Editorial 5/3/19

Nick Campbell, @TheNCExperience

With the recent release of the Mueller report, the world was able to read the conclusions to the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. U.S. Attorney General William Barr was tasked with delivering the summary of this report’s findings to Congress, a task that would soon see controversy. Trouble began brewing early for Barr for a variety of reasons.

First, he set up a press conference to discuss and summarize the findings, putting an obvious partisan spin on the findings in Trump’s favor. This was not only unprecedented, but also unethical according to several legal scholars and experts. The office of the Attorney General is not supposed to protect a sitting president, but rather be a check and balance to the executive branch.

Second, it’s been revealed that Barr wrongly summarized the findings of the report, making it appear as if Trump had been exonerated from his actions when the report did not do so. Robert Mueller himself called Barr out for his mishandling of the report, writing him a scathing letter complaining he did not capture the context behind the report.

In capitulating his duties as Attorney General, Barr set up a Constitutional crisis that many experts have warned of since Trump’s election.

Hillary Clinton summed up the issue accurately: “The President being able to fire investigators is the road to tyranny.”

Without checks and balances, the Constitution is irrelevant and has no teeth per se. Even the Supreme Court has gotten so partisan that its own independence is being called into question.  Due to Barr’s obvious bias, he is facing public pressure and demands for his resignation.

One could argue that we haven’t seen this level of chaos, bias and corruption in an administration in decades. You’d have to go all the way back to the Nixon administration to see such chaos and investigations coupled with talk of impeachment. Even more concerning, as it stands now, nothing can be done about the disorder. That is, until the 2020 election in which America will decide if we will continue down this foxhole, or not.