Federal Judge Attacks Barr Over Creating Public Doubts Over Report

Today will be the long-awaited release of the Special Counsel report. (I will be in New York doing analysis for CBS and BBC). District Court Judge Reggie Walton however did not wait for the release of the report or the press conference planned by Attorney General Bill Barr for the morning. Walton made a surprising statement in court on Tuesday criticizing Barr. Walton objected that “The attorney general has created an environment that has caused a significant part of the public … to be concerned about whether or not there is full transparency.” Walton did not explain what precisely Barr did to create such public doubts, but the comments appeared immaterial to the merits. A few days ago, we discussed another federal judge attacking President Trump at an awards ceremony. Walton’s comments are not nearly so problematic but they were unfortunate and untimely in my view.

Walton was presiding over a hearing on a Freedom of Information Act suit demanding access to a report detailing the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller. The issue is a legal one separate from the judge’s view of how the Attorney General is proceeding on the rollout of the redacted report. Indeed, Walton denied a request from BuzzFeed to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the Justice Department to release Mueller’s report by Thursday.

It was an obvious and easy ruling to make under the circumstances. The question is why the court felt it was necessary to reach outside of the confines of the case to make a comment that clearly would cause a frenzy in the media. Moreover, I am at a loss as to what the court was referencing. Barr is proceeding along the well-established lines. He cannot release the unredacted report given restricted information from the grand jury as well as classified information and information from ongoing investigations. Indeed, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has publicly defended Barr’s actions.

This is not the end of the Buzzfeed case but the criticism of Barr seemed strikingly premature and unsupported. Today we will see the redacted report and we can teach more conclusions on the outcome of the redaction review. However, we need the courts to maintain a greater distance from the unfolding commentary over the controversy until an actual case or controversy is presented in court under Article III.

We also discussed the statements of Judge Ellis in the Manafort case as highly problematic as well as the comments of Judge Sullivan in the Flynn case. Such extraneous commentary creates concerns over the objectivity of the courts in dealing with matters of great public concern.

170 thoughts on “Federal Judge Attacks Barr Over Creating Public Doubts Over Report”

  1. Clue On Why Black Judges Don’t Like Trump



    One year ago to the day, one of Donald Trump’s nominees to a seat on the Eastern District of Louisiana, Wendy Vitter, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and declined to say whether Brown v. Board of Education—the 1954 ruling that struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine in public education—was correctly decided. In response to a question from Sen. Richard Blumenthal on the topic of Brown, Vitter replied, “I don’t mean to be coy, but I think I can get into a difficult, difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme Court decisions—which are correctly decided and which I may disagree with. Again, my personal, political, or religious views I would set aside—that is Supreme Court precedent. It is binding. If I were honored to be confirmed, I would be bound by it, and of course, I would uphold it.”

    At the time, it seemed that Vitter and other nominees were willing to go further than we had ever believed possible to make the claim that Brown was indeed precedent while avoiding saying that they agreed with one of the most widely accepted Supreme Court decisions of all time. Ten years ago, such a maneuver would have been unthinkable. As Perry Grossman and I noted last year, “At his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2006, Samuel Alito called [Brown] ‘one of the greatest, if not the single greatest thing that the Supreme Court of the United States has ever done.’ Only a year ago, Neil Gorsuch said at his confirmation hearing that Brown was a ‘seminal decision that got the original understanding of the 14th Amendment right.’ ”

    What changed in the time between Gorsuch and Vitter has nothing to do with whether Brown is still good precedent. What changed is that judicial nominees are carving a path toward saying that they needn’t be bound by any precedent, and also that every precedent is now on the table. When judicial nominees say, as they now regularly do, that Brown is a precedent of the court, what they are really saying is that a case that was decided was decided, and that it’s the law until it’s reversed. That is a truism—it is a description of what is. It is also a departure from a standard that existed until quite recently.


    But this has become the party line: One may not comment on the correctness of any Supreme Court case that has come before. Or almost any. Neomi Rao, selected to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, also declined last month to answer Blumenthal’s question about Brown: “Brown is a really important precedent of the Supreme Court, and one that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, which you know was a real black mark on our history” she testified. Then she went on to say that it was “not appropriate” to comment on the “correctness of particular precedents.” In other words, one can comment on the bad precedents—like Plessy, which she ably stated was incorrectly decided. But one cannot comment on the correctness of decisions like Brown, which purport to correct Plessy. Because one is incorrect. And the other is not not incorrect.

    This is the problem with sanctimonious claims that judicial nominees should not parse which cases are correctly decided (a strategy most frequently deployed by nominees who want to avoid having to comment directly on Roe). All nominees still do it—they’ve just moved the goal posts on which cases are correctly decided, and which are simply “precedent.” But there’s a second problem with the newfound refusal to sign off on the fundamental correctness of Brown: It’s not just judges doing it. Which brings us to this week, when Donald Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, did the same thing in his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Why are Donald Trump’s nominees suddenly willing to disavow even precedents they were once at least willing to pretend respect for? In part, it’s because their answers don’t matter. No Senate Republican will vote against a nominee for merely being unwilling to stand behind Brown. But more importantly, as nomination hearings become ever briefer and less substantial, this is a way of limiting even further the topics that can be explored: “Don’t ask about what I have written or said in the past, as it isn’t material, and don’t ask what I might do in the future, as it isn’t appropriate.”

