Congress

Turley To Testify At Barr Confirmation Hearing

It was announced late Monday night that I have been called to testify at the confirmation hearing for William Barr to be the United States Attorney General. I will be called on Wednesday morning at 9:30 am in Room 216 of the Senate Hart Office Building. I will post my testimony on Wednesday morning.

It is an honor to appear at the hearing. I previously testified at the confirmation hearing of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

I am particularly fortunate to join an esteemed panel composed of the following individuals:

  1. The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey Former United States Attorney General Former U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of NY, Of Counsel, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP New York, NY
  2. Mr. Derrick Johnson President and Chief Executive Officer NAACP Baltimore, MD
  3. The Honorable Larry Thompson Former United States Deputy Attorney General, Partner, Finch McCrannie LLP Atlanta, GA
  4. The Honorable Marc Morial President and Chief Executive Officer National Urban League New York, NY
  5. Ms. Mary Kate Cary Former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. Anne C. Strickler Practitioner Senior Fellow The Miller Center, University of Virginia Washington, DC
  6. Professor Neil J. Kinkopf Professor of Law Georgia State University College of Law Atlanta, GA
  7. Professor Jonathan Turley J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law The George Washington University Law School Washington, DC
  8. Reverend Sharon Washington Risher Ordained Pastor Charlotte, NC
  9. Mr. Chuck Canterbury National President Fraternal Order of Police Washington, DC

41 thoughts on “Turley To Testify At Barr Confirmation Hearing”

  1. I was encouraged to hear a number of legislators reaffirm reform, rebuke the profits enjoyed by the private prison industry and openly talk about the dilemma our nation is in due to long-standing criminal justice approach to crime and perpetual punishment in the form of jobs, etc.. Women Against Registry

  2. Was Trump Listening When Told?

    BARR IS ACTUALLY GOOD FRIENDS WITH ROBERT MUELLER

    THEIR WIVES ARE ALSO CLOSE

    Barr and Mueller first crossed paths at the Justice Department during the George H.W. Bush administration. But the relationship goes farther: Their wives are close friends who attend bible study together, and Mueller attended the weddings for two of Barr’s daughters.

    “They have a high level of respect for each other,” said Paul McNulty, a former senior DOJ official who led the department’s policy and communications shop while Barr was attorney general and Mueller served as the head of its criminal division. “They have maintained a good friendship ever since.”

    During his Senate confirmation hearing, Barr praised Mueller’s “distinguished record of public service” and said that his probe is proper and should be allowed to conclude without interference. That’s a sharp contrast from the acting attorney general Barr would replace, Matthew Whitaker, who has called Mueller’s appointment “ridiculous and “a little fishy,” among other things.

    Barr said that Trump knows about his friendship with Mueller, explaining on Tuesday that the topic came up during a June 2017 meeting he had with Trump at the White House to discuss the possibility that he might serve as Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia investigation.

    Trump directly asked Barr how well he knew Mueller, and Barr said he replied that the two families “were good friends and would be good friends when this was all over and so forth, and he was interested in that.”

    Edited from: “New Trump-Russia Subplot: Mueller And Barr Are Good Friends”

    Today’s POLITICO

  4. From Barr’s Confirmation Hearing:

    BARR SUGGESTS MUELLER’S LONG-AWAITED REPORT..

    MIGHT NOT BE MADE PUBLIC

    In a back-and-forth with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Barr threw cold water on the notion that Mueller’s report might be made public.

    “As the rules stand now, the rules I think say the special counsel will prepare a summary report on any prosecutive or declination decisions, and that shall be confidential and be treated as any other declination or prosecutive material within the department,” Barr said.

    Declination memos are written by Justice Department officials when they decline to file charges against individuals, essentially ending an investigation. Those memos are held very closely inside the government and not released to the public. By comparing any Mueller report to a declination memo or a prosecution memo, Barr’s answer suggested the long-awaited report from the special counsel may not see the light of day.

    Besides that report, Barr said, the attorney general is “responsible for notifying and reporting certain information upon the conclusion to the investigation.”

    “My goal and intent,” he insisted, “is to get as much information out as I can.”

    Hirono also criticized him for not promising to follow any recommendation of Justice Department ethics officials, who may review whether Barr should recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

    “I am not going to surrender the responsibilities of the attorney general to get the title, I don’t need the title,” Barr said.

