Sunday, October 27, 2019

"The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All The Lawyers"

Gene Lyons and Joe Conason called the Whitewater investigation "The Hunting of the Snark, " and they were right. Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky, not for anything he allegedly did in Arkansas. But that's all Starr could find after years of investigation. Curiously, the GOP is back in power and here we are: snark hunting again.

As Rick Wilson points out, William Barr already has access to any information that would justify a criminal investigation. What he's doing instead is criminal in another sense.

Absent any reasonable suspicion of a crime, the threshold barrier to any criminal investigation, Barr is presuming his suspicions are reasonable, and proceeding to find evidence to establish even that threshold.

This will never survive an encounter with any trial judge, but Barr doesn't care. Protecting the President and the President's privileges are all that matter to Barr. And that makes Wilson right: Barr is the most dangerous man in America.

I don't think any victim of this hunt will be broken, as Wilson fears. If this ever gets to court, an incompetent appointed lawyer could stand by as the judge throws it out. The problem is the long term damage to the DOJ. Like everything Trump touches, that, too, could die.

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