America, since the beginning of July, has been in a Trumpian dystopian whirlwind. Everyday evidenced one or two major news stories that would have, in a different age, dominated the news cycle for months. The Supreme Court dissed the Trumpian and Barr contention that the POTUS could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York in the judgement that his financial records could be subpoenaed. They were apparently not cowered by the earlier Trump tweet hurricane that followed their negation of his order to expel the eight hundred thousand Latino adults that had been brought to America by their parents and their ruling that members of the LGBT community could not be discriminated against by their employers. Lieutenant Vindman, who gave evidence at the Trump impeachment hearing, resigned from the army citing Trump’s bullying and retaliation. Then there was the bombshell of the tell all expose by his niece that chronicled his life long sociopathic behavior that prior to being on the market is already the number one best seller. On top of all this was his ever worsening poll numbers.
In addition the news was dominated by his gross ignorance, incompetence bordering on criminality of the management of Covid 19. Six months into the pandemic crisis the country recorded its highest daily number of cases, - seventy thousand. The number of victims in the United States exceed three and a quarter million and deaths are up to a hundred and thirty six thousand. It is not forgotten that less than six months ago Trump said there were only fifteen cases and soon there would be none. He is still in total denial blaming the high numbers on increased testing. He is more and more in open dispute with the chief government expert on the virus, Dr. Fauci. The latter is trusted by close on seventy percent of the country while less than thirty percent approve Trump’s handling of the epidemic. Trump looks about to make another major blunder by axing his leading trusted voice on the pandemic.
Trump has only one last hope and that was Attorney General William Barr. Barr has always tried to create a distance between himself and the President. Ostensibly he and the President are at odds over the latter’s sensational decision to commute Roger Stone’s jail sentence. But the bottom line is to date Barr has been the agent putting into effect Trump’s Orwellian world and giving his daily drivel some reality. Barr has also spent nearly two years planning to reverse history in line with the Trumpian narrative.
Barr’s power is illustrated by just one quote from someone who is right in the mix, Lev Parnas, Rudi Giuliani’s indicted associate. Parnas is the insider who produced video confirmation of Trump and Giuliani working on a plan to obtain dirt on Biden from the Ukrainians. Parnas then stated in a TV interview that no one was scared of Trump but since Barr was appointed as head of the Justice Department he had gained inordinate power.
CONSIGLIERI BARR
The attempt by Trump’s consiglieri Barr to discharge Michael Flynn before his sentencing was appealed by presiding Judge Sullivan to be heard by the full bench of the Federal Appeal Court. That blatant effort to subvert the rule of law preceded Trump commuting the sentence of his life long co conspirator Roger Stone in what was on its face a bribe in return for not ratting on him. Stone admitted to journalist Howard Fineman that he expected to be commuted for resisting the heavy pressure to spill the beans. Stone was the conduit between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks. Attorney General Barr had previously arbitrarily withdrawn the Prosectors’ sentencing recommendation on Stone and replaced it with a more lenient one of his own.
The head of the Justice Department was yet again the center of a Trump controversy when he gave the order to disperse a lawful gathering in Washington to allow Trump to have a photo op at a church. Barr was involved in one further initiative in Trump’s interests at the end of the week of the tenth of July and that was the replacement of the Federal Attorney General of Eastern New York who was in the process of investigations into Trump related crimes.
THE BARR AND TRUMP GRAND PLAN
Trump is behind in the polls by double digits and respected political commentators are forecasting not only a blue wave but a blue tsunami. Biden is infuriating Trump by not rising to his baiting as he needs the responses to feed off. Obama’s former Vice President has preempted Trump by providing a detailed plan with numbers as to how he is going to get America to work again.
However Trump has one more card to play and that is to smear Biden and trash him and Obama. Significantly he has the aid of William Barr who can act with the full power of the Department of Justice. The plan is simply to “prove” that the “Russian hoax” was a conspiracy cooked up by Biden’s and Obama’s dark state. Barr is currently conducting a criminal investigation into what lead to the instigation of the Mueller investigation. He is also scouting the world to obtain data on Biden and his son’s Ukrainian involvement. Then he, with the aid of Rudi Giuliani, could go on to “prove” that Biden was involved in corruption in Ukraine thereby exposing the Ukrainian hoax.
