Michael Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, has released his long awaited report into the origins of the DOJ’s and FBI’s investigation into the President’s 2016 campaign. The report can be found here and I’m uploading it below.
The bottom line up front: the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the four related investigations, including those into Carter Page and George Papadapolous, were properly predicated and there was no political bias. So no bias and no corruption. No coup, no deep state conspiracy. Nothing, nada, bupkis.
Here’s the key findings from the Executive Summary (emphasis mine):
In Full Investigations such as Crossfire Hurricane, all lawful investigative methods are allowed. In Preliminary Investigations, all lawful investigative methods (including the use of CHSs and UCEs) are permitted except for mail opening, physical searches requiring a search warrant, electronic surveillance requiring a judicial order or warrant (Title III wiretap or a FISA order), or requests under Title VII of FISA. An investigation opened as a Preliminary Investigation may be converted subsequently to a Full Investigation if information becomes available that meets the predication standard. As we describe in the report, all of the investigative actions taken by the Crossfire Hurricane team, from the date the case was opened on July 31 until October 21 (the date of the first FISA order) would have been permitted whether the case was opened as a Preliminary or Full Investigation.
The AG Guidelines and the DIOG do not provide heightened predication standards for sensitive matters, or allegations potentially impacting constitutionally protected activity, such as First Amendment rights. Rather, the approval and notification requirements contained in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG are, in part, intended to provide the means by which such concerns can be considered by senior officials. However, we were concerned to find that neither the AG Guidelines nor the DIOG contain a provision requiring Department consultation before opening an investigation such as the one here involving the alleged conduct of individuals associated with a major party presidential campaign.
Crossfire Hurricane was opened as a Full Investigation and all of the senior FBI officials who participated in discussions about whether to open acase told us the information warranted opening it. For example, then Counterintelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director (AD) E.W. “Bill” Priestap, who approved the case opening, told us that the combination of the FFG information and the FBI’s ongoing cyber intrusion investigation of the July 2016 hacks of the Democratic Nat ional Committee’s (DNC) emails, created a count erintelligence concern that the FBI was “obligated” to investigate. Priestap stated that he considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that “if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely changehis/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover-up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.” We did not identify any Department or FBI policy that applied to this decision and therefore determined that the decision was a judgment call that Department and FBI policy leaves to the discretion of FBI officials. We also concluded that, under the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, the FBI had an authorized purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain information about, or protect against, a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity.
Additionally, given the low threshold for predication in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, we concluded that the FFG information, provided by agovernment the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) deems trustworthy, and describing a first-hand account from an FFG employee of a conversation with Papadopoulos, was sufficient to predicate the investigation.This information provided the FBI with an articulable factual basis that, if true, reasonably indicated activity constituting either a federal crime or a threat to national security, or both, may have occurred or may be occurring. For similar reasons, as we detail in Chapter Three, we concluded that the quantum of information articulated by the FBI to open the individual investigations on Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016 was sufficient to satisfy the low threshold established by the Department and the FBI.
As part of our review, we also sought to determine whether there was evidence that political bias or other improper considerations affected decision making in Crossfire Hurricane,including the decision to open the investigation. We discussed the issue of political bias in a prior OIG report, Review of Various Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election, where we described text and instant messages between then Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa Page and then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others, that included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that, while Lisa Page attended some of the discussions regarding the opening of the investigations, she did not play a role in the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane or the four individual cases. We further found that while Strzok was directly involved in the decisions to open Crossfire Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD Priestap, Strzok’s supervisor, was the official who ultimately made the decision to open the investigation, and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap was reached by consensus after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and a FBI Deputy General Counsel. We concluded that Priestap’s exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision. We similarly found that, while the formal documentation opening each of the four individual investigations was approved by Strzok (as required by the DIOG), the decisions to do so were reached by a consensus among the Crossfire “Hurricane agents and analysts who identified individuals associated with the Trump campaign who had recently traveled to Russia or had other alleged ties to Russia. Priestap was involved in these decisions. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.
IG Horowitz did, as is the case in almost every IG investigation, found some low level wrongdoing and other minor errors. There are always decisions made or actions taken that, in hindsight, should have been made differently or not taken at all. Had IG Horowitz found nothing at all, then things would have looked as hinky as if he’d found the whole thing to be unpredicated and biased.
Attorney General Barr, however, is not happy with these conclusions. And he is once again, as he did with the Mueller Report, trying to place both hands on the scale to justify his ideologically driven priors.
Barr again in statement defending Trump: “It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.”
