Attorney General William Barr is either incompetent, stupid or lying, take your pick. Yesterday in an interview, following the release of the Inspector General’s report absolving the FBI of working in concert to keep Donald Trump from the presidency, Barr responded with the words, “I don’t know about the Ukrainians” when asked if Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. The AG heads up the Department of Justice, has access to the President and its’ deep avenue of information that runs through the 17 intelligence agencies that are imbued with the responsibility of guarding the safety of America.
Taking those factors into account, Mr. Barr is smart enough to read factual investigative reports debunking the Ukraine assertions; so, he is competent, He holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from George Washington University; so, he is not stupid. Bingo, that leaves, lying.
I guess it is not news that a man who works for a habitual liar would think that lying is okay. In contrast, the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, yesterday refused to drop anchor for the lie boat. He had the nerve to hoist his sail of independence and set a course for truth, which of course angered the President. To set the scene the important conclusion from the Inspector General’s report reads, “inspector general Michael Horowitz did not find ‘documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions’ to open investigations that initially focused on campaign advisers Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”
Much like he did with the Mueller Report, AG Barr tried to refute the truth with a skewed interpretation, “The inspector general's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a US presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions, that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in a statement Monday. “It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” Barr concluded. Rounding out this triumvirate search for the truth is the man in the middle, FBI Director Christopher Wray who said, it was “important that the inspector general found that, in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.” Of course, as is his wont, Mr. Trump issued a veiled threat because Mr. Wray refused to run aground on the shores of his [Trump] lie.
Of course, Mr. Horowitz found irregularities as you would find in any huge organization, some serious, some trivial, but none intentionally criminal in nature. Apparently, Mr. Barr could not corrupt the Department of Justices’ Inspector General sufficiently enough to back the President’s fantasy. As insurance, Barr handpicked another counsel, U.S. Attorney John Durham as a backup plan. Durham, who has not yet completed his own probe, castigated IG Horowitz and said he reached a “different conclusion.” I am not sure how you reach a different conclusion prior to the finish of your own probe but maybe I suffer from the two other suggested maladies of Mr. Barr, stupidity or incompetence.
Vote in 2020 for Change.