    “You have it within your power to follow the ethics advice of your own department and you’re telling us you’re not going to,” Hirono said.

    Edited from: “Barr Fields Questions On Mueller Probe”

    Today’s WASHINGTON POST

    2. I doubt if the AG would try to withhold the Special Counsel’s report from Congress.
      And if such an attempt were made, I don’t think it would be successful.
      Assuming that Congress does get the report, it’s just a matter of time before people like Adam Schiff appear before the televison cameras to spill/ spin the contents.

      1. shes a bloodhound on the wrong trail
        the aclu write-up on him is where it’s at
        he disrespects the 4th amendment
        but Democrats could care less i guess

  5. The simple fact is that because Trump is so emotionally and ethically unfit to serve, because he so consistently lies all of the time, because there are numerous valid criminal investigations regarding him, and because everything he does is for his own self-aggrandizement, anyone whom he nominates is going to be viewed with skepticism. Anyone who vouches for anyone he nominates is similarly going to be questioned as to his/her agenda and motives. Never lose sight of the fact that the Democratic wave of 2018 was a referendum on Trump and his policies. The American people have spoken.

    1. Anyone who reads too much into a midterm loss should look at the 1994 midterm elections.
      The Democratic candidates got clobbered, and I think the Party lost about 55 seats in the House ( v. the 41? seats the GOP just lost).
      That was a major turning point in the Senate, as well, with Newt Gingrich becoming Majority Leader.
      Yet 2 years later, Clinton won reelection by a comfortable margin.
      The political landscape and voter sentiment can change a lot in a relatively short period of time.

      1. Correction….I meant to write that Bob Dole became Senate Majority leader after the 1994 midterms.
        Rep.Gingrich, of course, became Speaker of the House.
        The GOP picked up 8 Senate seats in the 1994 election, in addition to the 50+ House seats.

      2. The immediate relevance of the midterms is that the American people clearly repudiated Trump and his agenda. Congress ignores this reality at their peril, especially Republicans. People were sick of Trump long before he wussed out to Ann Coulter. The longer he holds federal workers hostage, the more opposition to him grows, except, of course, among his base.

        1. The immediate relevance of the midterms is that the American people clearly repudiated Trump and his agenda.

          Incumbent presidents nearly always lose ground in the House, Miss Historical Illiterate. Pretty amusing the Democrats managed to lose Senate seats at the same time.

          1. BUT…Trump said November’s election was to be a referendum on him, so we took him at his word. Democratic turnout was historic. His drubbing was historic. His poll numbers have consistently never approached 50%, and that, too, is historic. Opposition to him and his agenda is consistent and historic, especially the current crisis created by his being a petulant little wussie who puts his ego before the American people. Democrats would have won the Senate but for Republican gerrymandering. In 2018, many more Democratic votes were cast than votes for Republicans, and, as to the Senate, gerrymandering insured that the Republicans would choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives. These are facts. Members of Congress ignore these realities at their peril.

            1. Explain how Republican gerrymandering cost the Democrats the Senate.
              Did the GOP change the borders of the states?

        2. “The immediate relevance of the midterms ( in 1994) was that the American people clearly reputiated ” the Clintons and their agenda.
          When there is no capacity for looking beyond ” the immediate”…today’s news…
          the conclusions drawn are likely to be overblown and flimsy, but self-satisfying.
          Just as “certainly as” the Democrats “were finished” in 1994, and Clinton was “certainly” destined to be a one term president, and just as “certainly” as Trump’s 2%-20% chance of winning in 2016, the victims of TDS “ignore this reality at their peril”.

    2. Natacha pronouncing another human being ’emotionally unfit’ is pretty funny. We live in a Dunning-Kruger world.

      1. Did you see where she said “we took him ( Trump) at his word”.
        Does Natacha always take him at his word?
        The betting sites, primarily Ladbrokes in London, still give Trump the best chance, the highest odds, of being elected in 2020.
        I think it’s still around 2 in 5, or 40%.
        No other candidates, or potential candidates, are nearly that high ( e.g., Sen. Warren is given a 1 in 12 chance, or c. 8% chance of winning in 2020).
        I think it’s illegal in most states to bet on election outcomes, but people can probably put their pounds on Ladbrokes’ betting site.
        That 40% who support Trump are hard-core, “die-hard” supporters unlikely to jump ship.
        There is a substantial minority of independents/ undecided, and even a small slice if those votes, added to the 40%, could get Trump re-elected.
        Finally, there are voters like Natacha….still opposed to Trump, but I can tell she’s coming around to supporting him.😊
        So there’s the Natachas that Trump is winning over, or will win over.