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 9, 2019
Given that AG Barr isn’t going to let this go, because it interferes in his career long mission to establish the presidency as an unelected king who is free from all constitutional and statutory constraints, despite Inspector General Horowitz’s findings, AG Barr and his surrogates, as well as the President and his, will continue to try to undermine the findings, as well as the actual reasons for the investigation into the President’s 2016 campaign. It is important to remember that during AG Barr’s first appointment as the Attorney General he created a factually dubious predicate that was used to create the inquiry that would eventually become the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons. This was done while then Governor Clinton was running for president against President Bush (41), who was Barr’s boss and shortly after he advised President Bush (41) to pardon all of the Iran-Contra conspirators, which would make it impossible to actually ascertain how much or how little President Bush (41) was involved in that criminal conspiracy to subvert American foreign and national security policy. Barr is an old hand at fixing investigations as attorney general. Either to make them go away or to create them. And both for political benefit. Despite IG Horowitz’s findings, this is not over. And it is not over because Attorney General Barr doesn’t want it to be over. And he will only want it to be over when he is able to arrange the conclusions in line with his preferences.
Open thread!
rikyrah
Been waiting for someone to weigh in on it.
Thanks, Silverman :)
opiejeanne
So, Barr says the report doesn’t actually say what it says? Have I got that part right?
Adam L Silverman
Ruh Roh!
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: Yes.
The Moar You Know
Got it. He’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants.
Wonder how you stop a criminal AG? Any criminal member of the president’s cabinet who has the support of the president? Not really an academic question anymore, but a rather urgent one.
Mike in NC
Waiting for every Republican on the Kremlin payroll to denounce this report as another hoax and the biggest witch hunt in the history of the Republic.
Adam L Silverman
@The Moar You Know: The last time we had this problem and someone decided to do something about it, it had to wait until the next administration. So
BillJohn Mitchell wasn’t prosecuted until after he was no longer AG and Nixon was no longer president.smintheus
Surprise, surprise, surprise! Barr is lying again. The FBI launched an investigation of 4 individuals, none of whom were campaigning for office. Three of the four have subsequently been convicted of crimes related to that investigation.
sdhays
Is there a list of people who, in the future, we should always ignore because they credulously assured us that Bill Barr was a great American and patriot and wouldn’t go all fascist, despite his record before and his 18 page love letter to Dump asking (between the lines) for the job of Dump Fixer Attorney General?
Mike in NC
@Adam L Silverman: John Mitchell and his crazy wife Martha
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
If we had control of Congress (or the Republicans cared about doing the right thing) he could be impeached and removed from office. But since we don’t, the only thing that will likely stop him at this point is death
Major Major Major Major
The report found some issues with the general FISA process, yes? Which will trigger a review of that, which is good? Or that’s what Adam Serwer tweeted at least.
burnspbesq
Barr is more dangerous than Trump. Without a cleaner, the bodies get found.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
This is the headline at WaPo right now. I can imagine this will help muddy the waters somewhat
lumpkin
Well, that settles it – trump is fully exonerated. Witch hunt.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: The Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which also under the IG’s review for this report, was into the President’s 2016 campaign. The IG also concluded that it was properly predicated and free from political bias.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
No idea, but with Fixer Bill Barr at the helm, do you think any review will be done in a fair and objective manner?
burnspbesq
@Major Major Major Major:
there have always been issues with FISA. There should be serious consideration by Congress of changes. The Trump complaints about it are 102 percent bullshit.
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: Yep. Barr is highly intelligent, highly competent, and highly focused on achieving his objectives and goals. He may be the most dangerous person in the US right now given the governmental department he runs.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@burnspbesq:
Yup. And with Bill Barr, only those bullshit complaints will be considered in any type of “review” I suspect
burnspbesq
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
faux “balance” = gaslighting
vhh
@Adam L Silverman: john miitchell not bill
Adam L Silverman
@vhh: Thanks. Fixed.
guachi
I posted this down below, but none of you will be shocked to find that Fox is spinning this as a huge indictment of the FBI “DOJ IG REPORT SLAMS FBI HANDLING OF RUSSIA PROBE”
burnspbesq
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
which is why it should be Schiff and Burr, not Barr, running the review.
for a Republican, Burr is almost sorta OK.
smintheus
I realize this is OT, but will there be a discussion of the WaPo reports on the Afghanistan ‘Pentagon Papers’? Doesn’t tell me much about the hopelessness of the war that I hadn’t figured out by 2003 at the latest. But the revolutionary thing about the original Pentagon Papers were that they documented the egregiously blatant lying done to the public over many years and multiple administrations.
I don’t see this helping Biden’s campaign one little bit. In fact, the first time somebody asks Buttigieg when he figured out that the Afghan war was hopeless…he’s going to be in a helluva bind. What can he say, that he didn’t know? Or that he did know it was a quagmire, but he’s been campaigning on his record of helping to move the ball forward in a failed cause?
I don’t see how Trump cannot be hurt by this, though his base seems to be adept at holding 42 contradictory thoughts in their ‘heads’ simultaneously.
Major Major Major Major
@burnspbesq: Yes, and the IG report says all the Trump claims were baseless, right? (I’m sick and going off tweets here, so do correct me if I’m wrong.) But any reminder that we should fix the process is alright in my book.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: I read it about an hour ago. I’ll try to do a post tonight or tomorrow. How’s that.
Cheryl Rofer
@smintheus: I have some things in mind, but it is unlikely to be today.
