On Friday U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr had a 48-minute interview with Jan Crawford on CBS. The interview covered a variety of issues. There is much insight here into the ongoing “review” of prior DOJ and FBI conduct during the 2016 election. It included the “review” that AG Barr is conducting into the basis for the spying that was done on the Trump Campaign.
The entire interview can be heard here.
The section below concerns a bit of Barr’s background and also what the AG’s responsibilities to the people are. It also touches on what Barr’s basic concerns are regarding the “review.” One of the things that jumps out is that Barr believes that the AG’s office is responsible to protect the people’s rights. When was the last time we had an AG who believed that his office was there to protect the people’s rights from government abuse?
Barr also talks about what he expected to find when he came in and, in general, what he actually found.
JAN CRAWFORD: –this. So again, just to go, just so that I think so people can more fully understand this, I mean have you, and I know it’s early in the investigation, but when we are talking about the basis for this and why you think it is important and obviously any kind of government abuse of power, I mean, you were in the CIA in the ’70s. You can see how that can have….
WILLIAM BARR: Right, when I, when I joined the CIA almost 50 years ago as an intern and this was during the Vietnam, civil rights era and there had been a lot…there were a lot of pending investigations of the CIA and there the issues were what was- when was it appropriate for intelligence agencies, the FBI too was under investigation.
You know, the penetration of civil rights groups because at the time there was concerns about contacts with, you know, communist funded front groups and things like that and you know how deeply could you get into civil rights groups or anti-Vietnam war groups. A lot of these groups were in contact with foreign adversaries, they had some contact with front organizations and so forth and there were a lot of rules put in place and those rules are under the attorney general.
The attorney general’s responsibility is to make sure that these powers are not used to tread upon first amendment activity and that certainly was a big part of my formative years of dealing with those issues. The fact that today people just seem to brush aside the idea that it is okay to you know, to engage in these activities against a political campaign is stunning to me especially when the media doesn’t seem to think that it’s worth looking into. They’re supposed to be the watchdogs of, you know, our civil liberties.
JAN CRAWFORD: What have you seen? What evidence? What makes you think, I need to take a look at this? I mean, what have you seen in the summer of 2016?
WILLIAM BARR: Well, I’ll say at this point is that it, you know, I- like many other people who are familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I’d get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions, and that some of the facts that- that I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.
JAN CRAWFORD: What do you mean by that?
WILLIAM BARR: That’s all I really will say. Things are just not jiving.
Let’s break this down. He points out that he finds it “stunning” that many people and much of the free press has chosen to ignore the fact that a political campaign was spied on. Jim Comey’s recent statement that spying on a presidential campaign is “normal” seems to be truer than many people thought. The Democrats have been somewhat successful in making it seem like no big deal that spying was going on.
Of course, it is not normal. It is a red line that should not be crossed without adequate predication. And that is what Barr is trying to find out. Just what was the predication?
It is most interesting that he expected to get answers when he went onto the job. He is letting everybody know in a very low key way what his expectations were. Barr expected that he would find out what the unusual circumstances were that required the initiation of the counter intelligence operation known as Crossfire Hurricane. He did not go in with the idea that the previous administration was engaged corrupt activity. Clearly he is saying that he has not received information showing adequate predication so far.
He also signals that the further he digs into the operation, the more contradictions there are between “official explanations” and the facts. His last sentence is stunning. He is saying that the official explanations do not “jive” with the facts. In other words, those who prepared the official explanations misled the public.
Surprising? No! I think at this point most rational Americans smell something rotten in what was going on. I also think that all Americans need to pray for the safety and wellbeing of our AG. He may be the most important person protecting the country since the founding fathers were on this earth!