In his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr will condemn “serious abuses” in the “false Russiagate scandal”, while highlighting black violence and defending law enforcement officers without hesitation. terms, according to a transcript of their prepared comments obtained by Fox News on Monday night.
Barr’s unusually aggressive stance will be combined with a full defense of Republican lawmakers on the panel, including ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News.
“Since I made it clear that I was going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of the serious abuses involved in the false Russiagate scandal, many of the Democrats on this committee have tried to discredit me by evoking a narrative that I am simply the fact that the President who eliminate criminal cases according to his instructions, “Barr is expected to say at the beginning of his comments. “Judging from the letter inviting me to this audience, that seems to be his agenda today.”
Barr will continue to deny that Trump has unduly interfered with any of his decisions, before pointing to statistics showing progress on racial justice issues, according to his prepared comments.
READ THE BARR OPENING STATEMENT
“Today’s police forces are much more diverse than ever before; there are more black police chiefs and more black officers in the ranks,” Barr is expected to say. “Although the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of the police was a shocking event, the fact is that, fortunately, such events are quite rare. According to statistics compiled by the Washington Post, the number of black men unarmed men killed by police so far this year this year is 8. The number of unarmed white men killed by police during the same time period is 11. Some unarmed suspects were also physically attacking officers or threatening to others at the time they were shot, the total number of police shootings has been decreasing. “
At the same time, the attorney general is expected to say that black Americans all too often kill each other. “The threat to black lives posed by crime on the streets is vastly greater than any threat posed by police misconduct,” read Barr’s comments. “The leading cause of death for young black men is homicide. Each year, approximately 7,500 black Americans are killed, and the vast majority of them, about 90 percent, are killed by other blacks, primarily by shooting. Each of those lives is important. ” “
A Democratic lawyer for the committee told Fox News that there will be approximately four and a half to five hours of questioning, covering topics from civil rights to his alleged deference to the White House. Barr’s appearance is voluntary and he does not respond to any subpoena, and Fox News is told that executive privilege has not been exercised at this time to protect any issue or discussion, although that could change during the hearing.
For Barr, the comments will be an opportunity to reinforce his image as a lawyer for a lawyer. Just before Christmas, he visited One Police Plaza in New York to meet with the heads of the New York Police Department after a series of suicides among New York police officers. Later that night, he hosted a appreciation dinner for hundreds of officers. New York Police dispatched two officers from each compound, along with some chiefs, the New York Police Commissioner and his deputy chief.
PORTLAND POLICE OFFICERS FIND FOREIGNERS HAVE MOLOTOVS
Now, more than at any other time in modern history, the police have been under sustained assault, as documented by videos and camera footage of the corps of federal and local officers. An Associated Press article Sunday documented the heartbreaking scene inside a Portland federal courthouse, where protesters have gathered every night to fire explosives at the building. The rioters have also fired laser beams into the officers’ eyes, leading to seemingly permanent eye damage, and none of them are expected to have anything to do with George Floyd.
“Every night for the past two months, a mob of hundreds of troublemakers has plagued federal court and other nearby federal properties,” Barr said, according to prepared comments. “The rioters arrive equipped for a fight, armed with powerful slingshots, tasers, maces, saws, knives, rifles, and explosive devices. Inside the courthouse are a relatively small number of federal law enforcement personnel charged with a defensive mission : Protect the court, home of Article III federal judges, from being invaded and destroyed. “
Barr is expected to add: “What unfolds every night around the courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest; it is, by any objective measure, an assault on the United States government. In recent nights, protesters They have closed the front door of the courthouse, ripped plywood from the windows with levers, and threw commercial grade fireworks into the building in an apparent attempt to set it on fire with federal personnel inside. “
The protesters, Barr will say, “have started fires outside the building, and then systematically attacked federal law enforcement officers trying to put them out, for example, by throwing rocks, frozen water bottles, food cans, and balloon-filled balloons at the officers. ” with fecal matter. A recent video showed a mafia enthusiastically beating a US Marshal deputy who was trying to protect the courthouse, a property of the United States government funded by this Congress, from further destruction. Several federal officials have been injured, including one severely burned by a mortar-style firework and three who have sustained serious eye injuries and may be permanently blind. Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even perfunctory attempts by rioters to connect their actions with the death of George Floyd or any legitimate call for reform. “
A federal officer firing crowd control ammunition outside the United States Courthouse Mark O. Hatfield last week in Portland, Oregon (AP Photo / Noah Berger)
Meanwhile, Democrats are expected to criticize Barr for seeking leniency in the sentencing of Trump’s ally Roger Stone, his idea alone, he insisted, and a “just decision based on merit.” The move promoted angry dissent at the Justice Department and the swift resignation of a well-regarded prosecutor, and although the judge imposed a shorter sentence than the trial team had sought, Trump commuted the sentence anyway.
Barr also moved to dismiss the prosecution of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, a request the Justice Department hoped would be simple, but which instead has sparked a pitched fight before a federal appeals court. . Barr dropped Flynn’s case only after a mountain of startling exculpatory evidence emerged, including a handwritten note from a top FBI official debating whether the office’s goal was to “get [Flynn] fired.”
OBAMA KNEW ABOUT FLYNN WIRETAPS, OFFICIAL SHOCKING DOJ, SHOW DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
And Barr attempted to fire the US attorney in Manhattan, but that did not go exactly as planned when US attorney Geoffrey Berman refused to withdraw, leaving Berman’s deputy in his place instead of the attorney Barr had selected to replace him.
Despite criticism, some acquaintances have insisted that Barr was only being Barr, that he was not motivated by ambition or anything more than the opportunity to put his sincere beliefs into practice.
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“You have nothing to prove from a professional or professional point of view,” said his colleague and friend, attorney Chuck Cooper. “He has been on the cusp of the legal profession for a long time. And in that sense, he is unlike any other attorney general. He has risen to that pinnacle once before.”
Jake Gibson, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press of Fox News contributed to this report.