Gvg
@Adam L Silverman: why? Why is this guy so focused on making an imperial presidency? My cynical reaction is how does it benefit him? And then I wonder if he thinks he can end up President. Somehow, he thinks this is good and I don’t quite see why. Does anyone know more about this guy?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
How have you been lately?
Martin
I think it’s clear enough that the GOP will simply adopt whatever bullshit talking points they feel like. Whatever voters they haven’t lost don’t give a shit that they’re being lied to, so why stop when a factual report is released?
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: Also, and while this isn’t meant to defend Buttigieg per se, but there is a major disconnect in your question/assertion. The WaPo report, which is surprising to none of us who did any work on or around Afghanistan, also has this same major disconnect. What WaPo is reporting, which is not a surprise, is that 1) we have made no significant progress to achieving our strategic objectives in Afghanistan, 2) those strategic objectives do no appear to be clear and/or consistent, 3) there appears to be some significant differences between the publicly stated strategic objectives and what they might actually be. This is significantly different than what the folks at brigade and echelons below brigade (battalion, company, platoon, squad) are actually working on. What these echelons are working on is tactical objectives. And in a lot of cases and in a lot ways, we consistently achieved those tactical objectives. So it is entirely possible for Buttigieg or anyone else who worked on Afghanistan to assert that they helped achieve our objectives, because from the level at which they were working – the tactical level – they did. That this didn’t have any impact on achieving our strategic objectives, because those were unclear or being misrepresented, is not surprising at all. Both can be, and are, true.
delk
But it’s all right now, in fact it’s a gas.
oatler.
Stephanopoulis has remarked that “both sides” are roughing each other up.
Barbara
@Gvg: He is a bootlicker to wealthy people and always has been. That he is licking the boots of such a boob as Donald Trump makes it seem more like a pathology than it probably is.
JaySinWA
@Gvg: I doubt he is looking at being president. More like trusted henchman with lots of perks. Never believing he could be a victim in the universe he is creating.
guachi
@Adam L Silverman: What Adam said. The US has done a great job at whatever our low-level tactical objectives were in Iraq or Afghanistan. And I suspect we’ll keep succeeding. We’ll be succeeding so much we will keep succeeding for years to come!
West of the Rockies
Okay, for this to be my go-to point is silly, but Barr’s head looks like a double-sized block of fat. If, indeed, the human head weighs eight pounds, his must weigh 20, what with all his flaps and jowls.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: Damn, so the Trump’s tried use Steel to start a conspiracy theory that the the Ukrainians fixed the election for Hilary and it blew up in their face. Trump really was planning live off the next years as the one cheated in 2016.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: He’s an authoritarian and religious fundamentalist of the traditionalist Catholic “more Catholic than the Pope” variety.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@smintheus: I mean, there was an intrusive FBI investigation into a 2016 presidential campaign: Hillary Clinton’s. Has anyone run an IG report into the conduct of the NY FBI office in 2016? I rather doubt it.
@Gvg: Occam sez he believes in it as a matter of principle. Some people just have bad principles. They’re arguably the most dangerous of all, because an unprincipled person can be bought, but a person with bad principles is unlikely to give them up for anything.
Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m alright, other than this virus. Just finished reading Dune. Working a lot on novel revisions, playing Death Stranding. How about you?
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: @Cheryl Rofer: I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts. One thing I noticed is that though there’s a cursory attempt to measure the fiscal cost of the war (excluding all the long term costs), viz $1Trillion, there’s no accounting of the economic and financial cost of spending hundreds of thousands of man-years fighting a war that we could not plausibly “win”. What is the effect on the GDP, how much in productivity and civilian wages was lost? That’s theoretically measurable, and unlike pain and mental anguish and destroyed lives, Americans are willing to discuss raw numbers.
gene108
Wonder how much CNN or MSNBC or Fox News will pay AG Barr to be a paid contributor, after his run as AG ends?
I’m guessing low 7-seven figures.
Adam L Silverman
@(((CassandraLeo))):
This was ordered started in DEC 2016. There is no word as to where the investigation stands, if it is, in fact, actually being conducted, was conducted, and/or will be conducted.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: The only real counter-cyclical stimulus we had between the financial meltdown in 2008 through to 2013 when the sequester went into effect, has been what we call military Keynesianism. One could argue that if we weren’t spending all this money on the military, on intelligence, on security, and on contractors for material and equipment, for butts in seats personnel, and for consulting, we’d have been far worse off economically.
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: Sure. But the basic point, which was not lost on me sitting at home reading between the lines of misleading public reports, is that tactical gains of nearly every sort including infrastructure improvements lasted only as long as the US kept sufficient numbers of troops in a given area. Buttigieg can’t plausibly claim to have believed that any sand castles he was building there would last longer than the next high tide.
Major Major Major Major
Might write this up tonight, but in the meantime,
Major Major Major Major
@smintheus: I don’t think anybody will even notice what you’re describing unless they’re already looking for reasons to dislike him
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: Buttigieg was an intelligence weenie. He spent most of his time behind a desk staring at a work station reading classified information submitted by operational units in the field: maneuver elements, enabling elements (Civil Affairs, Human Terrain Teams), the tactical human intelligence bubbas and bubbettes (HUMINTers), the stuff coming from the Lioness Teams (all women engagement units to engage with Afghan women), Interagency personnel (the Provincial Reconstruction Teams), etc.
