Barr is a ‘tough on crime’ hypocrite, a Trump toady and chief law enforcement officer who makes a mockery of the legal system
No one has ever accused the US attorney general, William Barr, of being soft on crime. Just last year, he gave a speech in which he blasted progressive district attorneys who “style themselves as ‘social justice’ reformers” and then “spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law”. When these prosecutors do bring charges, he complained, they seek “pathetically lenient sentences”. Barr’s message was clear: the integrity of the criminal justice system had to be protected at all costs.
Given Barr’s track record of fulmination against weak prosecutors, it came as something as a surprise yesterday when he intervened in the case of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. Stone – an attention-seeking Republican bit-player whose crimes against fashion alone warrant a heavy sentence – committed a series of felonies including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress during the Mueller investigation. In turn, these crimes stemmed from Stone’s attempts to obfuscate his contact with WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