    In the end, as is often the case, this has less to do with Brown v. Board than with growing contempt for the institution of the Senate. These prospective judges don’t want to say they would overturn Roe, so they decline to discuss it, and then extend that logic to Brown in an effort to make it sound like a principle. But make no mistake, this is also a performance of contempt for the courts themselves. Because an unwillingness to discuss what constitutes precedent reflects a conviction that it’s all up for grabs anyhow. The new posture appears to be that no law is settled—not anymore—and that it’s not for any judge to pronounce whether a case was correct or not until she is given the job of doing just that. It’s a new way to say that nothing is certain and nothing is fixed. That’s the tag line of the Trump epoch.

    If the newest Trump judges have shown anything, it’s been a willingness to strike down precedent even from the district court bench. And the newfound refusal to approve of the core logic of Brown should signal to us that the issue is somehow a live one. As Grossman and I wrote at the time of the Vitter hearing, “Are Vitter and Oldham suggesting they may not discuss Brown because they believe it’s conceivable that a case questioning its prohibition on de jure racial segregation may come before them? Shouldn’t we find out what that case is?”

    Edited from: “Trump’s Nominees Won’t Say If Brown V Board Of Education Was Correctly Decided”

    SALTE, 4/11/19


      I’m sure precedent was uppermost in the minds of the progenitors of Roe v. Wade.

      There are a lot of crap precedents, and 99% of them are the work of purveyors of the ‘living constitution’, They deserve to be swept away.

      Aside from the formal rubric of what is and is not said in confirmation hearings, it’s a reasonable inference she’s not going to commit to Brown because it was an example of what Gottfried Dietze called ‘sociological jurisprudence’ (and rather dubious as sociology for a that). N.B. federal judges didn’t stop with saying parallel school systems were legally invalid. They went so far as to place local school systems in receivership with themselves as self-appointed trustees, imposing new taxes, making budgetary allocations, assigning students to certain schools, and mapping out school bus routes. What do you get? The voters of New Jersey slapped with an income tax they’d repeatedly rejected at the polls, the dog’s breakfast Arthur Garrity made out of the Boston school system, and the social-engineering failure in Kansas City. perpetrated by a different federal judge.

      Liberals are the progenitors of failure because they are of unjust disposition and lacking in wisdom..

      1. “Liberals are the progenitors of failure because they are of unjust disposition and lacking in wisdom..”
        Worse than merely lacking, the modern leftist eschews wisdom, defining it as some sort of racial control mechanism and embraces irrationality as a virtue. C S Lewis hit upon this phenomenon in his work “The Abolition Of Man.” He describes a dystopian value system where technical know how supplants wisdom as a fundamental virtue. All in service to divorcing knowledge from any sort of moral or ethical underpinnings. The classic “Men Without Chests” who connect knowledge (mind) directly with base desire (stomach). Wisdom is thus seen as evil moderating human manipulations in a quest for Will to Power. Chilling.

  2. Just like the FBI and DOJ, the Federal Judiciary has become a political activist cess pool that needs to be drained as well! They very people we entrust to safeguard the Constitution and overreach feel they are above the law that they are there to service.

    1. from above

      “While the broad outlines of the interference operation have long been known, Mr. Mueller dedicates the first 200 pages of his report to narrating the Kremlin’s well-funded, yearslong effort to target American voters with an arsenal of digital weapons and make contacts with the Trump campaign.”

      “The report explains that the hacking operations and social-media operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and the Kremlin, though it didn’t establish a conspiracy existed between the two sides to work together to interfere in the election.

      Lawyers for Mr. Trump in a statement Thursday called the report “nothing more than an attempt to rehash old allegations.”

      1. continued from above WSJ

        “Since the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in January, House committees have launched a number of their own investigations—into Mr. Trump’s finances, businesses, relationships with foreign states, White House security clearances, and other avenues.

        The House Intelligence Committee has also reopened its own investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election—and said it would probe whether any foreign government has leverage over Mr. Trump.”

        1. Estovir, both of those passages from WSJ paint a disturbing picture. To say that Russian interference was ‘fake news’ sounds like an outright lie.

          1. P Hill: “fake news’ sounds like an outright lie.”

            funny that. This is Holy Week in Catholicism: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, death of Christ, then resurrection on Easter. Yet your people say that story is fake news and an outright lie

            Color me purple but I see a connection…collusion even!

            Happy Easter Triduum to all

          2. Peter, precisely what disturbing picture is being painted? Can you also rate their significance? Maybe we agree, maybe not. The statement you made is so generalized as to be entirely meaningless.

  3. The judge must watch MSNBC? Maybe he listens to Brian Williams, who actually referred to the Attorney General William Barr as “Baghdad Bill” today. Or maybe he watches CNN? They have even better “analysts” over there. (sarcasm ON!)

    Or perhaps he listens to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who actually tweeted this gem today:

    “Attorney General Barr’s partisan behavior has triggered a crisis of independence & impartiality.”

    4:36 AM – 18 Apr 2019

    1. Mind you, there was no “crisis of independence & impartiality” when AG Eric Holder declared he was still Barack’s “wingman.”

      1. Did someone say “partisan,” “independence & impartiality” and “Barack?”

        You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

        “…the White House is running this.”

        – Redacted

        August 5, 2016

        Peter Strzok:


        LIsa Page:



        Of course not. The only crisis they ever seem to recognize is a loss of power, or the potential loss of power. They hitched their honey-wagon to Hillary Clinton and she proceeded to run it into the ditch. Their sinister plan to insure that shite-filled agenda has now blown up in their face. While they reek of hypocrisy, they’ll assert they’ve evolved on the AG issue, just like they’ve evolved on so many other issues after losing control of the reins of government.