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: Or possibly we could have spent the money we used bribing people in Afghanistan not to steal the stuff we were spending so much money on, on Keynesian spending in the US.
LongHairedWeirdo
Thanks for calling that out; that’s one of the horrible things about living with a bad faith adversary, like the Republican Party. You’re right; we should expect some mistakes, some even meriting a reprimand, because people are human. In a rational world, the GOP could be counted on to agree that some mistakes were expected, and show no signs of political/”deep state” bias.
Alas, we don’t live in that world, and we know it – witness Bill Barr who knows he’s acting in bad faith, and we know the right wing media will be glad to trumpet that to the heavens, and while most Republican congresscritters won’t repeat it, they’re glad to take advantage of it, rather than point out to the American people that, “no, actually, the FBI isn’t out of control; nor are there any signs of corruption within the ranks.”
If you live in a GOP district, that *is* one thing you can do, you know: make sure you tell your rep/senator to stop (ahem) urinating on your leg, and insisting it’s the rain. Seriously: tell them to STOP LYING. Tell them it disgusts you, not that they’re defending their party’s President, but because they’re lying. Some of them might realize that their not-base is getting riled up.
Cheryl Rofer
@smintheus: Work has been done on this for the Iraq war, but I can’t put my finger on it immediately. Will keep it in mind as I work on a post.
This is not a good week for me IRL, so I may not be able to get anything out. We’ll see.
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: Hence my point. I don’t see that he has a good way to continue using his work in Afghanistan to burnish his credibility. He seems more vulnerable on this than Biden, who (according to reports) urged Obama to draw down the troops when Obama decided to build them up.
catclub
Did I miss something? when did Trump actually get caught cheating on taxes?
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: We were never going to do actual counter-cyclical (Keynesian) spending domestically to combat the 2008 economic downturn. We were never going to do it because even if it could pass the House, it would never have passed the Senate even with Democratic majorities in both chambers in 2009. Because it wasn’t the Susan Collinses that had to be gotten, it was the last four or five Democrats like Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin who would either never go for it or want significant gets to support it. What we got, through defense and intel and security spending, is as good as it was ever going to get.
gene108
@smintheus:
A lot of infrastructure spending came from other countries, like India.
Would like to see, where the non-U.S. infrastructure spending went to pot, after U.S. troops left.
What gets left out of U.S. reporting on Afghanistan is that we didn’t go into this alone. This is the first joint NATO action, when a member country was attacked. Other countries, with a vested interest to make sure the Taliban did not come back into power, like India, also invested in Afghanistan.
Ultimately, I think a lot of issues with Afghanistan are all the international players involved; some of whom want the Taliban back in charge, which is why they have been able to sustain their insurgency for 20 years.
smintheus
@(((CassandraLeo))): Funnily enough, an FBI Director was fired, supposedly, because of the abusive way Clinton was treated with regard to that bullshit FBI investigation. And yet there appears never to have been an official investigation of what went wrong with it.
Yutsano
@gene108: Nah. He won’t go the talking head route. He’ll be helping other wingnuts stay out of jail after this administration ends.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: I think you miss the point of his raising it. Which is the same point that almost every politician who decided to serve post 9-11 raises it. Which is they were all privileged. None of them had to serve. They all had advanced and/or professional degrees from elite institutions. They had the jobs and benefits that came with those degrees, but they decided they needed to serve given what was going on. They had other options, but chose to participate in their generation’s war/wars. That’s what’s being referenced and signaled here.
gene108
@catclub:
I think there was a NYT article a year or two ago about how Trump and his siblings committed tax fraud, with regards to not paying taxes on their inheritance from Fred, Sr.
Forced his sister to retire from the federal bench.
Otherwise, nobody seemed to care.
bystander
Prior to Barr’s use of the Mueller report as toilet paper, Chuck Rosenberg routinely told the MSNBC audience that Barr was an institutionalist. Turned out the institution was the Kremlin.
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: The NYT team who wrote that won a Pulitzer for it.
Down the memory hole it went.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Barr needs to spend the rest of his life in prison. He can have the cell adjacent to Trump, just so he can listen to the incessant whining and crying about all the ‘injustices’ he’s been forced to endure. At least until Trump strokes out, or Barr ends himself in order to escape that aural torment.
Cacti
Today’s report was only possible because Congress passed the Inspector General Act of 1978 in response to Nixon’s corruption of the DOJ and intelligence agencies.
Such a report would never have come from someone whose continued employment depended on remaining in good standing with Bill Barr.
Thank you to the past Congress for anticipating a future corrupt Republican administration.
Gravenstone
@Gvg: Purely ideologically driven? He started this shit in earnest under Bush I, when it wasn’t unreasonable to think it would be a Republican president going forward ad infinitum.
