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William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignored
William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignoredThe two-time attorney general portrays himself as a bulwark against his former boss – but his accounts are highly selective In his new book, Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr complains that in the US, the “most educated and influential people are more attached to self-serving narratives than to factual truth”. Barr book reveals Trump’s secret to a ‘good tweet’: ‘just the right amount of crazy’Read moreBut in his own narrative of his tumultuous time as Trump’s top lawyer, Barr regularly omits inconvenient truths or includes self-serving versions of events previously reported with his evident input.Barr was only the second US attorney general to fill the role twice, working for George HW Bush from 1991 to 1993, then succeeding Jeff Sessions in 2019. His memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, will be published on 8 March. Excerpts have been reported by US news outlets. The Guardian obtained a copy.As widely reported, Barr defends himself from accusations that he was too close to Trump and acted to shield him over the Russia investigation and Robert Mueller’s final report on election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.He defends his decision to say Trump did not seek to obstruct justice during Mueller’s work, despite Mueller laying out 10 possible instances of such potentially criminal conduct.Barr also defends his decision to seek to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn and to lessen the sentence handed to Roger Stone, Trump allies convicted as a result of the Russia investigation.On other controversies, Barr’s accounts are often highly selective or noticeably incomplete.In June 2020, Barr was engulfed in controversy over the removal of Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney in the southern district of New York.Berman was investigating Trump’s business and allies including Rudy Giuliani. He was also supervising a case involving a Turkish bank which the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pressured Trump to drop.Shortly after John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, said Trump promised Erdoğan he would get rid of leaders in the southern district, Barr announced Berman was stepping down. When Berman said he would not quit, he was fired.The incident prompted calls for Barr to resign, including from the New York City Bar Association.In his book, Barr praises the “quality and experience of the group of US attorneys I inherited” and says he told them “to go full speed ahead on the department’s existing priorities”. He also says he regrets not installing an aide, Ed O’Callaghan, “into his dream job – US attorney in the southern district of New York”.But he does not mention Berman and how or why he fired him.Barr also defends his decision to restart federal executions after 17 years, which lead to 13 state killings in the final six months of Trump’s presidency. Barr describes, with apparent relish, the crimes of many of those killed.He does not mention Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years, whose lawyers argued she had brain damage from beatings as a child and suffered from psychosis and other mental conditions, having been sexually abused.Trump, the death penalty and its links with America’s racist history – podcastRead moreBarr also outlines why he thinks Trump lost the election and should not run again.His former boss’s volcanic anger is repeatedly described. Detailing Trump’s fury during protests against racial injustice outside the White House in June 2020 – after confirming that Trump was once hustled to a protective bunker, which Trump denied – Barr writes: “The president lost his composure.“Glaring around the semi-circle of officials in front of his desk, he swept his index finger around the semi-circle, pointing at all of us. ‘You’re all losers!’ he yelled, his face reddening … ‘You’re losers!’ he yelled again, tiny flecks of spit arcing to his desktop. ‘Fucking losers!’ It was a tantrum.”After that tantrum, peaceful protesters were violently cleared from Lafayette Square before Trump walked to a historic church to stage a photoshoot holding a Bible. Barr and other senior aides made the walk too.It was widely reported that Barr ordered the clearance. In his book, Barr says Trump told him to “take the lead” in dealing with the protesters. But he echoes an official report in saying the clearance was already planned by police.Barr portrays himself and other aides obstructing or defying Trump’s demands, including pressure to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, and the contents of a laptop obtained by Giuliani.“I cut him off again,” Barr writes, “raising my voice. ‘Dammit, Mr President! I can’t talk about that, and I am not going to!’