      Try again Walton ——-> it’s NOT the AG’s words or actions, but rather it is the hysteria coming from the media/political analysts/commentators and the Democrat party spin that has “created an environment that has caused a significant part of the public” to literally go beserk — which is exactly their intent. Is it “corrupt intent” by the Dems and the media? One could certainly make that case.

    3. Just to add….for those who miss the irony of Brian Williams calling the attorney general “Baghdad Bill Barr”….

      Brian Williams is the NBC news anchor who was pulled off air after he admitted fabricating a tale of being forced down by enemy fire in a helicopter over Iraq…and yet, here he is today, back on air, calling AG Bill Barr that disparaging name. This is who some folks are actually listening to for ‘analysis’ and ‘opinion’ of today’s events….and THIS is a very large part of the problem….NOT Bill Barr’s words or actions.

      1. TBob,
        I didn’t see your comment about Williams until after I posted mine, but I bet Brian stirred up a lot of memories with a lit of people in making that remark.
        How friggin’ stupid is this guy, anyway?

    4. Brian Who?
      The last thing this guy needs to mention is anything that reminds people of Iraq, and Williams’ close call🤭 under imaginery rocket fire.


    Impeach this black-robed clown. While every anti-Trumper will be clinging like dingle-berries to the ridiculous obstruction theories, they’ll conveniently forget everything began with the now-debunked theory of Russian collusion. This entire saga was crafted to obstruct this President from ever carrying out his duties as POTUS. The Left will rue the day their actions were the conspiracy, they colluded to obstruct, if not take down a duly elected President. I predict this will all be laid bare before the 2020 election. Then the voters will have to decide whether they side with the rule of law, or lawfare.

    1. “…the rule of law, or lawfare.”

      Did you say rule of law or rule of nonsense? Is affirmative action, as is the case regarding this feckless “judge,” law or nonsense? By what measure and citation is affirmative action legitimate law?

      What kind of law deems the actions of Americans biased and replaces that alleged bias with the bias of “Affirmative Action Privilege,” quotas, fair housing, non-discrimination, etc.? If there are laws against bias by one group, there must be laws against bias by all groups. If it is impossible to legislate bias into extinction, bias is constitutional and legal. The outcomes of freedom, this side of violence, theft, damage, etc., are various, legitimate, valid and constitutional. Hollywood is full of attractive, not repulsive, actors. Royalty will never work in the imperative trash dumps or sewage plants. The “haves” must be confidant and resolute agaisnt the “have-nots.” Winners win and losers lose. Shhhh, it happens! Deal with it.

      People must adapt to freedom.

      Freedom does not adapt to people…

      dictatorship does.

  5. There are thousands of American-Americans who are far more capable of effectively executing the duties of this judgeship. This insolent, insubordinate poster boy for affirmative action and generational welfare is, aside from his manifest inferiority and incompetence, insufficiently deferential and appreciative of being ensconced artificially in this position for political purposes. This is the thanks American-Americans get from this fake and political “district court affirmative action judge” for the expenditure of $22 trillion on the “War on Poverty” (poverty won) and the “Great Society” (actually unconstitutional, contemptible and detestable). This audacious ingrate is living proof that there will never be enough governmental largess to satisfy these appendages and that there will never be sufficient emulsification to sustain the physically impossible alloying of oil and water.

  6. One can only hope People begin to understand with a sickening epiphany, the pivotal juncture this country is standing at and the damage judges like this have done before it is too late.
    In the United States, it is now legal and everyday standard operating procedure, to conduct state sanctioned executions of innocent Constitutionally Protected American Citizens, who have committed no heinous crime, attacked or murdered no other person, committed nor plans to commit treason or 9/11 style terrorist acts against the United States or has done anything else that can, under the current laws on the books sentence them to death EXCEPT, commit the crime of drawing their first breath, opening their eyes and beginning to cry. Every post birth abortion baby that is born alive under the same conditions every full Citizenship enjoying Anchor Baby is born under, flipped over to have a pair of scissors jammed into the base of his skull or is taken by the feet and slammed on the corner of a stainless steel table to fracture her skull or wadded up and zipped up in a plastic bag fully concious and crying and tossed in the freezer to slowly suffocate and freeze to death, is an American Citizen sentenced to death with no due process by judges like this.
    Judges like this have mandated that fully Constitutionally Protected American Citizens born alive in the United States can be instantly stripped of his or her Constitutional Rights and Protections that is their Birthright and for the sake of the Democrat cause, for the sake of validating the Democrat narrative, subjected to torture, suffering and cruel acts even the vilest most despicable incarcerated serial killer or murderous terrorists will never have to fear.
    This is The United States in 2019 and the elderly, disabled, and those who are deemed “a burden” on the state are next. The bills are already written and the laws are already on the books ready to be reinterpreted and tweaked by an agenda driven politically weaponized justice system to strip the rest of the American Citizens they are aimed at of their Rights and pull the trigger.

  7. This goes back to the theme of oxes being gored. The oxes don’t like it, so they react like oxes do.

    First, consider the scope of the Assange indictment as currently drafted. It is carefully crafted to narrow in on an alleged computer hack in 2010. Why? To serve as a warning to those who would follow in Assange’s footsteps. To avoid discussion of those annoyingly embarrassing facts, like the actual content of the leaked DNC emails and the public interest therein. Counsel: Irrelevant, your honor, irrelevant. Context doesn’t matter, Assange is just pulling a head fake. Focus on the law. We’re here for the simple reason that Mr. Assange is a thief! Judge’s response: Counsel, you have a point.