Cacti
@gene108: How nice for his sister that her only penalty for being a tax cheat, in flagrante delicto, while simultaneously serving on the Federal bench, was a quiet retirement.
Reminds one of that statement of there being an in group who the law protects, but does not bind, and an out group who the law binds, but does not protect.
Martin
@bystander: Barr is a Christianist. As such, he’s fundamentally opposed to the kind of democracy that Democrats currently advocate for. So long as mortal powers are aligned to help him get the right judges onto US courts to turn this into a Christian nation, then he’s on board. The right kind of dictatorship is just fine with his plan to be suitably raptured.
OGLiberal
POLITICO headline:
Watchdog report rips FBI handling of Russia probe
SIGH!
jl
@Martin: Barr should be impeached, in addition to Trump.
Another issue is that, regardless of whether there is good evidence that Trumpsters actively colluded with Putin’s election meddling effort in 2016, they are grossly negligent in protecting against more meddling by Putin in 2020 (and others perhaps, now that Putin shown how easy it is, why not jump in?) . I think impeachment for that may be justified as well.
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: I took his point. I just didn’t buy it because it seemed like exactly the thing an ambitious would-be politician would do to bolster his chosen career — post McKinsey. If you’re really looking to do tours in Afghanistan, don’t you join the Marines or Army?
Kent
@Adam L Silverman: I’m not a Buttigieg fan, but the notion that his service in Afghanistan is going to count against him is pretty far-fetched in my opinion.
Vietnam was a 10x more horrific and unjustified war and far more unpopular. Yet Vietnam vets were never held accountable in national politics for any of it. To the contrary, it was usually a badge of honor in politics, nothwithstanding Kerry and the Swiftboat nonsense. Americans blamed Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, et. al. for Vietnam, not any troops who served there.
I suspect Afghanistan and Iraq will end up being more or less the same. Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell, and to some extent Obama can be held accountable for our Afghanistan policy. And perhaps some of the highest ranking generals involved in war policy. But no one who served on the ground. Americans just don’t do that.
Not saying there aren’t going to be Bernie-bot types and true believers who will take it on themselves to criticize anyone who went to Afghanistan. No one was drafted, everyone was a volunteer. So I suppose one could make an argument for culpability. But that kind of thing won’t ever gain any traction with the electorate if history has anything to say. I would be shocked if it did.
Mike in NC
@Major Major Major Major: Grace Hopper retired as a Rear Admiral and had a guided missile destroyer named after her.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: I have serious questions as to whether any of these folks who were clearly planning on running – Cotton, DeSantis, Buttigieg, etc – did it to burnish their credentials for their campaigns. But that is just because I’m a suspicious person. That said, everyone who serves, including in Intel positions or, as in my case in mobilized civilian status, do so for our own reasons. Often they’re highly personal. And often they’re conflicted.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: I don’t think it will be held against him either.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Martin:
If Barr expects the rapture to save him, it proves he really does believe in the “magic words” hypothesis, that all God cares about is having said the right magic words, and *poof*, you’re going to heaven forever.
If I had the power to send dreams, I’d let them have a few nightmares about how ludicrously stupid it is to think magic words uttered in hopes of a benefit would cover for such gross injustice.
catclub
@gene108: yeah, there was that.
I guess I never rated the NYT reporting something as Trump actually being caught cheating on taxes.
Caught cheating to me would be the IRS in a suit against him.
gene108
@Martin:
Barr is a Catholic, not a Christian// True American Conservative Protestant
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
With out bodies, the cleaner doesn’t have a job. Without Trump, Barr is just another Republican hack looking for work.
Kent
@Adam L Silverman: Right. Like JFK pulling strings to become a Navy officer and get on PT-109 so he could do the war hero thing. Or Teddy Roosevelt during the Spanish-American war. Or Robert Todd Lincoln serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. Or Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War. When has it ever been any different?
Criticizing ambitious young men for serving in the military is kind of like criticizing ambitious young people for attending Ivy League colleges rather than staying home to attend their local state schools. Ambitious young people are always doing whatever they can to polish their resumes. They always have and always will.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Studying for finals
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: I think people get cause and effect backward here.
I don’t think any of them pursue military service to make them more electable. That seems pretty ludicrous to me given the age that most people serve.
But there’s well over 100 million people qualified to be President yet only a few dozen run. I don’t doubt that people who have served feel they are better qualified to run for office, so they volunteer to run at higher rates.
IOW, I don’t think that Tammy Duckworth joined up and lost her legs because it was a good entry to getting elected to the house. I do think that somewhere in her recovery she asked herself ‘what do I do now’ and at some point ‘run for office’ came up.
Also, I don’t think we can minimize the effect that other people have on decisions to run. Many candidates are encouraged to run because the party sees a CV that looks appealing, and military service will always factor highly in that.
Martin
@gene108: Ok, so no rapture, but the Christianist part stands. Barr is just Scalia, looking to put more Scalias on the bench to rule in the ‘correct’ manner.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
What an ingenious way to discedit Steele.
