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What would William Barr do when he was confirmed Attorney General and faced with the repetition of the Saturday night massacre of 1973, when Richard Nixon had attempted to save his presidency by ordering his attorney to dismiss the special prosecutor in charge of his investigation? Will he be willing to close the investigation of Special Advocate Robert Mueller?
After meeting with him earlier this week, Senator Lindsey Graham said that Barr had assured him that he would let Mueller finish his investigation of electoral interference in Russia. This point of view has been widely echoed by those familiar with Barr. "The man I know would never be subjected to undue political pressure – from newsrooms, Congress or a president," said Paul Cappuccio, former executive vice president and general counsel at Time Warner. "It will be his own man," said Michael Kelly, who worked with Barr when he came to GTE as legal counsel and executive vice president. "All those who know my father know that he is the wrong man to try to intimidate," said Margaret "Meg" Barr, 34, the youngest of her three daughters, all occupying female lawyers. a job in the public service.
Barr was well regarded during his tenure. First public prosecutor's post with President George HW Bush between 1991 and 1993, but some critics say his over-broad vision of Trump's executive power and defense in a 19-page unsolicited memo addressed to the Department of Justice and his lawyers raise questions about his suitability. For the job. There are many who insist that Barr refrain from overseeing the Mueller case investigation, even though Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the memo had "no impact" "on the investigation into the Mueller case.
AMERICA NEEDS BILL BARR TO TAKE THE RÊNES TO THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BADLY DAMAGED
In our talks last month in Washington, Barr refused to discuss his hearings January 15th, or its only meeting with Trump, in December. A White House official called it a "candid" 90-minute meeting, although Trump apparently did not ask how Barr would handle the Mueller case investigation. During an extensive interview and dinner with his family, Barr discussed his personal and professional life. He and Christine, a retired librarian, have been married for 45 years. Her eldest daughter, Mary, 41, is a senior justice department official who now oversees the opioid and addiction department's efforts in the Rosenstein office; Patricia, 37, is legal counsel to the House committee on agriculture. and Meg, a former prosecutor and cancer survivor in Washington, is now the board of Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana.
Barr, 68, clearly wants the position of Attorney General. "Our institutions are important," he said, unclear. He does not seem to fear that his confirmation will turn into a ugly partisan fight that could tarnish his reputation. Meg's battle with cancer took care of that. "If it's not because my daughter is fatally ill, it's nothing," he said softly in the living room of the new home in McLean, Virginia, which he helped design. "Meg's disease has changed our family. It changed me.
The second of four sons, William Pelham Barr, grew up on the Upper West Side in New York. His father became director at Dalton, the elite preparatory school in New York, where his mother, a college graduate, taught English to foreign students. Barr's values were rooted very early in life – conservative politics and Catholicism – and never wavered. At Corpus Christi, his Roman Catholic elementary school, he supported Richard Nixon. (A nun took him aside and promised to pray for him.) Even at Horace Mann High School, New York's most competitive non-sectarian preparatory school in New York, Barr s & rsquo; is unmarked. "He wanted to be respected more than loved by a conservative intellectual," said Doug Schoen, the Democratic pollster and student in that country. "He made it known that he was intellectually inspired not from Allard Lowenstein, the lowland player of the anti-war movement, but from William Buckley." This predilection for early decisions also applied to occupations. At the age of eight, Barr began playing the bagpipe and has since played competitively in Scotland and at family events.
Barr told his high school guidance counselor that he wanted to head the Central Intelligence Agency, said Robert Kimmitt, a 40-year-old Republican friend who also held several important positions to the government. While most budding analysts were studying Russian during the Cold War, Barr obtained a Master's degree in Chinese from Columbia, "the other enemy," as he put it. Between 1973 and 1977, he worked as a CIA analyst while attending the George Washington Night Law School. A junior specialist in China, he was sometimes invited to support CIA director George H. W. Bush, former US ambassador to China, at the congressional hearings. The link proved useful.
Barrow's family told me that Barr's faith and commitment to service were his priorities, whether he was working in government or the private sector as executive vice-president and attorney General of Verizon. He served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Archdiocese's Downtown Center Scholarship Fund in New York, raising funds for Catholic schools and causes. Some friends told me that he was paying about $ 50,000 a year at a New York parish school for 18 years a year.