    Today we’re in front of the Hon. Reggie Walton, Senior Judge for the DC Circuit in a FOIA suit demanding access to a report detailing the findings of the Mueller report. Never mind that Attorney General Barr and his team are doing a yeoman’s job completing the legally required review. Counsel: Your honor, it’s more than just the legal standards, context is critical. It’s been over two weeks, and you can’t just trust Barr. The future of the republic depends on it! Judge’s response: Counsel, you have a point.

    The thing about law, whether we’re talking about criminal statutes, civil statues, evidentiary rules, or whatever, is that it is rarely black and white. Statutory construction, case law and procedural manuals set some boundaries. Yet Prosecutors still have considerable wiggle room in the cases they bring and the crimes they charge. Judges have latitude in their evidentiary rulings, and they generally only get challenged on appeal, and then only if the case doesn’t settle. As to politicians, nothing more needs to be said.

    The smart, powerful oxes know this. They did go to Harvard, after all. And they do their darndest to make sure that the other oxes are the ones getting gored.

  8. I think I understand L4D’s version now; Putin entices Trump to run in 2016 by paving the way for the Moscow Trump Tower.
    Putin will give Trump that green light on the Moscow deal, but ONLY if Trump loses the election.
    If Trump wins, the deal is off.
    So now the question is will Putin reward Trump in some other way?
    Maybe approving Trump Organization, Trump- branded Siberian saunas?
    If the Putin- approved Moscow Trump Tower scheme was the consolation prize for losing( according to the L4B Theory), maybe Putin will approve the project right now, even though Trump won in 2016.
    At a minimum, that would unravel her current theory, and send her scrambling to cook up another one.

  9. Just as the Democrats are using judges to erase the Mexican border to unleash anarchy, destruction and chaos on the United States guaranteed to disrupt and Cloward and Piven Her infrastructure with destructive, unfettered, unsustainable debt and suicidal misuse of dwindling resources, so too are Democrats using their judicial plants to erase the Constitutional, Civil and Rule of Law border between hundreds of millions of diverse, different people that allows them to live together in as civilized safe manner as humanly possible and which, once gone, guarentees free unchecked reign by stronger more aggressive amoral/immoral members of the population the opportunity to commit unfettered anarchy and evil designed to overpower and remove from society the weaker members of American Society which they hate or to take them as slaves.
    To paraphrase Ilhan Omar D-MN,
    “It’s all about the slavery baby”

  10. Is this what we are supposed to believe constitutes an impartial Federal Judge? Where did he come from and where did the others come from as well? We want democracy and freedom but that requires confidence in the judicial system and equality under the law. We are not seeing that from this type of justice or or Reeves or the Smollet case or even the case where KellyAnn was attacked. I’d love to hear members of the left criticizing their own. Most of the people on the right I know personally criticized judges from the right and stood for equality under the law even when it was one of their own.

    1. I’d love to hear members of the left criticizing their own.

      You’re assuming they have fixed principles of conduct and actually care about the welfare of others and the welfare of the commonweal. Nat Hentoff is dead, bubba, and Alan Dershowitz is 80 years old.

      1. DSS, we have both discussed the idea behind “fixed principles”, but they have none as you elegantly stated, They “ manufacture excuses for these vicious creatures because that’s the sort of cruddy thing liberals do nowadays.”

        1. Only fools and weaklings try to convince each other that entire groups who they disagree with are morally inferior. So far we have Karen, absurd, and Allan in this camp, and these pigmys worship Trump.

          Please tell us what principles he stands for and if you can cite his history on each one.


            Well, you know, anon, we often don’t see ourselves as others do.

            1. Obviously you have little ability to see anything.

              Are you going to get back to us on Trump’s principles?

                1. So absurd, like the Apsotle Peter, denies his savior and attempts to separate him – for obvious reasons – from any discussion of principles.

                    1. Are you kidding? You and your lame pals are priceless on this thread.

                      Keep it coming!

          2. Please tell us what principles he stands for and if you can cite his history on each one.

            There is an entire blog archive that you can research that will inform you of what principles many of us support. It will demonstrate very clearly what actions this President has taken that we support, and those we do not. You’ll have to expand your mind to figure it out, but it’s all there waiting for you to discover. If you’re seriously interested, that is.

            Good luck.

              1. U.S. Civics is not your thing is it?


                January 20, 2017

                Next question.

                1. So, anyone who takes a necessary oath is to be believed, and especially a president. Is that really your position?


                    You apparently have no idea why our form of government exists. Read Federalist 51 and then come back and ask that question again.

                    1. Does that document mention Trump and his principles? Everyone here – especially the self proclaimed most principled among us – have not so far been able to name any.

                    2. Does that document mention Trump and his principles?

                      You keep trying to make your civics illiteracy other people’s problem. So, anyone who takes a necessary oath is to be believed, and especially a president.


                      Here’s a hint: If you understood what principles were, and if you understood why we have our form of government, then you would be on your way to answering your own questions. It’s a process, and I cannot do that for you.

          3. “Please tell us what principles”

            Anon, one normally assumes that a person using a word “principles” knows or understands what the word means. To date based on all your written work we believe you know the dictionary meaning of the word but so far we haven’t seen an indication that you hold any principles that are consistant. Holding firm principles is something most intelligent and intellectually honest people do but to discuss principles with a person who seems to have none is something not worthwhile.

