Barr joins renewed Trump administration push to curtail nationwide

[orangecrush]

AG Barr joins renewed Trump administration push to curtail nationwide injunctions
Alison Frankel

(Reuters) - At a speech Tuesday night to the elite American Law Institute, Attorney General William Barr jumped with both feet into the Trump administration’s campaign against nationwide injunctions. The AG told ALI members that federal trial judges have 37 injunctions blocking Trump administration policies across jurisdictions beyond their courtrooms – 10 more than the 27 nationwide injunctions issued in all of the 20th century. Barr said trial judges’ unprecedented show of force is nothing less than a usurpation of the prerogatives of the executive branch and an erosion of the geographical limits Congress set on the jurisdiction of lower courts – in short, a deeply unsettling violation of the bedrock constitutional principle of separation of powers.

“One judge can, in effect, cancel ... policy with the stroke of the pen,” Barr said. “No official in the United States government can exercise that kind of nationwide power, with the sole exception of the president. And the Constitution subjects him to nationwide election, among other constitutional checks, as a prerequisite to wielding that power.”


https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1SS2U4


They are working to break the Judicial branch, which so far has been able to curtail some of the abuses. Bulldozing our institutions to pave the way for full on Putin style klepetocracy.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. He had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. too.

It appeared under his name, though that doesn't mean he wrote it.

NEWS CLIPS

U.S. Attorney General William Barr: “End nationwide injunctions”
LAW & JUSTICE

Issued on: September 6, 2019
....

Read the full op-ed here.

[RKP5637]

2. Dangerous times and most Americans IMO can't be bothered to pay attention. n/t

[wasupaloopa]

3. My guess is none of us knew about it until now.

Last edited Sat Sep 7, 2019, 04:36 PM - Edit history (1)

My wife reads news papers and online news. I could bet if I asked her she would not have heard about this.

I rail against the idea that we on DU are some special higher form of human.

[RKP5637]

7. I don't know about the latter, but I think DU is possibly a better news source than many follow. n/t

[erronis]

14. Agree. The normal goto news WaPo, NYT, Guardian didn't report, or I didn't see it.

This is monumental.

Rachel and other alternative-M$M are good but they can't keep all of these pieces in front of us all the time.

We need a open-source score-card of leading issues, updated hourly, maybe wiki and maybe moderated.

[orangecrush]

21. Glad I could be of help.

[CrispyQ]

4. I used to give us a 30% chance of surviving Trump/Barr/McConnell, but it's gone down. -nt

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[notdarkyet]

6. Barr first impeach, arrest whatever, get rid of him.

[DFW]

8. I think Barr is trying very hard NOT to follow in John Mitchell's footsteps

I hope he is not successful.

[pbmus]

9. Kleptocratic kakistrophic klusterfuck.....KKK

[Wounded Bear]

10. It's all in the fascist autocratic handbook...

[yaesu]

11. so, a criminal mobster is against Democracy, no surprises here. nt

[patphil]

12. We need to take the position of Attorney General out of the hands of the President.

The position of Attorney General was passed by Congress as the Judiciary Act of 1789. It isn't part of the Constitution and therefore can be changed.
It would be far better if this position, and the people directly under him were civil service positions.
This would limit the ability of the President to manipulate the Justice Department to suit his or her own ends.
It would also eliminate the ability of the President to appoint his own "Roy Cohn" to the position.
Congress should still be granted the ability to impeach and remove an Attorney General for malfeasance.
The problem with the 1789 law is that it expects the President to have a certain measure of integrity, something the current President does not have.
I think there are a lot more high level jobs that should be filled by civil service instead of by the President.

Patrick Phillips

[mahannah]

13. ... so, where are the "checks"?

[yonder]

15. Nice try Barr, who are you kidding:

"And the Constitution subjects him to nationwide election, among other constitutional checks, as a prerequisite to wielding that power.”

Seems to me you and your cronies in the Senate are doing everything you can to ignore these "other constitutional checks", and, in concert with the Russians, are likely working on ways to subvert the "nationwide election" part as well.

Do your job, Barr. The job you swore an oath to do.

[sprinkleeninow]

16. Here's them: "We don't need no stinkin' oath!" n/t

[shanti]

17. "subjected to"

He says it like it's a bad thing. To Putin, it's bad, is that who his allegiance is to?? (Rhetorical question)

[yonder]

18. +1. Nice catch. That inference went right over my head.

You're exactly right and I think Barr unwittingly showed his/their hand right there.

Subjected to, indeed.

[ancianita]

19. This seems beyond constitutional crisis. It's a planned gridlock a dictator could weaponize.

What IS the "push"? I haven't read about the "push," and can't find any reports of actions taken against injunctions so far. I haven't seen injunctions ignored before this speech from Barr.

Maybe someone has some info on it?

Is Barr sending a message to 45 (publicly, before a major institution of lawyers) to just ignore the injunctions?

All I can think, as a layperson, is that if one branch, the judiciary's judges, depend on the govt's executive branch to enforce its injunctions, and if the other branch, the executive presidency and DOJ, refuse to honor the 40 injunctions -- based rule of law -- -- what can the judiciary actually do.

No checks and balances for this situation looks like unenforceable law. Which is no law at all -- no constitution at all.

Half the First Branch, the House, is now tied up in impeachment inquiry, among other things. And now it must deal with this?

What can the lawyers of the American Law Institute do if Barr's told them that their rule of law government is now helpless, that the courts have ruled about things the presidency doesn't have to enforce.

ALI lawyers must know this, since nothing's been done since over 800 prosecutors signed a letter to the effect that Trump would be indicted if he weren't president. So far.

So now what. So far, a known criminal runs this government, and the other branches struggle for viability. Is SCOTUS watching this? If it voted down any suit, why would the chief criminal care.

This crippling of government could become real, and continue into 2020. When the election results come in, any results the prez and Republican Senate majority don't like, also might not be honored. Then what.

Might this president literally weaponize propaganda about a rigged outcome, and give orders between November and January, 2021, to shut down the government that he will then run as he sees fit.

It's a worst case scenario, and perhaps dismissible. But given the years of scofflaw behaviors of this president, given the twisted support of this AG that undermines justice, given the obstructions and congressional stalemates to date, the possibility of this scenario is hard to write off.

[orangecrush]

20. Well said!

I thought perhaps I was reading the article wrong, but it looks like not.