Charles Fried on Barr. Fried was reagan's solicitor general and is a fervent repub.
"Charles Fried was a fervent, superior officer on the frontlines of the Reagan Revolution. As solicitor general of the United States from 1985 to 1989, he urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the reigning liberal orthodoxies of his day—on abortion, civil rights, executive power and constitutional interpretation.
But the Trump Revolution has proven a bridge too far. As he reveals in a scorching interview with
Newsweek's Roger Parloff below, Fried has broken ranks. He denounces a president who is "perhaps the most dishonest person to ever sit in the White House." As disgusted as he is by President Donald Trump, Fried is, if possible, even more dismayed by William Barr, Trump's current attorney general, for having stepped up as Trump's chief apologist. Fried says of Barr. "His reputation is gone."
Do you know Bill Barr?
No, I think I met him in the corridor once.
Did you support him for attorney general this time?
No, I did not.
Why?
Because I'd heard things that led me to believe his principal concern is power.
Executive power or personal power?
Both. But to read this—[
pointing to the text, lying on his desk, of the keynote speech Barr gave before the Federalist Society in November]—is shocking. Let me just give you a few examples. He says that "immediately after President Trump won election, [opponents] inaugurated what they called 'The Resistance,'" instead of the "loyal opposition, as opposing parties have done in the past." [
Barr said this was "very dangerous—indeed incendiary. ... They essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government. ... In waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of 'Resistance' against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law."]
He seems to have forgotten that it's [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell who said [in 2010] "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President [Barack] Obama to be a one-term President." At another point in this speech he said that, yes, the Senate has the power of advice and consent [on presidential nominees], but they shouldn't be obstructing the process. But look at what McConnell did with [Supreme Court nominee] Merrick Garland.
Barr knows all of this. And he's supposed to be a very moral man, and so on and so forth. But to be the apologist for perhaps the most dishonest person to ever sit in the White House? I mean, dishonest in the sense that he lies the way other people breathe. You would think that the project of protecting presidential powers would provide a worthier subject than that, particularly for a supposedly honorable man. But the fact is, all the honorable people in the Cabinet have left. And what you have left is people who are willing to say anything, as Barr is. And you saw the way he treated the Mueller Report, which he misrepresented, because that is what his boss would have wanted.
You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. His reputation is gone.
And if that's not harsh enough, here's a segment with Fried on NPR today.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/02/13/barr-roger-stone-sentence
"Bill Barr is not an honorable man and he is totally corrupted by his position working for donald trump."