            1. Another poster claiming their signature commitment to principles is somehow unable to state any that his dear leader stands for.

              1. We don’t speak for him. We speak for ourselves. We can tell you what Trump has advocated and done in the last four years, but you don’t need us to learn that.

                1. Yes, I’m well aware of Trumps behavior over the 4 years, but no one who is not a fool would pretend that his actions had anything to do with principles. If you are one of those, make the case or by your silence confirm what we all know, and the fact that you similarly care not at all for principles as you earlier claimed distinguished you from those you disagree with.

                  1. ” but no one who is not a fool would pretend that his actions had anything to do with principles.”

                    You have that backward, Anon. You are a fool so you are unable to see how Trump’s good work as President relates directly to his principles. We see how the Democratic Congress has no principles that it holds tightly too so since you support what they do it appears you are unprincipled as well.

              2. You ate paint chips as a child, didn’t you? Your intellectual laziness has resulted in your intellectual dishonesty. You apparently need someone to do your thinking for you. Gruber had your ilk nailed, and so did Kant:


                1. I’m sorry Olly, did you list any principles of your ;eader that inspire you in this passage? I missed that. Must be the paint chips I sprinkle on the head of this delicious IPA.

                  1. Since you insist on a list of principles that some of us find inspiring in President Donald Trump, here you go:

                    Work hard. Don’t settle. Play to win. Go big or go home.
                    Stand for something. Do what you say you’re going to do. Stand up for yourself; do not back down. Tell it like it is. Fight for what you believe in. Be true to yourself. Keep the faith. Love your country and show respect and gratitude to all those who keep us safe and fight for our freedoms every day. Etc….

                    What principles did your ‘dear leader’ stand for that inspired you, Anon? Was that Hillary? Or Barack?

                    1. So, working hard includes hanging out until noon in your pj’s watching TV while ignoring reports and experts, do what you said you’re going to do includes getting the suckers to pay for the free wall you promised them while welching on “great” health care, infrastructure, decreasing the debt – whoops! – reducing the trade balance – whoops, whoops! – making great deals with the Congress and other countries, and respecting and showing gratitude to those who serve except those jerks who get captured?

                      Wow, that’s very inspiring!

                      While I wasn’t one of the posters who claimed an abiding commitment to principle while also saying those I agreed with had none I can answer your question.

                      Both Hillary and Barack began their adult life working in fairly low pay work – both are Ivy trained lawyers who typically pull down big bucks on WS – to help others less fortunate themselves – want to try something funny? Imagine Trump doing that – and continued throughout their careers promoting that principle with consistency, and even stayed in the same party!! Wow! Far out!

                    2. Anon has a rather romantic picture of Barack and Hillary. Michael Avenatti went to U of P and GW University Law School. He fits in well with the other two as all three had dreams of becoming President and all three were poster children of the Democratic Party. 2 of the three are known criminals. One will probably be conviceted.

                    3. Anon says: April 18, 2019 at 6:45 PM
                      So, working hard includes hanging out until noon in your pj’s watching TV while ignoring reports and experts….

                      Then there is you and your ilk:

                      working hard includes trolling for Media Matters while making up sheit, hanging out and trolling s’mores until noon, kvetch, complain, spread hate and division online in your pj’s watching CNN, while ignoring facts and reconciling these with US Constitution, et all the while regurgitating John Marshall’s Talking Points Memo….


                      Love the ‘typically’.


                      Hillary spent some time after obtaining her law degree studying child development (presumably on someone’s dole). She later decamped to Washington. There she (1) failed the DC bar exam and (2) was fired for cause from her first law job. The man who issued the letter of dismissal offered later that he’d employed scores of attorneys over a period of 14 years in that position. There were three, he said, for whom he’d never give a reference. She was one of the three. Her next regular, salaried position she obtained about 2 years later, after he husband was elected Attroney-General of Arkansas. Her adventures in commodity trading occurred at that firm. The damage she did to the Legal Services Corporation were also undertaken during that period. It was her deficiencies as a revenue generator that gave rise to the Whitewater caper.

                      That’s an amusing way to spin Obama’s indifference to the practice of law as self-sacrificial. He obtained no clerkship on completing law school. He spent a year writing a book then landed a p/t/ faculty position at the University of Chicago (by some accounts, a hire imposed by the dean and not undertaken according to the usual protocols). It was the following year he obtained an associate’s position. He worked at that firm for three years. After 1996, he mixed teaching with time in the state legislature with time at NGOs. He was in line for the position of director of the Joyce Foundation in 2000, a position that Mooch very much wanted him to land and would have paid a handsome salary. He blew the interview. Funny

                    5. Estovir, I spent the last 2 days in my truck and job sites until 7 with a break or 2 and am able to make you fools look even worse in my very spare time. Just this minute I took a break from doing a CAD working drawing, emailing a client and their designer, negotiating a contract with a framer, and sending a draw request to another client and architect for the slab we poured today..

                      What’s your excuse?

                    6. Yes, typically:

                      “The highest starting salaries went to law grads who went into private practice. For the Class of 2016, the median starting salary was a hefty $180,000, up $20,000 from the previous year when the median was $160,000. The average private practice salary was $175,947, up from $157,663.

                      These numbers are fairly uniform across all of the very best law schools in the country where the $180,000 median for a private practice job is exactly the same at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago and UPenn, among others….”


