US Department of Justice presses for lower sentence for Trump associate

[tstorm823]

You appear to be portraying the Barr critics as partisan Democrats, but you should be aware that the clear majority of former DoJ officials and prosecutors who have called on Barr to resign for his actions in the Stone case are, in fact, REPUBLICAN.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/16/william-barr-doj-alumnus-call-ag-resign/4779721002/

https://medium.com/@dojalumni/doj-alumni-statement-on-the-events-surrounding-the-sentencing-of-roger-stone-c2cb75ae4937


So is the argument here that these DOJ alumni are liberal shills? Somehow misinformed? Or are they just "deep state"?

I'm not entirely convinced those are actual signatories. That list is being added to by a google docs form, that basically anyone could add names to that just by finding a former employee's linkedin page. But even assuming all those names are real, I don't see anything in either link indicating the clear majority are Republican. The only somewhat indication of party is listing the presidents they worked under, and that looks like a pretty even split to me, but that also doesn't mean anything since which president you were hired under doesn't determine your party, and we know [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/27/is-trumps-dismissal-unpaid-government-employees-democrats-accurate/] that federal employees at that level are like <25% Republican, 40% Democrat, and the rest are Democrats lying about it.

Are they misinformed? Possibly. The DoJ is saying they were briefed by the prosecutors in the case, given its high profile, and were told they'd recommend a standard sentencing, then they showed up at court and recommended double that instead. And then they all resigned from the case within 24 hours. What did Barr do in this case? He had people underneath him, but above the prosecutors, recommend following standard sentencing guidelines. Oh my god the horror, what a miscarriage of justice.

Uh huh...

In 1992, Barr was instrumental to the Iran-Contra cover-up, which included trading missile sales to Iran for U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and using the proceeds of those arms sales to fund anti-Sandinista Contras in Central America ? all in violation of U.S. law. As Bush?s attorney general, Barr advocated for the pardons that covered up the scandal.

I'm not going to dispute that Barr thought pardons were appropriate then, but man, great sourcing. You cite "Accuracy.org", a deliberate misnomer for an organization whose mission statement is to "increase the reach and capacity of progressive and grassroots organizations", and then you don't even cite the source. F- argument there.

 

[Kwak]

I'm not going to dispute that Barr thought pardons were appropriate then, but man, great sourcing. You cite "Accuracy.org", a deliberate misnomer for an organization whose mission statement is to "increase the reach and capacity of progressive and grassroots organizations", and then you don't even cite the source. F- argument there.

Because it's basic history and it was a simple statement of the facts and advanced no other claims.
I'm sorry, are you disputing this?
There's a lot of citations for you to comb through to find a way to deny reality in the wikipedia page.
Knock yourself out, please.

On December 24, 1992, during his final month in office, Bush, on the advice of Barr, pardoned Weinberger,[15][59] along with five other administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the Iran?Contra affair.[15][60][61][54] Barr was consulted extensively regarding the pardons, and especially advocated for pardoning Weinberger.[62]

Walsh complained about the move insinuating that Bush on Barr's advice had used the pardons to avoid testifying and stating that: "The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed."[63] In 2003, he wrote an account of the investigation in his book, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.

Because of this and Barr's unwillingness to appoint an independent counsel to look into a second scandal known as Iraqgate, New York Times writer William Safire began to refer to Barr as "Coverup-General Barr."[64] Barr, however, responded that he believed Bush had made the right decision regarding that and he felt people in the case had been treated unfairly.[65] Barr said Walsh was a "head-hunter" who "had completely lost perspective."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barr#cite_note-who_is-15

 

[Silvanus]

Like 50% of Americans don't like Trump. A handful of Democratic propaganda specialists writing op-eds think Barr should be impeached. These are not the same thing.

I'm not talking about Barr. I'm talking about support for impeachment of the President. Polls show support for that was widespread, stretching to 1 in 10 Republicans.

 

[Hades]

Don't you think that not being from a respective county actually reduces the chance that you're being made biased by outrage media? Someone that isn't from America will have much less exposure to the hysteric partisan struggle in the US, they won't have Fox news and CNN championing their respective politician and demonizing the other side. News that isn't made in America will likely have a far more objective take on Trump then news that is made in America.

No, I don't think that's true. If you're getting your information from only major news sources, you only get the bias. I get my least biased news out of regional news-talk radio and the local NPR affiliate. Through friends, and family, and work, I get first-hand accounts of things ongoing in government. The most biased news I see is online on the same websites people see internationally. It doesn't have a more objective take.

You're thinking of news bias like it's a partisan conspiracy, and if you get outside the nation's partisanship, there's no need to conspire. But most media bias isn't that, it's innocent bias. It's people who disagree, or often don't even understand the other side of the argument. Most of the media doesn't understand conservatives. They don't talk to conservatives, they don't have friends who are conservatives, they have less dialogue with conservatives than the people on this website just by virtue of me being here. They're surrounded by such unanimous agreement that Republican's suck, they don't even realize they don't understand. Putting oceans between the people delivering the news and the closest US conservative they could talk to doesn't alleviate this problem, it exacerbates it.

Any public information on Barr that you have that you use to judge him is most likely available to people on different continents as well.

That very much depends on the news outlet in question. The idea that news media is one giant blob united in their loyalty to the left isn't an accurate one. The biggest news paper in the Netherland is a right leaning paper, Fox news is naturally very far to the right and in Britain most papers seemed to be fanatically opposed to the leftist Corbyn with some also being zealously pro brexit enough to go name and shame judges as ''enemies of the people''

 

[tstorm823]

Because it's basic history and it was a simple statement of the facts and advanced no other claims.

