Attorney General William Barr is not one to mince words. In recent days, he has made his views extremely clear, politely – and, in some cases, not so politely – assaulting the forces of misrule and disorder. Is Barr President Trump’s pitbull? Democrats would certainly have the nation believe so. In fact, he is America’s pitbull – and he should be. That is the job of the attorney general, one might argue, and at times such as these, it should be heartening to know that the nation’s top law enforcement official is not playing around.
The Role of an AG
Addressing the loyalty question, though, we should first recall a statement by Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under former President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2015. During a 2013 radio interview, Holder was asked whether he had considered resigning. He had recently been held in contempt of Congress for repeatedly refusing to hand over documents relating to several Republican-led investigations into some of the Obama administration’s many scandals. “I’m still enjoying what I’m doing; there’s still work to be done,” he told host Tom Joyner. “I’m still the president’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy. So we’ll see.”
The president’s wing-man? Holder referring to the president as “my boy”? At the time, not one Democrat in Washington, D.C. expressed the slightest concern over that comment and therefore lost the right ever to suggest that any future Republican-nominated AG was politically loyal to the person who appointed him or her.
It is also worth remembering that there is a whole discussion to be had about the original role of the attorney general. It was initially more of a presidential advisor. So, perhaps Holder was right to describe himself as the then-president’s wing-man and Bill Barr should see himself as Donald Trump’s wing-man. And maybe the Democrats should not complain about it.
Regardless of how he views his personal or professional relationship with President Trump, though, Barr appears very certain of his role in the maintenance of domestic order. He is also not afraid to call it as he sees it and name the forces of unrest for what they are.
Bill Barr Unplugged
Barr sat down with the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, recently, to discuss mail-in voting, the current riots and demonstrations across the country, and various other issues. Addressing Democrats’ claims that the president would not accept the result of the November election, the AG said: “You know liberals project. All this bulls— about how the president is going to stay in office and seize power? I’ve never heard of any of that crap. I mean, I’m the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it.” Directly accusing Democrats of inciting unease, Barr added: “They are creating an incendiary situation where there will be loss of confidence in the vote.”
In that vein, Barr continued in colorful terms, offering a hypothetical example of what he obviously believes could transpire in November:
“Someone will say the president just won Nevada. ‘Oh, wait a minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots! Every vote will be counted!’ Yeah, but we don’t know where these freaking votes came from.”
At a September 16 event hosted by Hillsdale College in Michigan – to celebrate Constitution Day, which was September 17 – the attorney general expressed his thoughts on the damage done to the nation by the current wave of violent protests and, specifically, on the Black Lives Matter movement. “The rule of law is the foundation of civilization, including economic prosperity,” Barr said, “and that’s why these so-called Black Lives Matter people – now that as a proposition, who can quarrel with the proposition black lives matter? But they’re not interested in black lives; they’re interested in props.”
Judging by BLM’s latest approval ratings in recent polls, it appears that more and more Americans are beginning to understand what the AG is saying. He spelled it out, though, explaining what – or who – those “props” are: “A small number of blacks were killed by police during conflict with police, usually less than a dozen a year, who [BLM] can use as props to achieve a much broader political agenda.”
Barr went on to point out that being shot by other blacks is the leading cause of death among inner-city black males under the age of 44.
One almost wonders if Mr. Barr was not also baiting the media a little when he made a forthright comment about the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – assuming that the restrictions were really about the virus at all.
“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest,” the AG said. “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”
This comment sent the media and Democratic politicians wild, of course. The AG was comparing the lockdowns to slavery, they screamed. Obviously, this was not a comparison. Was Barr correct, though? He was – absolutely. From the abolition of slavery up to the present day, there has not been more drastic or widely-imposed repression of civil rights in the United States.
An Agenda Bigger Than Taking Down Trump
This attorney general has not been shy about going after Democrats or the political agenda of the left, and probably that is what scares Mr. Trump’s detractors the most. Whether or not the president realizes it – and he almost certainly does, judging by many of his comments – Barr sees that the current situation has very little to do with Trump himself. The left sees an opportunity unlike any other in living memory to break the system altogether and replace it with one more to their liking.
Attorney General Barr stands in their way, wielding the Justice Department against them. For that reason, Democrats rail against him for being, allegedly, a political operative. He is correct, though, when he says that the rule of law is the foundation of civilization and prosperity. It seems as though the radical left wishes to destroy both of those things.
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