                    7. “Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.[58] In late 1973 her first scholarly article, “Children Under the Law”, was published in the Harvard Educational Review.[59] Discussing the new children’s rights movement, the article stated that “child citizens” were “powerless individuals”[60] and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.[61] The article became frequently cited in the field.[62]…

                      Rodham maintained her interest in children’s law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles “Children’s Policies: Abandonment and Neglect” in 1977[88] and “Children’s Rights: A Legal Perspective” in 1979.[89] The latter continued her argument that children’s legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, “Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate.”[61] Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as “one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades”,[90] while conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority,[91] would allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents,[61] and exemplified critical legal studies run amok.[92]

                      A small, one-story brick-faced house with a small yard in front. This house is located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton lived in this house when Bill was Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979.
                      Rodham and Clinton lived in this house in Little Rock’s Hillcrest neighborhood while he was Arkansas Attorney General (1977–1979).[93]
                      In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children’s Defense Fund.[44][94] Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana)[95] appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation,[96] and she served in that capacity from 1978 until the end of 1981.[97] From mid-1978 to mid-1980,[b] she was the chair of that board, the first woman to have the job.[98] During her time as chair, funding for the Corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently, she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan’s attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.[86]

                      Following her husband’s November 1978 election as Governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state’s First Lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year,[99] where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas’s poorest areas without affecting doctors’ fees.[100]…”


                      And so on. Did I mention she won reelection to the Senate – where she was noted for keeping her head down and hard work – from NY with 67% of the vote

                    8. “Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama was back in Chicago when he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project, a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago’s South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.[46][93] He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[94] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[95]

                      …In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.[105][106] He then taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004.[107]

                      From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois’s Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain’s Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of “40 under Forty” powers to be.[108]

                      He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004. In 1994, he was listed as one of the lawyers in Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 94 C 4094 (N.D. Ill.).[109] This class action lawsuit was filed in 1994 with Selma Buycks-Roberson as lead plaintiff and alleged that Citibank Federal Savings Bank had engaged in practices forbidden under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act.[110] The case was settled out of court.[111] Final judgment was issued on May 13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay attorney fees.[112] His law license became inactive in 2007.[113][114]

                      From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago—which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project—and of the Joyce Foundation.[46] He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.[46]

                      Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding Democratic State Senator Alice Palmer from Illinois’s 13th District, which, at that time, spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park–Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[115] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws.[116] He sponsored a law that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[117] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan’s payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.[118]

                      He was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002.[119] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary race for Illinois’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[120]

                      In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[121] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[117][122] During his 2004 general election campaign for the U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[123]…”


                    9. Anon says: April 18, 2019 at 8:28 PM
                      , I spent the last 2 days in my truck and job sites until 7 with a break or 2 …../

                      to clog these forums with a higher word count than any of the usual commenters combined.

                      this “with a break or 2”


                      one supposes you have to define “job”

                      you’re pathetic for a troll. which brings to mind….how is that tired queen, your boss, David Brock? it is true she is now sober, clean and has a monogamous husband?

                      Anita Hill sends her best

                    10. Well thanks for the compliment Estovir, but no, I’m this good as an amateur. Given the company you keep around here, I know it’s shocking that someone neither just pulls stuff from their a.s like most here, or specializes in posting entire columns with little original comment, like you, but Google is easy and I like to know what I’m talking about.

                      Try it.

                    11. “I’m this good as an amateur. ”

                      That is Anon puffing himself up but not making any cogent defense. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail.Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail.etc.

                      That is all we are really seeing from Anon. Pathetic as they come.

                    12. From Hinderaker:

                      Last week, Judicial Watch released 422 pages of previously-hidden FBI documents on that agency’s investigation of the email server scandal. These documents shed light on the FBI’s faux investigation, the result of which was pre-ordained. There is much information at the link, but for now let’s just note this email between two employees of Platte River Networks, Hillary’s IT consultant.

                      “It’s all part of the Hilary coverup operation. 😊”

                      Despite such evidence, and much more at the link, Barack Obama’s FBI moved on from protecting Hillary Clinton to trying to ensure that Donald Trump lost the 2016 election, or if elected, would be unable to serve effectively. That is the true scandal that should not be ignored amid hysteria over the release of the Mueller report.

                    13. but Google is easy and I like to know what I’m talking about.

                      That’s just hilarious. I doubt the day will come anytime soon when you finally realize liking to know was not the same as knowing.


                    14. Really? Wow!! What did Obama do to try and make Trump lose the election. That is outrageous and shall not stand!

                    15. TBob, thanks for enlightening us about those sweat shops paying $180k to unsuspecting Ivy rookies. I’ll tell my roofers and insulation installers about this and maybe pass the hat to help these guys out.

                      If you have a dispute with what I posted you can check the footnotes and maybe correct specific uh…. facts.

                      OK, so I provided evidence of Obama and Hillary’s committment to principle going back to the early 20s and am still waiting for the principles Trump stands for since, ….. you all claim to be uniquely motivated by strong principle.

                    16. By the way TBob – is it TomBob? – as a guy inspired by Trump’s “respect” toward those who have served, ahve you visited your nearest VFW bar and and tried to get them to take down the MIA flag? You know, the jerks who got captured? Seems like the patriotic Trump thing to do.

                  2. I missed that.

                    Well that’s the first Step. Well done. Now, you can blame the paint chips, your parents, your teachers, us, whatever, but at some point you will need to stop being dependent on others to do your thinking for you.

                    1. Olly, in all seriousness, I don’t think I’m the one embarrassing myself here tonight, though it is true you are not alone. Maybe if you sleep on it you can come up a principle your leader actually believes in. His own ego does not qualify by the way.

                    2. I don’t think I’m the one embarrassing myself here tonight

                      Of course you don’t. That would require just a hint of humility, and you’re running on empty.

                  3. Anon — you just cited Wikipedia as your unbiased source highlighting all the “good deeds” of Barack Obama’s oh-so-impressive work history?? Seriously?? when I saw that just now I laughed out loud and said, “OMG!! is he seriously citing Wikipedia?” Oh yes, he did.

                    As for Barack and Hillary passing up the opportunity to work at a big firm where associates “typically pull down big bucks” so that they could instead “help others less fortunate”….you have no idea what you’re talking about…associates work about 80+ hours a week for years, have no life, and are literally “owned” by the big firm they are pulling down the “big bucks” from…and they work their asses off doing a whole lot of mundane, tedious work as they pay their dues….many (not all) look forward to paying down some law school debt and getting OUT of the daily grind to move into a nice cushy nonprofit or 9-5 government job, or another career path entirely, as soon as they can. Hence, what you attribute to Hillary and Barry as some kind of big-hearted benevolence was nothing of the sort. In Barry and Hillary’s case, it was no doubt all about taking the easy road of “public service” instead of having to work their asses off in the private sector. Barry Soetero didn’t miraculously transform from head of the Choom Gang to a brilliant Type A overachieving benevolent public servant — as you seem to believe.

                    And I would suggest you do some research to inform yoursefl and find out more about Obama’s work with ACORN, etc…and while you’re at it, check into exactly how Barack Obama got himself elected to that Illinois senate seat. And then? keep on digging…that is, if you want to get the whole picture instead of the sanitized, glorified, propagandized fairy tale.

                    Wow, just wow, Anon. You really did eat paint chips, didn’t you? Thanks for the good laugh. 🙂

                    1. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail.

                      That is Anon. No ability to comprehend. Repeat, repeat and repeat. Hammer hits nail. Hammer hits nail.

                  4. Anon, you might want to consider this: you know what the DNC and the Clinton campaign did to Bernie in the primary, right? He was shafted. Now, imagine if Bernie had actually won and became POTUS in 2016….and then the intelligence community, deep state, powers that be, etc decided they didn’t want Bernie in power either….so they set out to do something similar as they just did to Trump, in order to try to take Bernie out? Can you imagine what just happened to Trump happening to Bernie as well? I can. So if you care, at all, about this not ever happening again, to any president, of either party… then you should pay close attention to the truth about what just went down here with Trump.

                    And then tell me if Bernie, or any one of those Democrats sitting in Congress right now trying to take Trump out, could have or would have survived the kind of autopsy Trump just survived? Answer? Not one of them would have survived. Not one. But Trump did. And he is still standing. He is still POTUS. He knew he was being framed. He did not back down. He stood his ground and he was just vindicated. Let’s all hope nothing like this happens again to any other POTUS.

                    1. Please, tell me what Clinton did to Bernie in the primaries, other than kicking his a.s worse than she did Trumps. I’m all ears.

                      Oh, just one more thing…… can you tell me how the “Deep State” managed to sabotage Hillary’s campaign 2 weeks before the election by revealing she was the focus of an investigation while they protected Trump from a similar revelation?


                      Same question over and over. It’s been answered without response from Anon. No attempt to move the conversation forward or to look at an investigation against Trump lasting 2.5 year and the fact that the statement against Hillary was watered down occurring in the time frame of the FBI’s attorney talking about criminal prosecution. We now have more new evidence that the investigation into Clinton wasn’t adequate.

                      Nail hits hammer. Nail hits hammer. Over and over again. That is Anon who is unable to change his modus opperandi, repeat, repeat and repeat without comprehension.

                    3. Anon – baby steps. Watch this for starters…and have another IPA sprinkled with paint chips 😉

                    4. Your video is 23 minutes long TomBob. Just tell me what Hillary did to Bernie other than kick his a.s worse than Trump’s. You speak English, right?

                    5. Gee, I missed the explanation about the Deep State sabotaging Hillary’s campaign. Damn. PLease Allan, tell it again. Also, you said Obama was in on it. This must not stand!

                    6. “PLease Allan, tell it again.”

                      Anon, its been told about a half a dozen time. You are too busy hitting nails on the head. That requires eye hand coordination along with some dexterity and strength. That is all you have and all you seem to do here. You take something provided to you by a left wing site and hit it. Then you hit it again and again. There is no comprehention, rational thought or response to any alternate explanations. You just hit the nail with the hammer non stop and forget about it going on to the next identical nail that is hit in place in the same way..

                    7. Hey Allan, I wanted to share this with our good buddy Anon that I had posted on another thread.

                      You’re right Anon. The best thing that could happen for this country is a protracted debate on what constitutes obstruction of justice. I’ll accept Mueller’s 2.5 year investigation and report clearing President Trump of the crimes Mueller was tasked to investigate.

                      Now in honor of the EHT project that brought us the image of the black hole, I’m going to call the anti-Trumper’s efforts moving forward as the L4D project. You see, there must be some horrific reason that Trump beat astronomical odds to become President. There must be some mysterious dark force preventing all our intel agencies, the FBI, Mueller and his team, as well as any foreign entity (shh, of course none were used) from seeing what was so obvious.