The most important day in Barr's life may have been on July 17, 2012, when he and Meg learned that his Hodgkin lymphoma had recurred. Although 92% of Hodgkin's cases are cured, only 17% of patients whose cancer recurs survive. "It was the worst day of my life," Meg told me. They reacted with resolution, no panic, reading studies, interviewing researchers and examining the results of experimental treatments. "We were like two lawyers preparing a brief," she said.
They also prayed. Barr has asked religious nuns that he helps support in Illinois and Virginia to pray for his daughter. He also asked the help of a rabbi who sent Meg a prayer book. His own father, although a Catholic convert, was born Jewish. "So I wanted to cover all the bases," he said.
When he chose the Dana Farber Cancer Institute for Meg's chemotherapy and stem cell transplant, Barr suspended the work of his Kirkland & Ellis law firm and relocated with his wife. in Boston to be close to her. "He has never missed chemotherapy or radiation, a test or a CT scan," she said, calling her "cancer concierge." When Meg had to be isolated after his stem cell transplant, Barr rented a house in Scituate, near Boston. where they walked on the beach and read books together. They spoke of a future and they were not sure she would have it. "These three months have been the best and worst times," she said.
Against all odds, Meg has recovered. "The most difficult part of my illness has been accepting its randomness, the fact that you can not control the results," she said. "My father and I tend to be maniacs of control."
Last December, a few days after President Trump announced his intention to appoint Barr as Attorney General, he accompanied Meg in the alley of the parish church of St. Peter's. He even persuaded the priests to let the bagpipe play at the wedding ceremony.
In 1991, just two days before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, Barr's appointment as Attorney General was unanimously approved unanimously. Judicial Committee Chair Joe Biden congratulated the President for his frankness. He acknowledged that he felt that the Constitution did not create the right to abortion and that abortion, although it is now regulated by law since Roe v . Wade, should be a "legitimate question for state legislators". . "
His second confirmation hearing will certainly be more controversial, especially given Mr. Barr's long-standing support for broad presidential powers. When Barr headed the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice in 1989, he ruled the invasion of Panama and the arrest of Manuel Noriega, a longtime ally of the United States, to be legal, and claimed that the administration Bush could stop terrorists and drug traffickers abroad, even in violation of international law. As Deputy Attorney General in 1990, he declared that President Bush could legally wage war on Iraq without Congressional approval, although he encouraged Bush to seek a congressional resolution on support strengthening its political position. Barr is therefore likely to support the issuance of presidential pardons to loyalists. A long-time advocate of repressive policies against crime and tighter immigration controls, he should also make his own the program of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, including perhaps even the legality of to separate parents from children on the southern border of the United States.
But it is the Mueller investigation that will attract the most bitter inquiry. Barr's memo states that a president can not be accused of obstructing justice if he does not destroy any evidence, does not ask a witness to lie or deliberately takes part in the proceedings. other measures to "block or hinder an investigation". He blamed Mueller for appointing as many Democratic investigators for his investigation. . In an opinion article published in the Washington Post in 2017, he claimed that Trump had "made the right choice" by firing James Comey as head of the FBI. Last year, he had told the New York Times that it was more justified to investigate Hillary Clinton's role in the film. Uranium sale to Russia as the alleged collusion of Trump with Russia. Senator Dianne Feinstein described these views as "disturbing". The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, is committed to using the confirmation hearings to force Mr. Barr to promise that Mueller's investigation will proceed unhindered and that Congress and the public will see the Mueller's final report. [19659003] In his highly qualified and enthusiastic support to Barr, Benjamin Wittes, editor of Lawfare and a member of the Brookings Institution, described the candidate as "as good as possible", arguing that "all the features that make Barr attractive also make it scary. But Wittes is also encouraged by reports that Barr and Mueller have known and respected each other for years. Senator Graham, one of Trump's most fervent champions, also insisted on the respect of Barr for Mueller, Deputy Attorney General of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice under the direction of Barr.
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] "Trump may believe that Barr will do what he wants, but that's wrong," he said Schoen. "Despite his memo, Barr's story tells you he will not bend for Trump. His personal and professional antecedents suggest that he will do what he considers legally fair and ethical. "
In a recent episode of The Lawfare Podcast, former US Attorney Preet Bharara argued that Barr's rulings as Attorney General, whether he was confirmed to either brown or tarnish what is now an excellent reputation Barr, in short, has little to gain, but a lot to lose.This may be his best qualification for the job.
Editor's note: This article has been published for the first time in City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute.
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