Now at Richard Viguerie's Conservative HQ
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A lot of buzz around AG William Barr's CBS interview.
Below are a few excerpts, starting with Barr's alarming-in-his-casual-way comments about Mueller's start-to-finish dishonest statement this week. I refer to the Special Counsel's mud-slinging exit-call to Congress to impeach President Trump for non-charges related not to the hoax of Russian collusion with Trump -- Mueller's report took that off the table -- but rather related to the hoax of Russian "intereference" in Trump's election. In both cases, Russia's alleged role is unproven, and controverting evidence exists that strongly seems to disprove it as alleged, as I have discussed on many occasions. Barr thinks it was "fine."
"Collusion" aside: Without the smokescreen of "Russian interference" to secure Trump's election, as the Big Lie continues to this day, the anti-Trump conspirators have nowhere to hide. My own rule of thumb is, Any investigator or official who manages this smokescreen instead of blowing it away by (1) examining the DNC server (2) interviewing former NSA tech director William Binney (3) interviewing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, now gravely ill in a British prison and under US indictment (4) investigating the murder of DNC official Seth Rich, is showing himself to be part of, or in thrall to, the Deep State conspiracy against President Trump and the American people.
JAN CRAWFORD: Did you watch [Mueller] give the statement yesterday?
WILLIAM BARR: I watched a re-run of it, yeah.
JAN CRAWFORD: Anything new or different?
WILLIAM BARR: No. I mean to me, it was a reiteration of some of the key elements of his report. I think he wanted to stress a number of things that were in the report. There had been a lot of commentary about his work. I had made some critical remarks about it. So I think it's quite understandable he wanted to hammer home a few of the key points that were in the report and I thought that that was fine.
1. Barr thinks Mueller's statement was "fine."
JAN CRAWFORD: He said he's not going to be testifying.
WILLIAM BARR: That's right.
JAN CRAWFORD: Do you think he should?
WILLIAM BARR: You know, I think as I said, you know, it's up to Bob, but I think the line he's drawing which is that he's going to stick what he said in the report is the proper line for any Department official.
2. Barr thinks not answering questions from Congress is "the proper line."
JAN CRAWFORD: But you've testified under oath, answered questions under oath. He took no questions yesterday. Is that sufficient?
WILLIAM BARR: Yes, I think it's sufficient because, you know, he was handling a specific investigation and normally we don't, we allowed our prosecutors and have them interrogated about how they handled a particular case. I think --
3.
JAN CRAWFORD: But you wouldn't have objected if he wanted to testify?
WILLIAM BARR: I wouldn't have objected if he wanted to testify. I do think that his view that he should stick to what is in the report is consistent with the department's views of these things.
4. Barr agrees Mueller should "stick to what is in the report."
I read that to mean Mueller, Barr, "the department," will keep a lid on questions about this Special Counsel investigation into "Russian interference" that (1) failed to investigate the DNC server, which the DNC claimed had come under Russian cyber-attack, and which the FBI never examined (2) failed to examine William Binneys' forensics research demonstrating that the "Russian hack" (aka "Russian interference") was in fact an internal download (3) failed to question Julian Assange, the man who published the DNC emails (4) and failed to investigate the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC official Assange strongly suggested was a WikiLeaks source.
JAN CRAWFORD: So the last thing that he said yesterday was to remind us that Russia tried to sway our election. He said there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere and that deserves the attention of every American. ...
JAN CRAWFORD: Do you think enough was done in 2016?
WILLIAM BARR: Enough was done in 2016? Probably not. You know, I think Bob Mueller did some impressive work in his investigation, you know, identifying some of the Russian hackers and their influence campaign and you sort of wonder if that kind of work had been done starting in 2016, things could have been a lot different.
4. Here, Barr is doing something he seems to do every time he addresses the Mueller report: He is reinforcing the anti-Trump conspiracy's core alibi/Big Lie ("The Russians Hacked the Election"), protecting it from challenge and insulating it from questions. Barr goes a little farther still, noting that if "Bob Mueller's" kind of "impressive work" identifying "Russian hackers" (Special Counsel Indictment of July 13, 2018) and "their influence campaign" (Special Counsel Indictment of February 16, 2018) had started in 2016, "things could have been a lot different."
"Things"? What "things"? Is AG Barr suggesting that if this (fake) "Russian interference" had been stopped in 2016, the outcome of the election "might have been a lot different" -- in other words, HIllary Clinton might have won? It seems that way.