M31
@Martin:
That there are over 100 million people eligible to be President and yet the president is Donald Trump is a pretty amazing fact.
Roger Moore
@Gvg:
He’s a committed Christianist, and I think he sees an imperial presidency (under Republican control, of course) as critical for achieving the goals of his version of Christianity. [Edited to correct his religious affiliation]
bystander
Martin
Don’t underestimate the degree to which an ivy league admit is seen to a 17 year old more as a recognition of accomplishment (someone recognized my hard work!) than as a way to burnish a resume. I work with a lot of students in that space, and the only ones that are burnishing resumes are the ones expecting to get in on a legacy admit. Only a very weird group of people view things in that way at that age. And yes, too many of them go on to be president, but Pete doesn’t fit that profile.
Martin
@M31: Says more about voters than about the people who choose to run. I didn’t agree with any of the GOP candidates in 2016, but there were at least reasonably qualified ones in there.
pinacacci
OT and haven’t read this thread yet (at work and limited time to not work) but read WaPo comments on Warren article and boy howdy are the knives out for Warren. It’s frightening to watch propaganda efforts in real time.
JWR
Big Jim Jordan speed-yelling.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in NC: indeed she did. An important woman!
Mary G
Barr is one of those Catholics who thinks the Pope is ruining the church and that reinstating the Inquisition would be a great idea. The Federalist Society needs to be investigated up the wazoo.
John Durham has also come out with a statement that he disagrees with the IG report and has found evidence of wrongdoing. This is my shocked face.
How long will it take until establishment figures stop vouching for people like Barr/Kavanaugh/Durham?
Kent
@Martin: I’m talking more about the parents I guess. And the wealthy in general who treat elite education as both a right and a rite of passage. All the endless battle to get your kiddos into an Ivy League or equivalent school as witnessed by the recent admissions scandals. That all had nothing to do with “recognizing accomplishment” and everything to do with resume polishing.
Yutsano
@pinacacci:
A) Open thread
B) Which article?
Major Major Major Major
@Martin:
Which fits quite well with his gay archetype, the best little boy in the world.
Kent
Yes it was a ridiculous and malicious attack. Warren made, on average, $67,000 per year working for corporate clients since 1995. This is remotely surprising or controversial why? It’s actually worse than the damn Clinton email thing which actually had some small whiff of impropriety (using personal email for public business). This is nothing but ordinary for a talented lawyer and legal expert.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@smintheus: It’s almost as though Republicans’ accounting of their motivations can’t be trusted. Hoooooooooocoodanode.
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t say this surprises me.
The fact that they’re raising alleged issues with the FBI investigation(s) into Trump after several independent reports into it have vindicated it/them, while the discrepancies within the Clinton investigation still haven’t been publicly reported on, just proves once again that Every Accusation Is a Confession.
Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): and then you’re gonna finally get started on that story, right??
kindness
The things I’d like to say about Bill Barr would no doubt scare off the advertisers. Don’t want to mess with that. Let’s leave it with: Bill Barr? Fu$* that guy!
Juju
@Adam L Silverman: Bill Mitchell was the President in the movie “Dave”.
I think most dangerous is a toss up between Barr and McConnell.
pinacacci
@Yutsano: This one
catclub
How about never? Does never work for you?
The Dangerman
@Gravenstone:
In case the BJ House Band needs a name…
gene108
@Kent:
She is impure, a hypocrite, and most importantly not Bernie Sanders, therefore she will never be the true socialist America needs to destroy capitalism.
This is like saying Hillary would do whatever banks wanted, because of a couple speeches.
Also, some of Warren’s work seems to be for people suing corporations
I don’t want Republican levels of sycophancy in the Democratic Party, but eating our own, before a single 2020 primary vote is cast is counter productive
MomSense
@kindness:
Fork forking Barr!!
Citizen Alan
@Adam L Silverman:
Back in 2004, my (Republican) employer at the time said in absolute seriousness that he thought John Kerry only volunteered for Vietnam service in order to burnish his credentials for a future political career. He was absolutely contemptuous of Kerry’s medals for heroism. Alas, I wasn’t around in 2008 to ask him what he thought about John McCain who would have spent Vietnam scrubbing toilets had it not been for nepotism.
Another Scott
Hmmm…
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ll definitely try!
smintheus
@Kent: When did I criticize Buttigieg for serving in the military? I said I don’t buy his explanation that he felt a sudden need to serve since others were serving. Others had already been serving for years, while he was doing Oxford and doing McKinsey. Buttigieg suddenly felt a need to serve just months before he started his first political campaign; quite the coincidence. And he enlists in the Navy so he can serve in a landlocked country.
People have all manner of reasons for serving, many of which have little to do with grand concepts of patriotism and selflessness. To acknowledge that is not to criticize them for serving.
Citizen Alan
@Major Major Major Major:
What immediately jumped to my mind while reading that article is that “the best little boy in the world” sounds a lot like the gay male version of Tracy Flick. Which is, of course, one of the misogynistic tropes used against Hillary.