“He was silent for a moment, then quickly got off the line.”Barr also gives space to his falling out with Trump over the president’s lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden – a rupture which happened after Barr controversially ordered the Department of Justice to investigate electoral fraud claims, a decision he now defends.A tempestuous meeting between Trump and Barr on 1 December 2021, at which the attorney general told the president no widespread fraud existed, has been widely reported. Such accounts do not say Barr attempted to resign. In his memoir, he says he did and that Trump accepted but was talked around.In his account of a meeting on 14 December 2020 at which he did resign, Barr says Trump first gave him a report which the president claimed contained “absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged [and] I won the election and will have a second term”.The House oversight committee released the report in June 2021, detailing how Trump sent it to Barr’s replacement, Jeffrey Rosen, shortly after Barr left his resignation meeting.But accounts of that meeting in books by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (Peril) and Jonathan Karl (Betrayal), heavily informed by Barr, do not say Trump gave Barr the report and that Barr, in his own words, said he would look into it.William Barr uses new book to outline case against Trump White House runRead moreThe report was produced by Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG), which Barr says “described itself as a cybersecurity firm in Texas”, and purported to deal with events in Antrim county, Michigan, a Republican area where a clerking error appeared to give Biden victory before a Trump win was confirmed.The report, Barr writes, concluded that voting machines were “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results”.Barr calls the report “amateurish” and “sensational” and its conclusion “an ipse dixit, a bald claim without even the pretense of supporting evidence”.Dominion Voting Systems, the company which made the machines, has sued Trump allies including Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Fox News, seeking billions in damages.Trump has not commented on Barr’s book. But he has previously called his attorney general – who many saw as a ruthless “hatchet man”, determined to do the president’s bidding – “afraid, weak and frankly … pathetic”.TopicsBooksWilliam BarrDonald TrumpUS politicsTrump administrationRepublicansPolitics booksanalysisReuse this content More
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Ron DeSantis suggests France would ‘fold’ if it was invaded by Russia
Ron DeSantis suggests France would ‘fold’ if it was invaded by RussiaThe 2024 presidential nominee contender also angrily chastised students on stage with him for wearing masks as ‘Covid theatre’
Ukraine crisis – live news
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has said France would not put up a fight if Russia invaded, as it did in Ukraine.White House unveils new Covid strategy including ‘test to treat’ plan – liveRead more“A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity,” DeSantis told reporters at a press event at South Florida University in Tampa on Wednesday.“I mean can you imagine if he [Vladimir Putin] went into France? Would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.”The governor also began the event by angrily attacking students present on the stage with him for wearing masks against Covid-19. “You do not have to wear those masks,” DeSantis said, pointing a finger.“I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this Covid theatre. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”Federal authorities have relaxed mask guidance in much of the US but the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 950,000 – and more than 70,000 in Florida alone.Anyone French who saw DeSantis’s remark might remember the bad jokes (“cheese-eating surrender monkeys”) and Orwellian doublespeak (french fries renamed “freedom fries”) that followed Jacques Chirac’s refusal to back the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.Amid much online mockery of DeSantis’s remarks, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, tweeted: “He went to Yale.”DeSantis also went to Harvard, to study law. Before entering politics, he was a Jag or US navy lawyer in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay. He regularly polls second in surveys of likely contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, behind Donald Trump.On Wednesday, after dissing the whole of France, he had praise for Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion.“And so those folks are stepping up,” he said, “but it’s, there’s a lot of problems I think between now and then and I think unfortunately it’s going to end up very, very ugly over the next weeks and months.”He also offered his view of Putin’s psyche, the evils of communism and whether the US should develop its own energy resources, at the expense of federal lands and efforts to fight the climate crisis, in order to lessen reliance on Russia.“Look at what’s going on and someone like Vladimir Putin,” he said. “You know, I analogise him to basically an authoritarian gas station attendant.“You look at their country, it’s a hollowed-out country but for the energy. And yes they have legacy nuclear weapons, which makes them much more dangerous than if they didn’t have those.“And so [Putin is] being fueled because America is not serious about energy independence. Right now Europe is not serious at all. So Europe is funding this guy. So he has the ability now to go in and flex muscle.”DeSantis also said Republicans under Trump “funded a lot of weapons for Ukraine … that has helped them put up a fight”.He did not mention that Trump’s first impeachment trial was for seeking dirt on his political rivals by withholding military aid – to Ukraine.TopicsRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansFloridaUkraineFrancenewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Texas primaries: Greg Abbott to face Beto O’Rourke in governor’s race