If so, he, too, is undermining Trump's legitimacy, as well as echoing Mueller's mantra, which is also the anti-Trump conspiracy's core alibi/Big Lie. As Mueller put in his statement: "As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who were part of the Russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system," Mueller said. "The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information [emails], and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.
(As if to put a Deep State point on it, James Clapper on CNN reiterated: "I think the most important thing [Mueller] said was at the end, and that is about the Russian interference in our election and the attempt to damage one of the candidates.")
JAN CRAWFORD: Right because it's just hard to understand why it wasn't taken more seriously.
WILLIAM BARR: Right.
JAN CRAWFORD: Why do you think it was not?
WILLIAM BARR: I have no idea. That's one of the things I'm interested in looking at you know--
JAN CRAWFORD: --As part of the review?
WILLIAM BARR: Yes. In other words, you know, there are statements being made that people were warned back in April--
JAN CRAWFORD: --of 2016--
WILLIAM BARR: Right and I don't have any reason to doubt that, but I'm wondering what exactly was the response to it if they were alarmed. Surely the response should have been more than just, you know, dangling a confidential informant in front of a peripheral player in the Trump Campaign.
5. Surely the response to the fake "Russian interference" should have been more effective, in other words. And so long as "Russian interference" remains the unblasted, unblastable bedrock conventional wisdom (besides being the anti-Trump conspiracy's alibi/Big Lie), any response to it -- for example, "dangling a confidential informant in front of a peripheral player in the Trump campaign" -- may be justfiable.
That could be why Julian Assange, the one man who knows definitively how WikiLeaks received the DNC emails, is now in a British prison and physically and/or mentally unable to communicate even with his lawyer.
JAN CRAWFORD: You've gotten some criticism for using that word ["spying"].
WILLIAM BARR: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's become a dirty word somehow. It hasn't ever been for me. I think there is nothing wrong with spying, the question is always whether it is authorized by law and properly predicated and if it is, then it's an important tool the United States has to protect the country.
6. Here we go: If there were, as Mueller concluded in his rant of a statement, "multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election" by Russia using WikiLeaks, as Mueller claimed, to "damage a presidential candidate," what could possibly be wrong with spying on the Trump team?
Not necessarily anything at all, says Barr:
JAN CRAWFORD: You're saying that spying occurred. There's not anything necessarily wrong with that.
WILLIAM BARR: Right.
JAN CRAWFORD: As long as there's a reason for it.
WILLIAM BARR: Whether it's adequately predicated.
Barr sure sounds like a Deep State Bro to me. I'm thinking his Deep State mission could be to make sure that the "spying" -- all woo-woo-MAGA-chops aside -- is and remains "adequately predicated." That means preventing any real investigation of the whole "Russian interference" hoax, as enumerated above. Maybe it also means keeping Assange in communicado, or worse.
So, sure, Barr can say about "spying," as he did in this CBS interview," It's a serious red line that's been crossed," and get MAGAworld points. But then he can also say: "I'm not saying there was not a basis for it, that it was legitimate, but I want to see what that basis was and make sure it was legitimate."
My guess is, if AG Barr wants to make sure the spying was legitimate, he will do so.
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About the weaselly Wray
WILLIAM BARR: I think he is being very supportive and we're working together on, you know, trying to reconstruct what happened.
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About the Durham investigation --
WILLIAM BARR: We're working closely with the intelligence agencies, the bureau and the agency and others to help us reconstruct what happened.
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On treason (too bad Jan Crawford didn't also ask about sedition)
JAN CRAWFORD: You don't think that they've committed treason?
WILLIAM BARR: Not as a legal matter, no.
JAN CRAWFORD: But you have concerns about how they conducted the investigation?
WILLIAM BARR: Yes but you know, when you're dealing with official government contact, intent is frequently a murky issue.
I'm not suggesting that people did what they did necessarily because of conscious, nefarious motives.
Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they're doing is in the higher interest, the better good.
They don't realize that what they're doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have.
They start viewing themselves as the guardians of the people that are more informed and [sensitive] than everybody else.
They can, in their own mind, they can have those kinds of motives. And sometimes they can look at evidence and facts through a biased prism that they themselves don't realize.
Hmm. Sure sounds as if there is a nice, cushy landing ahead for all or most of the anti-Trump conspirators. And why not? As guardians of the people, they convinced themselves that their seditious activities to destroy the anti-Communist, America First people's choice, Donald J. Trump, was in the higher interest, the better good. They don't realize they looked at facts through biased prism. As James Comey put it (and he should know), "There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances." Forgive them, Deep State DOJ, for they knew not what they did....
Or maybe I'm wrong. Hope so.