Jay
chris
Comey is on with Nicolle
JWR
Matt Gaetz is a freakin’ loon. That is all.
danielx
@West of the Rockies:
With all due respects to jackal attorneys, Barr looks like a caricature of a prick lawyer, right down to the horn rimmed glasses.
And a constipated one at that.
J R in WV
I don’t think the word “exculpatory” actually means what AG Barr thinks it means !!!
smintheus
@gene108: A lot of Warren’s work for corporations involved bankruptcy proceedings where she was advocating from the corporate side to ensure that the court set aside adequate funds to pay ordinary citizens who had or would eventually have claims against the defunct corporation. The courts are supposed to but rarely do take into account those types of claims against assets, preferring instead to pay off the corporate interests with the best legal teams. That is why Warren got into the business sideline she did, to advance the public good. Working for the bankrupt corporation was a way to get a seat at the table. Many of Warren’s critics know that, they’re just stirring up mud.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Just get started some day, lol. If you’re truly stuck on where to begin, you have my email.
Kent
@smintheus: I was just responding to the general train of thought that the new Pentagon report on Afghanistan will somehow diminish Buttigieg because he was serving in a pointless war or something.
As for his reasons for enlisting? Honestly, everything he has done from attending Harvard to working for McKinsey to elisting to running for mayor seems seems in some part calculated. It is all very much in the ancient Roman tradition of cursus honorum where each step on the career leads to the next. But I’m not sure that is in any way unusual.
Martin
@Kent: More or less. Early in my career I got an angry call from a parent wanting to know why their kid didn’t get admitted. I couldn’t explain in the students specific case, only the general case. He kept pressing me to admit his kid, finally confessing ‘what does it matter, he’s not going there anyway’, to which I asked ‘what’s the point then’. Turns out he just wanted to brag to his buddies.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I believe that was the same team that uncovered how Trump tried to add a codicil to Fred’s will so everything would come to him until his sister found him out and worked with Fred to make sure that never happened. Those holiday family dinners must have been a hoot.
raven
@Kent: What is it you do in life without thinking about it? “I was wandering down the street and walked in and enlisted.”
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: In the last week or two one of our occasional commenters noted that she was at Oxford at the same time Pete was, and that he all but had “intends to be President” tattooed on his forehead.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Fits well with virtually every 17 year old I’ve ever met happy to receive external validation.
Elizabelle
@Kent: If you sort the WaPost reader comments by “most liked”, you will be happy to see that many people get what an insane hit piece on Warren that was.
Annie Linskey gives me the creeps. She is following Amy Chozick’s game plan. I wish the WaPost would reassign her, because she clearly has it out for Warren, leading one to wonder whether owner Jeff Bezos has her in there to do just that.
prostratedragon
@Gvg: What others have said above about his being a flunky to the rich and powerful, plus the side note that his father was the schoolmaster who gave Jeffrey Epstein an early and improbable favor. Being this kind of fixer or functionary might be the family business.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Should he even be commenting on this?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Citizen Alan: But GW Bush sort of serving in the Air National Guard, when the only chance Bush had of being activated was if was the Apocalypse, was awesome to this guy. Congentive Dissonance inaction.
Major Major Major Major
Ah, even more reason to view his CV with suspicion.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
I have read that Barr is a member of Opus Dei — a secret organization of right-wing Catholics who intend to keep the Pope on their straight and narrow path. Opus Dei was founded by Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer on October 2, 1928.
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer was the spiritual advisor to Generalissimo Franco after he took control of Spain following the Spanish civil war.
Kelly
@Major Major Major Major: My earliest memory of Grace Hopper goes back to I think the late 1970’s. I read she carried around the piece of wire that was a nanosecond long. 11.8 inches in traditional measurements.
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
And reading Balloon Juice, also a learning experience!
;-)
pinacacci
@Kent: It’s not just the article, which is yes terrible. The comments though…I find them illuminating. You can see the disinformation campaign at work. The repetition of nonsense. The gleeful trolls. The alternate universe. It’s freaky.
Jay C
@J R in WV: No, I think Barr is using “exculpatory” in its grammatically-correct (if factually dubious) sense: in that the FBI probes into the 2016 election (ostensibly) found no overt wrongdoing by the Trump campaign, and thus their whole investigation was a “prove” to be a sham witch-hunt, and that Trump and his people were/are COMPLETELY EXONERATED !!!!!
Not at all what the IG report actually said, but by the time this line gets processed through the RW media, it will be all they will be repeating…
Gin & Tonic
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling on Russia to withdraw its troops from occupied Crimea (not that they will, of course.) Here’s a list of who voted against that resolution:
Armenia
Belarus
Burundi
Cambodia
China
Cuba
DPRK
Iran
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Myanmar
Nicaragua
Philippines
Russia
Serbia
Sudan
Syria
Venezuela
Zimbabwe
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Yay, we’re not on the list!
Kent
@Gin & Tonic: I expect we have all known people like that at one point or another. At least those of us who have attended those sorts of schools. I attended Reed College in the 1980s, which isn’t Harvard, but does have a lot of elite wealthy types and I knew people who met that description.