Texas primaries: Greg Abbott to face Beto O’Rourke in governor’s raceTrump’s endorsement wasn’t enough to prevent incumbent Ken Paxton from being forced into runoff for state attorney general Republican governor Greg Abbott will face Democrat Beto O’Rourke after voters in Texas opened what could be a lengthy, bruising primary season poised to reshape political power from state capitals to Washington.Both easily won their party’s nomination for governor on Tuesday.The GOP primary for state attorney general was more competitive. Donald Trump’s endorsement wasn’t enough to prevent incumbent Ken Paxton from being forced into a May runoff. He’ll face Texas land commissioner George P Bush, the nephew of one president and grandson of another, after neither captured a majority of the votes cast. While Paxton won more votes than Bush on Tuesday, his failure to win outright could raise questions about the power of Trump’s endorsement as he seeks to reshape the party in his image in other primaries later this year.Abbott is now in a commanding position as he seeks a third term, beginning his run with more than $50m and campaigning on a strongly conservative agenda in America’s largest Republican state.That leaves O’Rourke facing an uphill effort to recapture the momentum of his 2018 Senate campaign, when he nearly ousted Ted Cruz.“This group of people, and then some, are going to make me the first Democrat to be governor of the state of Texas since 1994,” O’Rourke told supporters in Fort Worth, where in 2018 he flipped Texas’ largest red county. “This is on us. This is on all of us.”Abbott said, “Republicans sent a message.”“They want to keep Texas on the extraordinary path of opportunity that we have provided over the past eight years,” his campaign said in a statement.Democrats faced challenges of their own. Nine-term US representative Henry Cuellar was trying to avoid becoming the first Democratic member of Congress to lose a primary this year. He will instead head into a runoff against progressive Jessica Cisneros.The primary season, which picks up speed in the summer, determines which candidates from each party advance to the fall campaign. The midterms will ultimately serve as a referendum on the first half of Joe Biden’s administration, which has been dominated by a pandemic that has proven unpredictable, along with rising inflation and a series of foreign policy crises. The GOP, meanwhile, is grappling with its future as many candidates seeking to emerge from primaries, including a sizable number in Texas, tie themselves to Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.Tuesday marked the state’s first election under its tighter new voting laws that, among other changes muscled through by the GOP-controlled legislature, require mail ballots to include identification – a mandate that counties blamed for thousands of rejected mail ballots even before election day. More than 10,000 mail ballots around Houston alone were flagged for not complying.Technical issues also caused problems in Texas’ largest county: paper jams and paper tears in voting machines would take a couple days to work through while counting continues, said Isabel Longoria, Harris county’s elections administrator.Several voting sites around Houston were also short-staffed, she said, causing tensions in some locations.Associated Press contributed to this storyTopicsTexasGreg AbbottBeto O’RourkeUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
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State of the Union: a moment of unity dissolves into partisan feuding
State of the Union: a moment of unity dissolves into partisan feuding Democrats and Republicans come together to condemn Putin – then it’s back to politics as usualVladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has managed to do what Joe Biden could not: bridge the partisan divide and bring, however fleetingly, the US Congress together.Many Democrats and Republicans who attended the US president’s first State of the Union address, on Tuesday night, wore yellow and blue in solidarity with Ukraine, with some holding miniature Ukrainian flags.And when Biden discussed the world-shaking events of the past week – this will inevitably be remembered as his Ukraine speech, irrespective of inflation and other domestic concerns – the chamber rose as one to applaud time and again.Putin “thought he could divide us at home in this chamber and this nation”, said Biden, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie. “He thought he could divide us in Europe as well. But Putin was wrong. We are ready, we are united and that’s what we did: we stayed united.”It was not a subject that Biden expected or wanted to be talking about even a few weeks ago. The man who gives a portrait of President Franklin D Roosevelt pride of place in the Oval Office now finds himself pivoting from New Deal FDR to wartime FDR, from sweeping economic reforms to facing down an unhinged European despot.Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine meant that Biden’s 62-minute speech was addressing not only the chamber on Capitol Hill and the nation but the world, even as bombs fell on Ukrainian cities. Some in Europe remain frustrated that the US has not done more to cow Putin. The president found himself cast in the role of what some still quaintly call “leader of the free world”.State of the Union takeaways: Biden talks tough on Putin and touts Covid progressRead more“We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine,” Biden said of withering sanctions. “Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever.”He promised to defend “every inch” of Nato territory.But Biden being Biden, infamous for his gaffes, all did not go smoothly. In a slip of the tongue, he said Putin would never gain the hearts and souls of the “Iranian” people when he meant Ukrainian.Curiously and ominously, the 79-year-old deviated from his prepared remarks to ad lib: “He has no idea what’s coming,” and finished the speech with a clenched fist and: “Go get him!”With Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert, this was no time for a repeat of President Ronald Reagan’s “We begin bombing in five minutes” quip.But Uncle Joe is stronger when it comes to bedside manner. There was a grace note of reassurance for Americans who have genuinely been discussing the possibility of a third world war. “I know the news about what’s happening can seem alarming to all Americans,” he said.“But I want you to know, we’re going to be OK, we’re going to be OK. When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger,” said Biden to a standing ovation.01:16Democrats and Republicans united in approval of Biden’s plan to close American airspace to all Russian flights and build a dedicated taskforce to go after the crimes of oligarchs. “We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”They united again in a tide of emotion as Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainan ambassador to the US, stood in the public gallery, whispering “thank you” with tears in her eyes, right hand on heart, left hand clutching a mini flag. Markarova was a guest of the first lady, Jill Biden, and travelled in the presidential motorcade from the White House to Capitol Hill.For a moment it was the 20th century again, when partisan differences seemed small compared to the external, existential threat of the Soviet Union. There is nothing so unifying as a common foe.Then came a jarring gear shift. When Biden moved to the domestic area, and took a swipe at the Donald Trump administration’s tax cuts for the rich, Republicans erupted in booing. For a moment, it was almost a surprise, but then not really: the bloodsport of daily politics had resumed.So it was that later, when Biden talked about security at the US-Mexico border, two far-right Republican House members, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, shouted “Build the wall!” as if trying to conjure Trump’s ghost from the depths. A Democrat snapped: “Sit down.”And when Biden made reference to flag-draped coffins returning from Afghanistan, Boebert heckled: “You put them in, 13 of them!” – a reference to the 13 US personnel who died during the evacuation. Democrats booed loudly in response.But when Biden spoke of crime and declared: “The answer is not to defund the police,” both sides united in cheering again while Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laughed rather than clapped and her fellow progressive Ilhan Omar sat stony-faced.The president’s Build Back Better agenda has stalled but he pushed some of its components. Likewise he warned that voting rights were “under assault”. His nemesis on both counts, the Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, sat between the Republicans Mitt Romney and Roger Wicker in an extravagant gesture of bipartisanship unlikely to charm liberals.It was another sign that the more things change, the more they stay the same in the theatre of the State of the Union. For the first time in its history, two women – Vice-President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – sat behind the president.As members of Congress from each side cheered or jeered each punchline, five supreme court justices and military men worked hard to remain still and expressionless.Senators and representatives were physically distanced on the floor and in the public gallery but face masks were gone – a hopeful sign of time healing all. “Let’s use this moment to reset,” Biden pleaded. “Let’s stop looking at Covid-19 as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it is: a God-awful disease. Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies, and start seeing each other for who we really are: fellow Americans.”Putin, not Biden, might achieve that end. The president’s approval rating is dismal and there is no guarantee this primetime address will do anything to arrest the decline.Was it a speech for the ages, with a ringing phrase that will define this moment of global peril? Perhaps not. But it will have made millions of people in America and around the world grateful that the man at the podium was not Donald Trump.TopicsState of the Union addressThe US politics sketchJoe BidenUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUkraineRussiafeaturesReuse this content More
