Can you see the puzzle pieces fitting into place?
I can.
For two years we’ve all wondered if Bill Barr was a white hat or a Deep State shill.
The jury may still be out on that.
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I tend to lean towards Deep State shill because I can’t point to one thing he actually did for the patriots while in office.
Yet President Trump gave him a very warm Tweet on the way out the door, which is more than others have received.
Take a look:
Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job! As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2020
…Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General. Thank you to all! pic.twitter.com/V5sqOJT9PM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2020
So who are these new guys?
Well, they have close ties to General Flynn!
How do you like that?
Take a look:
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1338623839719333890
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1338624644434292737
I like his replacement.
Deputy AG to be Richard Donoghue, who served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division – the same military unit General Michael Flynn was part of.
— Tom Greeves (@GreevesTom) December 14, 2020
Sometimes it helps me to see what the other side is saying.
And when the Black Lives Matter people have this to say about someone, I know they must actually be a great patriot:
Corrupt Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outlandish person, will become a worse Attorney General.
Lowly & disrespected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of degrading the Deputy Attorney General’s office. DAMN you to all, especially #CrybabyTrump!
🖕🏽 pic.twitter.com/y2sRVX20ma— Donood J. Twump #BlackLivesMatter (@WealDonoodTwump) December 14, 2020
I do have some concerns about Rosen.
Rosen is from the same globalist law firm as Barr.
From the DOJ:
Jeffrey A. Rosen is the 38th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. In this role, he acts as the Department of Justice’s Chief Operating Officer and advises and assists the Attorney General in leading the Department’s more than 110,000 employees. President Trump announced his intent to nominate Mr. Rosen to this position on February 19, 2019, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination on May 16, 2019.
As the Justice Department’s second-ranking official, Mr. Rosen oversees all of the Department’s components, including its law enforcement agencies, litigating divisions, ninety-four U.S. Attorney offices, and its management, policy and other staff offices. Mr. Rosen maintains a strong focus on implementation of the Department’s key priorities, including protection of national security, protection of public safety by combatting violent crime and drugs, safeguarding civil rights and liberties, and maintaining the rule of law.
Mr. Rosen has guided numerous initiatives, including an antitrust review of online technology platforms, criminal and civil opioids enforcement and legislation, investigations and prosecutions of IP theft and of cyberhacking, counter-UAS measures to facilitate safe use of drones, redress of pandemic-related fraud, and reform of regulatory and administrative law, among others. In February 2020 Mr. Rosen presented oral argument to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving prison inmate litigation (Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez).
Though most of Mr. Rosen’s nearly four-decade career was in the private sector, he has almost a decade of public sector experience, including U.S. Senate confirmations on two previous occasions. Prior to arriving at the Department of Justice, Mr. Rosen served as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation (2017-2019), where he was the Chief Operating Officer of a Cabinet Department with more than 55,000 employees and a budget in excess of $80 billion. Other appointed public sector positions include General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor for the White House Office of Management and Budget (2006-2009) and General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation (2003-2006). He was also an appointed Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (2013-2017).
In the private sector, Mr. Rosen first joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis as an associate in 1982 and became a partner in 1988. He was elected to that firm’s global management committee in 1999. After his public-service appointments during 2003-2009, Mr. Rosen returned to Kirkland & Ellis LLP as a partner from 2009-2017. Throughout his years in private practice, Mr. Rosen handled complex litigation across the United States, including jury trials, bench evidentiary hearings, arbitrations, and appellate arguments. Among his wide-ranging litigation practice were cases involving antitrust, securities, RICO, business torts, trade secrets, contracts, government enforcement actions, and product liability, including class actions, as well as regulatory matters.
Mr. Rosen served as the Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice during 2015-2016. In addition, he previously served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught Professional Responsibility and Legal Ethics.
Mr. Rosen received a B.A. (economics) with highest distinction from Northwestern University (1979) and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School (1982).
Here’s what CNN had to say (and note that they are not celebrating Barr’s departure, which is interesting):
For much of the last two years, Bill Barr was regarded as Donald Trump’s most-valued wingman.
The attorney general enabled the President’s darkest instincts on the possibility of vote fraud in mail-in ballots. He compared lockdown orders as a result of the coronavirus pandemic to slavery. He tried to have the Justice Department take over the President’s defense in a defamation suit filed against Trump.
Given all of that, there might be a tendency to believe that Barr’s resignation as the nation’s top cop Monday night — a move that came after multiple reports that the President was considering firing him — marks the end of a era in which the Department of Justice was used (and misused) to further the political whims of the President.
Don’t be so sure.
While there’s no doubt that Barr, on a number of occasions, made himself a willing participant in Trump’s efforts to turn the Justice Department into his own private score-settling agency, there’s been several examples of late in which Barr bucked the President’s wishes in critical moments.
Consider:
* According to The Wall Street Journal, Barr went out of his way this past fall to ensure that the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings never went public in the course of a presidential campaign in which Trump sought to make the son of his Democratic opponent a major issue.
* Earlier this month, Barr directly contradicted Trump’s repeated claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the presidential election. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the Associated Press in an interview.Those twin moves suggest that, while he was willing to bend to Trump’s will, Barr’s ultimate loyalty — at least in these instances — was with the rule of law.
Which, of course, made Trump angry. And made him want to get rid of Barr. Which, effectively, he did on Monday night — as Barr’s resignation is rightly understood as one forced by the President’s repeated public attacks on him. (Don’t forget: Trump suggested, in an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo that both the FBI and Department of Justice might be involved in the attempt to keep him from winning. He offered no proof of this massive claim.)
All of which begs this question: If Barr wasn’t loyal enough to Trump or willing to do everything the President asked of him, what will the post-Barr DOJ look like for the final weeks of the Trump presidency?
In announcing Barr’s resignation, the President also said that Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen would serve as the acting attorney general — although he did not specify whether Rosen would hold that job for the remainder of Trump’s term.
Trump has previously expressed his preference for “acting” officials in key roles. “I like acting because I can move so quickly,” he said in 2019. “it gives me more flexibility.”
It also gives him more control over the broader government apparatus as he can place unquestioning loyalists in posts without having to worry about those people being confirmed by the Senate.
What that means for the DOJ is that Trump is very likely to enjoy something close to unfettered control over the department between now and January 20.
That could mean the appointment of a special counsel to ensure the Hunter Biden investigation continues beyond the Trump presidency.
It could mean increased pressure on special counsel John Durham, who is investigating the origins of the Russia counter-intelligence probe in 2016, to announce his findings and/or bring charges.
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