Again, I don’t criticize Pete or anyone else for being ambitious or even calculating. I do criticize him for going down the road of repeating right-wing or centrist memes about how “we can’t afford” this or that progressive objective or that we have to means test every damn thing to make sure that undeserving wealthy don’t somehow benefit from a social welfare program. The fact that he seems to have signed on to some of the ridiculous Third Way fake centrism suggests to me that he isn’t seasoned enough to know what the fuck he is doing and has no business running for president in this day and age.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I also scrolled down expecting to see us. Yay! I wonder if we voted ‘yes’, though.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s a real cast of characters. //
Juju
@danielx: That man is definitely not getting enough fiber in his diet.
Howard Beale IV
@J R in WV: So was Scalia.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: I will admit that my current passport lacks entry stamps from any of them.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
It says here that US voted in favor.
Baud
@debbie:
Cool. I wonder if Trump knows.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
You’ll doubtless want to keep it that way.
TS (the original)
Late to the thread – many thanks to Adam for the analysis. I’ve not followed the career of Barr – which is probably as well – I have so much anger against trump, I cannot find place for any more for someone else.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: The United States was one of 63 ‘yes’ votes.
debbie
@Baud:
Nothing on Twitter yet, so probably not.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: My understanding is that Senator Duckworth was planning on doing a full career or as long as she could go up and not out promotion wise. Her combat injuries made that impossible.
Another Scott
@debbie:
nycsouthpaw is keeping up with this.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: He used to be legal counsel to the now disgraced for child molestation/sexual assault Opus Dei spokesman in DC.
TomatoQueen
@Adam L Silverman: This has made me almost giddy with glee.
Mart
This only applies to Republican Presidents. Democrats are always impeachable.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Glad to see this.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I just realized I haven’t heard anything about the meeting between Putin and Zelensky. Hope that’s good news.
oatler.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/maxine-waters-trump-loving-challenger-omar-navarro-arrested-for-stalking
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: I saw something about a prisoner exchange, but not confirmed.
zhena gogolia
Nadler really let them run over him roughshod. Schiff handled this crap so much better.
Ladyraxterinok
Note!!! Martha Mitchell was NOT CRAZY!! She was blowing whistle on husband and Nixon. They worked tirelessly to discredit her!
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks!
smintheus
@J R in WV: I once asked a Spanish friend of mine, who was a priest in Opus Dei, “What was it like growing up under a fascist dictatorship?”
Him: “Oh, it was normal. I never even thought about it.”
tobie
@zhena gogolia: I checked out of the hearings after 2 pm because I couldn’t take the GOP’s brownshirt tactics for trying to shut the hearings down. I agree that Nadler was not nearly as effective as Schiff but I also think the Republicans have gotten much, much more aggressive in this committee. Schiff had to deal with two loudmouths (Jordan and Stefanik). Nadler has to deal with multiple loudmouths disrupting the hearings every step of the way. This was the GOP strategy walking in. I’m sorry I chickened out watching. I guess that got the thugs a small victory. Fuck em all.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, sweet… working for a pedophile, great preparation for working for Trump~!!~ Nearly identical in philosophy there.
Nothing is forbidden the supreme leaders of society. Nothing!
Taobhan
Horowitz’s IG report is the result I expected – another bit of evidence on the pile against rabid right-winger (including the Prez) claims about the Russian investigation. But the weight of the evidence so far doesn’t seem to be enough to finally collapse the administration. It feels as though we’re just going to be endlessly stuck on the Trump/Barr/Rudy carousel, going around and around, until who knows when. I can only hope that by the next time a Republican in the White House, Bill Barr is lying in his grave and can’t re-join another Republican administration to finish his quest.
Gvg
@Citizen Alan: there was a significant chance both Kerry and McCain would die in that war. In other words your boss was full of it. Bush avoided being sent overseas because Vietnam was so dangerous. His dad served in WWII but pulled strings to keep him out of Vietnam which to me is a tacit admission that it was a badly run war and that it wasn’t actually critical to our country.
your boss was also dumb or ignorant. I am sure you noticed.
burnspbesq
@smintheus:
Many others are too fucking ignorant to realize what she was doing, and are trying to weaponize their ignorance.
burnspbesq
@Another Scott:
The original Tweet ot which Preet was replying was from Steve Inskeep, Mr. Throw-Your-Morning-Coffee-Against-the-Windshield of NPR.
J R in WV
@Gvg:
Why not both?
My boss, the one who listened to Rush at noon every day, he was dumb, stupid, and mean to people who couldn’t help him directly.
J R in WV
@burnspbesq:
Since retirement blessed us, I have heard barely a moment of Morning Edition. I will confess to sometimes listening to 20 minutes of All Things Considered in the evening on the way home from a weekly grocery / shopping expedition, sadly. But when you live in the boonies, you get your news where you can.
I much prefer Bluesville on Sirius/XM to news of any sort, lately. Or any of the jazz or prog rock channels…