WilliamBarr: The imperial attorney general
William Barr, almost two years into his second turn as the attorney general of the United States, again and again reveals his frightening vision of his own imperial per ch as the nation’ s top lawyer. Barr, in a speech in September to a compliantaudience at Hills dale College, disemboweled his own subordinates’ professionalism. Barr S. Lewis to label the Justice Department’ s line lawyers as “omni potent moral busy bodies.” He went on to state his approach to leading thousands of the department’ s lawyers :“Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it’ s no way tor una federal agency .”
Since that diatribe, Barr has continued the assault on his own department’ s ranks straight through the election.
The Department of Justice has a general who hat es his soldiers, especially the ones who dare follow the long standing rules that govern all federal prosecutors’ actions and decisions. A comprehensive guide( once called the U. S. Attorneys’ Manual and now the Justice Manual) has specific provisions that prohibit political considerations from infecting the federal criminal investigative and prosecutorial process. These rules are not permissive; they are mandatory. The rules don’ t go away when a new attorney general takes office. They are designed as an example of self-restraint to the potentially oppressive exercise of prose cu tori al power. Justice Department prosecutors are subject to discipline including possible termination if violations of the manual are flag rant or repeated.
Barr’ s goal is to marginalize theof department and make them quaint vestige sofa by gone era when prosecutors made—or at least were supposed to make—decisions on facts and the applicable law. Barr labels a “permanent bureaucracy” the institutional knowledge amassed over many decades. His own lawyers area group to be maneuvered around instead of relied upon to pursue justice.
Barr, with a bull y’ s demeanor and ap wield political hatchets under the gui se of executive power, casts his large, protective shadow onto a president who despises restraint and boundaries. They area match made in the political chaos of Trump ism. Barr has done us an unintended favor—he has articulated in unequivocal language his vision( and that of his boss) for an omni potent executive branch that can and will do as it pleases. And it pleases them to silence opposition through force and disregard the law when in convenient.
Ofcourse, to be be holde nto the chief executive hasn’ t satisfied Trump, who has an insatiable appetite for blind allegiance. The president has publicly chastised Bar rover the department’ s “failure” to charge former President Ba rack Obama (yes, you read that correctly) and others for allegedly spying on Trump’ s 2016 campaign. Trump’ s edi ct is completely disconnected from the actual facts and the applicable law. But he knows that Barr is his man, sohe keeps pushing.
This week, Barr—seemingly at Trump’ s insistence that his cabinet attack the vote he lost—issued a memorandum that prods U.S. attorneys around the country to open election fraud investigations. Theme mo is confirmation that Barr moves to the political puppeteer of Donald Trump and ignores both long-standing Justice Department policy regarding election-related cases and his own public corruption prosecutors. The lead DO J attorney for election corruption cases re signed in protest over Barr’ s memo.
Allow me to return to the Justice Manual. Section9-27.001states, in relevant part:
“[ O] ur federal prose cu tori al system… must rely ultimately on the character, integrity, sensitivity and competence of those men and women who are selected to represent the in the federal criminal justice process. It is with their help that these principles have been prepared, and it is with their efforts that the purposes of these principles will be achieved .”
The passage doesn’ t refer to the position of the attorney general—it identifies the public interest as the department’ s soul and the line lawyers as the body that it in habits.
Barr is not the one impeding Trump’ s personal and vindictive version of prosecutor i al power; it is the Justice Department’ s line lawyers who are willing to stand up as the last, best defense for the rule of law. More than ever, we need career DO J lawyers to remain ethical ly committed and engaged. Time is on their side.
Michael McAuliffe is a former federal prosecutor serving both as a trial attorney at the Department of Justice and as a supervisory assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida. He also served as the elected state attorney for Palm Beach County. His novel “No Truth Left To Tell” was published in March 2020.