    1. While I agree that Barr will probably be confirmed, we don’t know what might be lurking in his High School yearbooks.
      The L.A. Times article linked above only goes back to 1992, and is not a deal-killer for Barr’s confirmation.
      His H.S. yearbooks probably go back to the late 1960s, and we’ll see if someone can find some incriminating evidence in those yearbooks to prevent his confirmation.

      1. Pretty sure Barr was born in 1951 or thereabouts, so the Democratic Party’s oppo research brigade will be looking at 50 year old yearbooks, from the span of years just before the haircuts and eyewear sold to male adolescents grew so ugly. (Women’s haircuts and eyewear were not uniformly wretched, but commonly so in those years). You’ll also notice that parents and teens had more tolerance for acne in that era, because costs.

      2. We also don’t yet know how much beer he drank in college. So everybody needs to be patient.

        1. And any college roommates who occupied a suite with him for all of four months need to be interviewed as well.

  8. Why did President Trump nominate the Prime Denizen of the “Swamp” and the Dear Leader of the “Deep State” to be his Attorney General, having just negotiated an injurious episode with the insidious “Deep State” Mole, Jeff Sessions?

    It makes no sense.

    1. he’s looking for allies with Deep State backrounds like Pompeo.
      there’s no way around it, practically speaking

      the wars on reluctant Indian tribes in the late phase only really got successful when the Army began enlisting a lot of Indian guides to help them find the quarry

  9. There has been no doubt that JT has been running cover for Trump. But to stick up for anybody that Trump wants in a position of law and order is a joke. All you have to do is look up who is the “acting” member now. If JT wants to cherry-pick for what is legal with Trump then at least he always has a job at “FOX NEWS” To put yourself on very thin ice for Trump might be a bad choice right now considering that the USS TRUMP is sinking and going down with all hands on board.

    1. if you think so poorly of your host then buzz off, quit insulting him on his own property.

      but then again that’s how many aging radicals come to act isnt it: you insult and provoke everyone, at every turn and call it revolutionary action

      unemployed versus worker, worker versus boss, boss versus owner, it’s always a never ending vindictive drama with what now passes for the Left. sad! IT’s just anarchy and your repetitious denunciation of Turley is typical and it shows you probably have a major problem with ANY authority at all.

      1. I would like to believe that the host would love all comments from all sides. Sorry but you’re the one that has a problem. Is everyone suppose to live in your little bubble that you call reality? Dissent on this site is much needed from the right-wing people like you that are hell-bent on shutting up anybody that disagrees with your ideology. And I just happen to think JT has thrown all his chips in without seeing what others might have.

        1. on the contrary i am not hell bent on anything least of all shutting people up.

          rather, i like to come here and converse with my like minded people as well as take differing viewpoints from peter and enigma and benson. you just add insults and hyperbole and whining. stink like rotten fish heads more, and even
          more with your whining about turley on top of it all. he’s a liberal, anyways, in spite of what you think of him. i dont hold that against him.

  10. Barr is perfect for the job.
    Build the wall now. Throw over the wall with a catapult American Anarchists like Pelosi

    “A former CIA analyst and White House counsel under Ronald Reagan, Barr served as deputy attorney general and then attorney general to George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993, overseeing immigration policy moves that the Trump administration has already leaned on to implement its agenda. Before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the attorney general directly oversaw Immigration and Naturalization Services (the former parent agency of both the Border Patrol and INS interior enforcement, which would become ICE), and so we have an unusually clear idea of how Barr could affect immigration policy — on the border, in the interior, and in the courts.”
    https://theintercept.com/2019/01/15/william-barr-confirmation-hearings-immigration/

  11. Perhaps all we can ask for in an attorney general is that he has no history of racism or fraudulent behavior and that he has the aptitude needed to make wise decisions. He should be eloquent and have analytic skills.

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