Bill Barr Goes All-in to Support Anti Trump Campaign
Appearing on Rupert Murdoch’s network Fox News, former Attorney General Bill Barr frame his false construct in the documents case against President Trump.
First, the obvious. Barr is motivated in his position because this is the constructed inflection point against Donald Trump. The severity of his position, the pretending not to know things, the defensive position about the power of government institutions, all of it is expressed in sum and total for one primary purpose; this is the moment they have manufactured to take Trump down. This is the DC Republican moment all preceding moments were designed to support.
Second, on the details. Barr states with emphasis, the “presidential daily brief (PDB) is not the president’s personal document,” it is a document provided for him by the U.S. intelligence community (IC). Worth noting here is a little factoid that runs in opposition to Barr:
WASHINGTON – […] “while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who was dual-hatted as national security adviser and secretary of state.
In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers. By 2013, Obama’s PDB was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments.” [Source]
No one is saying the Trump PDB is Trump’s “personal document“, the point is the PDB’s in question -those noted in the indictment- were part of President Trump’s papers, his administration records; able to be reviewed and critiqued by anyone the president would assign, including speechwriters. Barr us making a non-sequitur.
Third, Barr notes the documents created by government officials are different from personal papers of the President. Perhaps technically true, an argument and debate that takes place after all administrations. However, if government owned, why did government officials (NARA) then stack the documents in the White House parking lot for President Trump to take.
Lastly, like all pundits and commentators all weekend, everyone is intentionally pretending not to know the difference between ‘classified documents’ and ‘documents containing classification markings’. The former is not part of the argument, the latter wording is artful Lawfare language.
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