Ah, but it's not basic history and simple statements. You'll notice when you switched from a source so biased you wouldn't state where it came from to Wikipedia, suddenly all of the things that were stated as indisputable fact are stated as the opinion of the investigator in the case. That Barr supported pardons for people who committed crimes against the government isn't disputed. That it was somehow a cover-up to protect people in power is the opinion of that one guy. The tradition of pardoning people committing crimes like these so the country can move beyond the controversy is a tradition going back to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion.

I'm not talking about Barr. I'm talking about support for impeachment of the President. Polls show support for that was widespread, stretching to 1 in 10 Republicans.

Then you're in the wrong thread responding to the wrong posts.

That very much depends on the news outlet in question. The idea that news media is one giant blob united in their loyalty to the left isn't an accurate one. The biggest news paper in the Netherland is a right leaning paper, Fox news is naturally very far to the right and in Britain most papers seemed to be fanatically opposed to the leftist Corbyn with some also being zealously pro brexit enough to go name and shame judges as ''enemies of the people''

It's not a question of whether the media is one giant blob. It's a question of individual news organizations existing in a bubble. The biggest news organizations tend to be found in the biggest cities, which are liberal strongholds. The editors who make decisions are the people in the recent Curb Your Enthusiasm episode who would be too afraid or disgusted to talk to a Trump supporter if they met one. The more local the news is, the more they have to interact with people outside their bubble, and then you get some nuance. This issue of Barr and the Stone case, some amount of the reporting was sourced from one op-ed written by Obama's AG's speechwriter. They're not getting out of their bubble.

 

[Silvanus]

Then you're in the wrong thread responding to the wrong posts.

Oh, what lazy bollocks.

You sought to characterise Agema's position as an outsider's view, implying it was distorted by that. It's entirely relevant to point out how flawed and specious that line of reasoning is.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

I'm not entirely convinced those are actual signatories. That list is being added to by a google docs form, that basically anyone could add names to that just by finding a former employee's linkedin page. But even assuming all those names are real, I don't see anything in either link indicating the clear majority are Republican. The only somewhat indication of party is listing the presidents they worked under, and that looks like a pretty even split to me, but that also doesn't mean anything since which president you were hired under doesn't determine your party, and we know [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/27/is-trumps-dismissal-unpaid-government-employees-democrats-accurate/] that federal employees at that level are like <25% Republican, 40% Democrat, and the rest are Democrats lying about it.

I'll confess I didn't expect your rebuttals to this information to be 1) the list is probably fake, which even partisan Trump defenders like the Federalist and Breitbart haven't claimed, so that should tell you something; and 2) that the federal courts and Department of Justice, despite verifiable evidence to the contrary, are full of Democrats (LOL!).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/federal-judges-association-meeting-donald-trump-roger-stone/index.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/donald-ayer-bill-barr-must-resign/606670/

 

[tstorm823]

I'll confess I didn't expect your rebuttals to this information to be 1) the list is probably fake, which even partisan Trump defenders like the Federalist and Breitbart haven't claimed, so that should tell you something; and 2) that the federal courts and Department of Justice, despite verifiable evidence to the contrary, are full of Democrats (LOL!).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/federal-judges-association-meeting-donald-trump-roger-stone/index.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/donald-ayer-bill-barr-must-resign/606670/

1) There's an irony here, you seem to know what Breitbart is up to. I don't.
2) You shouldn't be surprised that when you lied about something I pointed it out. Your sources have nothing to do with the signatories of that letter.

 

[Agema]

Someone on a different continent should not feel informed enough to criticize William Barr based on the news they read. You cannot reasonably judge a person's character that way.

I'm not just judging his character by media, though. I'm judging him by his own clear actions and his own freely stated ideology of executive authority.

It seems to me roughly two types of high-ranking officials serve under Trump. Those who know it's a shitshow but despite that have a sense of honour, responsibility and/or ambition to do the best they can for the sake of the nation, and those who are in on the shitshow. Barr, as an adherent of almost total control of the executive by the president, could have his actions reasonably explained by the more honourable former rather than the more dishonourable latter. However, by effectively covering up the gross mis-steps of Trump, the end result is little different: an ideology-driven crony is in practice little different from a personal connection-driven crony.

The editors who make decisions are the people in the recent Curb Your Enthusiasm episode who would be too afraid or disgusted to talk to a Trump supporter if they met one.

What was that you were saying about making character judgements of people you don't know?

That Barr supported pardons for people who committed crimes against the government isn't disputed. That it was somehow a cover-up to protect people in power is the opinion of that one guy. The tradition of pardoning people committing crimes like these so the country can move beyond the controversy is a tradition going back to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion.

If it moves people past a controversy, sure. But you can't move people past a controversy until the controversy is no longer a matter of ongoing concern. They should be carefully employed as part of a societal healing process: like Carter pardoning draft dodgers well after the Vietnam war and conscription ended. Barr will support pardons simply because he believes it is the presidential right to pardon, not because it serves the best interests of justice and society. I suspect a president normally may seek advice from the justice dept.: I doubt Trump does. Plenty of his pardons (e.g. Joe Arpaio, Conrad Black) look to me nakedly political or personal.

Personally, I think the US presidential pardon is grotesquely overused - although I think it's a long tradition that goes way beyond Trump. If someone commits a crime, then just do them for it and leave it at that. Exceptions deserving a pardon might be if the law at the time was an ass or there is some other strong sense of injustice. But there's no good reason whatsoever to pardon straightforward criminals in my mind.

A load of recent pardons recently handed out to white collar criminals for instance just look absurd to me. There's no controversy there: just rich people having their crimes or sentences deleted by whim (some having donated healthily to or enthusiastically supported the president). If their crimes were relatively minor, then they got a small sentence in the first place and don't need a pardon. It's just insulting to the notion of equal justice: poor people generally don't have the time, money and social connections to buy themselves pardons.