To illustrate Jay H. Ell’s point this is the Trump tweet that followed his nakedly corrupt unprecedented Presidential commutation of Roger Stone’s Jail sentence:
Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place. It is the other side that are criminals, including Biden and Obama, who spied on my campaign - AND GOT CAUGHT!
For those who have short memories Barr at a Senate hearing claimed that the Trump Campaign had been spied upon.
WILLIAM PELHAM BARR - ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Barr had been Attorney General to George HW Bush and had been instrumental in a number of decisions which raised eyebrows at the time. They were not enough however to draw undue attention. In case there is any question as to his integrity - he has none. To illustrate the point succinctly he viciously attacked the Clinton administration for their criticism of Kenneth Starr’s probe into the Whitewater affair which then morphed into the Lewinsky scandal. Barr claimed that it had, “…the improper purpose of influencing and impending an ongoing criminal investigation and intimidating possible jurors, witnesses and even investigators”. Barr hypocritically criticized the Mueller investigation and passed on the almost daily criticism and vicious onslaughts Trump had on Mueller’s probe. So much for the alleged integrity of Barr.
All his supporters from the previous Departments of Justice had placed much hope in the fact that he was an “institutionalist”. However the claim that he is merely someone who believes in absolute power in the Presidency, per se, is all so much hooey. He did not punt this concept in the eight years President Obama was in Office. He had ample opportunity to do so as Obama was attacked again and again for executive over reach. It will be interesting to know if he believes that Biden could also shoot someone in his Delaware basement and not be investigated or prosecuted.
BARR JOINS TEAM TRUMP AND IMMEDIATELY ASSUMES THE POTUS IS A KING
It didn’t take long for Barr to stamp his disdain of the Legislative Branch of government. He instructed members of the Administration not to pitch up to hearings and withheld documents and the like. The House of Representatives took the rare decision to hold him in contempt of Congress in frustration to his scant disregard for America’s tricameral constitutional system of government. To this day to get him to pitch up is a rare feat. He is scheduled to be at a Congressional Hearing at the end of the month in answer to a request weeks ago. There is little doubt that Trump’s instructions to all and sundry not to respond to subpoenas, provide documents or cooperate with the Legislature was with the backing of his head of his Justice Department.
BARR BEGINS HIS JOB TO PROVE TRUMP’S NARRATIVE OF A DEEP STATE.
Barr began the long haul in rehabilitating the Trump narrative that he was a victim of the Deep State and that the Russian investigation was a hoax. He put the Mueller report in mothballs for a month and then he misinterpreted it to exonerate the POTUS. Mueller the consumate public servant made a rare public response to Barr’s willful distortion of his report, maintaining that he, Mueller, had purposefully provided an executive summary to present to the public and that his report had been misrepresented,
According to the New York Times the subsequent redacted Mueller report axed three important components of the nearly five hundred page investigation. Barr left out, that Mueller listed that Trump had several motives to obstruct justice, that the report twice indicated that there was knowing and complicit behavior between the Trump campaign and the Russians and that Trump could be subject to indictment after leaving office. The most heinous of Barr’s pronouncements was that Trump was cleared in full by the Mueller investigation. Barr’s efforts in relation to the report were castigated by Bush appointed Federal Judge Walton who was concerned that Barr had made a calculated effort to distort public opinion to favor Trump.
From then it was systems all go for Barr’s objective to purge the world of the Russian hoax. He has appointed a prosecutor to investigate the origins of the investigation and why it took place at all. His long held opinion was that there was no basis for the probe and that fact is the argument for his intervention in the prosecution of those who were shown, by Mueller, to have broken the law
BARR INTERVENES IN TRIALS ARISING FROM MUELLER’S RUSSIAN HOAX INVESTIGATION
Ironically Barr’s first attempt was to undermine the conviction of Michael Cohen. In that indictment the prosecution had alleged that Cohen had acted under instructions from an unnamed individual that was obviously Trump. Then Barr following Trump tweets that his mate Roger Stone was the object of a miscarriage of justice withdrew the career prosecutors recommendations for sentencing Stone. This resulted in the resignation from the case of the prosecutors who had conducted the trial. Two thousand former Department of Justice employees called for Barr’s resignation while the one thousand members of the Federal Justice Association called a meeting to discuss the problem of Barr and Trump’s interference in politically sensitive cases.