                      Remember now, if I post the comment: L4D Project; the purpose will be to acknowledge the ongoing efforts to find a crime President Trump has committed somewhere in the vast reaches of space. I won’t say anything further as to obstruct that mission.

                      Speaking of obstruction; I pray the anti-Trumpers go all in and the American public get say, another year’s play out of it. They will be exposed to what defines obstruction and what evidence would be necessary to prove it. So let’s begin with the idea that obstruction of justice involves an effort to hide a crime or hinder the investigation of an actual crime. This is where it gets interesting.

                      Do we have a fairly recent case where someone committed a crime but the FBI didn’t refer for prosecution because they discovered no intent? Now what if the investigators were prevented by the suspect from access to relevant hardware? Maybe it was destroyed, you know, like destroying evidence. Would that be considered obstruction? How about material witnesses not being made available to testify, or pleading the 5th, would that be considered obstruction? What if the suspect didn’t provide all required emails and other correspondence, would that be considered obstruction?

                      So yes, let’s go down the obstruction path and expose everybody. That is we’re principled enough to want that.

                    8. You know, I’m starting to notice that a bunch of posters on this site know some things which they must be sworn to secrecy on, because every time I ask for an explanation things they say, they can’t answer. I know they are much more principled than other people, and this explains their fealty to their spiritual leader Trump, and surely they are on to some big secrets people like m e who have no principles can’t be trusted with.

                      Or something like that.

                      Nah. Their full of s……and lack the honor required to accept that it’s important to back things up that they say.

              3. Anon, Trump’s principles are represented by his actions and attempts but unfortunately he only represents the executive branch. One of his main principles is the security of America something the left abhors since they all too frequently imply that America is evil. You have no principles so you will have difficulty understanding one that has them.

  11. Wall Street Journal

    The Russia Probe Started With the Spies Who Marked Me
    The attorney general should question the three men known to have snooped on the Trump campaign.

    George Papadopoulos

    ‘I think spying did occur,” Attorney General William P. Barr told a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday. He was speaking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, as well as the resulting special-counsel investigation.

    I can tell Mr. Barr what I know from experience. There’s nothing to “think” about: The spying happened, and it happened to me. The real question is why it happened. What drove U.S. intelligence organizations during the Obama administration to use unvetted information and inconclusive spy operations against the Republican nominee and his staff?

    During my time as an adviser to the Trump campaign, federal intelligence and law-enforcement organizations used operatives to contact me in person and by email on multiple occasions. Their goal? To discuss rumored coordination efforts with Russia and extract evidence of a collusion crime.

    “Operatives” is a euphemistic term for these men. Spies is a more fitting label. One is Stefan Halper, a professor at the University of Cambridge who runs intelligence seminars and has ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. The Washington Post named him as the FBI informant who approached at least three members of the Trump campaign. Then there’s Alexander Downer, who had the lofty title of Australian high commissioner to the U.K. and was an adviser to the British private intelligence firm Hakluyt & Co. Finally there’s Joseph Mifsud, who taught at Rome’s Link Campus University, where many faculty members have ties to intelligence agencies.

    These men spied on me. As spies, they hid behind the cloak of their public personas while trying to ferret out information about the campaign and Moscow, and prod me into corroborating their bad intelligence. Major newspapers have confirmed that Mr. Halper reported to the FBI and Mr. Downer reported to Australian intelligence. Mr. Mifsud’s handlers remain unidentified.

    I have spent two years thinking about my bizarre interactions with these spooks. If Mr. Barr really wants to understand what happened, he needs to examine them and their motives. If he does, he will likely find three men and their government backers acting in concert to inflict damage on a U.S. presidential candidate whose views apparently scared the hell out of them.

    What might have motivated these spying efforts? On the British side, Mr. Trump was a vocal proponent of Brexit, which was opposed by most of the British political establishment. Similarly, Mr. Trump had spoken out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that Australian politicians support.

    In the U.S., Obama appointees James Comey at the FBI and John Brennan at the CIA were deeply rattled by Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about restoring relations with Russia. They were also hoodwinked by poorly sourced, unvetted reports from overseas, including the Steele dossier. Their agencies stitched together the reports to create the collusion narrative and open the investigation.

    Mr. Barr may not be able to find a smoking gun that definitively proves Obama loyalists plotted to use specious allegations to wound a Republican candidate for president. But he won’t have to look very hard to confirm the existence of spy operations. Subpoenas for the spies who approached me would go a long way.

    Mr. Barr could also investigate whether those operations crossed the bold line that separates a serious, apolitical investigation from paranoid prosecutorial overreach. The intelligence agencies and the spies they employed devised a conspiracy to create the appearance of a conspiracy.

    I look forward to the attorney general’s findings.

    Mr. Papadopoulos is a former foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign and author of “Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump.”


  12. Tomorrow Morning Joe “commentators” getting their panties in a bunch re Muler report BEFORE Barr press conference and before release. Mika is hyperventilating again. They put out hypotheticals and then they feign outrage about their own hypotheticals.

  13. Ah yes, affirmative action and quotas are coming home to roost. The government is full of projects like this the net effects of which are to dumb down the bench, entrench lazy and inefficient workers in lifetime positions of make-work jobs, embed politics in places they don’t belong, and ensure our tax dollars are wasted to maximum effect.

    1. Apparently you have been there and seen it. It may be that most have neither the time, money nor will to even know, much less do.

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