessary. When you lie and murder for the Lord, you don’t have to be squeamish! And what a blessing is that! A blessing indeed!
Most Trump supporters are like Barr, glorying in his crimes and wishing he would commit more of them, while others are like Ramesh Ponnuru, glad to stuff themselves at Trump’s banquet but wishing he wouldn’t make so many funny noises when he eats.1
Afterwords
I remain astonished that an American three-star general can take Russian money to be photographed sitting a banquet table with Vladimir Putin and not be called a “traitor” by the conservative press. Michael Flynn was, and is a shameless, deceitful, corrupt man, who stood in front of the Republican convention and shouted “Lock her up!” to stimulate the already ravening crowd in their obscene hatred of Hillary Clinton, a man guilty of many crimes, including crimes he was not even charged with. Let it be known that this PFC calls the general a disgrace to his uniform, and mine.
UPDATE
Over at the "Bulwark", Tim Miller explains Trump's "Obamagate" "theory" in some detail, and making the same point as mine, that Trump's nonsense isn't just nonsense: It's vicious and dangerous nonsense. (Though Tim commits a little of his own by describing as "compelling" something written by Likud/Trump shill Eli Lake. I can throw Donald Trump further than I can trust Eli Lake.)
1. In a recent column defending Barr’s “warnings” to states to behave themselves when striving to defend their citizens against the coronavirus (which Trump, of course, magnanimously/pusillanimously assigned to them so that he could blame them for doing too much or too little), Ramesh acknowledged that Barr’s obsequious praise of the president (required, of course, of all who serve him), was a bit much. Said Barr, “I think the president’s guidance has been, as I say, superb and very commonsensical, and I think a lot of the governors are following that.” Said Ramesh, “Barr’s opinion isn’t mine, and I think Cabinet secretaries ought to be embarrassed to say such things”—kind of funny, since Barr surely thought he was simply following Trump’s lead in giving his guidance, which Ramesh praises without stint. I guess Ramesh is saying, “I wish they wouldn’t suck the president’s cock in public.” Yeah, but if they didn’t, Ramesh, they’d be fired. So there’s that.