In spite of the fact that Barr criticized Trump for his “interference” he made the stunning decision to withdraw charges against Michael Flynn who had twice pled guilty and was awaiting sentence. Judge Sullivan has appealed the ruling from a higher court that he should go ahead and discharge Flynn after he had received a voluminous opinion from a former Federal Judge that the Justice department were acting politically in this matter.
Jay H. Ell believes it is only a matter of time before his former campaign manager Paul Manafort is pardoned. Currently he has been released from prison presumably because of Trump’s newly found awareness of the Covid risk in prison.
THE UKRAINIAN HOAX
Barr’s has an undoubted skill of seemingly being off stage but Trump put him front and center in his infamous phone call to the Ukrainian President Zelensky where he insisted on a quid pro quo for the aid that Congress had voted to Ukraine for defense against the Russian invasion. Trump told Zelensky to liase with Barr or Rudi Giuliani his personal lawyer. In fact Barr has been careering around the world presumably to sort out both hoaxes and gain dope on the Bidens.
Lindsey Graham made a revealing statement in that regard at the beginning of the year. He stated that he had learned that Barr was obtaining information from Rudi Giuliani on Ukraine. Barr apparently had created a process whereby Rudy’s information could be verified. Giuliani had long boasted that he had the “dope” on Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
BARR KNOCKS OUT PROSECUTORS THAT WERE INVESTIGATING TRUMP AND HIS ASSOCIATES INCLUDING GIULIANI.
In quick succession Barr has removed the three Federal prosecutors that were involved in investigations into Trump Incorporated’s corruption. These were the attorney generals of Southern and Eastern New York and the District of Columbia. One of those, Geoffrey Berman, testified before Congress that Barr forced him out. He claimed that Barr announced that he, Berman, had resigned when he had done nothing of the sort in spite of Barr’s pressure and threats. Ultimately Barr when confronted by Berman fired him maintaining it was on Trump’s instructions.
MUELLER COMES OUT FROM THE COLD AND CHIMES IN
To add to Trump’s woes and Barr’s receding credibility the highly respected Special Counsel Bob Mueller made another rare damning public statement following the commuting of Roger Stone’s prison sentence. He stated inter alia:
“The work of the special counsel’s office - its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions - should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to the broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to the specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon and rightly so.
The Russia’s action was a threat to American Democracy. It was critical that they be investigated and understood. By late 2016 the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump advisor that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate……we now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election; hacking and dumping Clinton emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate…..”
The highly respected Mueller’s unexpected intervention into the Barr and Trump conspiracy to rewrite history has dented the latters’ credibility even further
AT THE END OF THE DAY
There is little doubt that the plan to totally trash the Russian investigation and exonerate all its participants is well under way. Mueller, Attorney Berman and Judge Sullivan are putting up stout opposition to that scenario and it is all not going as well as planned. Next on the agenda is to move onto obliterating the Ukrainian hoax. The “evidence” that Giuliani produces would, under Barr’s imprimatur, implicate the Bidens as being as big a crooks as the Clintons were. Trump could then once again rise Phoenix like and once again promise to drain the swamp!
Barr is in a predicament himself as the word is out that he counseled Trump not to commute Stone as this was a righteous prosecution. How he comes to that conclusion G-D knows as Stone is central to the Russian hoax. Barr should resign especially if the Justice department revolts as he reportedly said it would. But no - one is expecting that.
Jay H. Ell is uncertain whether “exposing" whatever Biden has allegedly done will change anyones mind as they are sick of Trump and there is no mystery as to incompetence and corruption. Society is preoccupied with the escalating pandemic where only one third polled approve of Trump’s management. The situation can only get worse.
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