Bill Barr Interview - FULL TRANSCRIPT

Users and Lurkers of ATS,

CBS This Morning had Jan Crawford doing an exclusive one hour interview with Bill Barr. I have not seen any topics relating to this, but that may be do to recent media involving Kim and his executions as well as the oxygen destroying Mueller presser.
Barr's interview clears up a lot of the misconceptions we are seeing being thrown wildly around by both the liberal media and leftist.
This is a lot of material to cover, but in essence, it puts to rest much of the arguments that Leftist have tried to employ, such as the reasonings on "Possible obstruction" and why conclusions weren't made, why a four page summary was the result of work promised but never made the deadline, a lot of material clears a lot up.
I encourage all to read this transcript as it will become clear that Barr isn't messing around and that this is an old school hammer not seen since the cold war.
I will provide snippets and summaries of some, but mostly as a hook to get you all to read it yourselves as to rule out any third party perspectives but your own.

SOURCE: www.cbsnews.com...

JAN CRAWFORD: Mr. Attorney General, thank you very much for sitting down with us. So, obviously we saw the special counsel yesterday make that statement, he analyzed 11 instances where there were possible obstruction and then said that he really couldn't make a decision- conclusion on whether or not the president had in fact committed obstruction because of the existing OLC opinion in the legal counsel's office. Do you agree with that interpretation that that legal opinion prevented him from making a conclusion?
WILLIAM BARR: I am not sure he said it prevented him. I think what he said was he took that into account plus a number of other prudential judgments about fairness and other things and decided that the best course was not for him to reach a decision. I personally felt he could've reached a decision but--
WILLIAM BARR: The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office but he could've reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity but he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained and I am not going to, you know, argue about those reasons but when he didn't make a decision, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I felt it was necessary for us as the heads of the Department to reach that decision. That is what the Department of Justice does, that is why we have the compulsory powers like a grand jury to force people to give us evidence so that we can determine whether a crime has committed and in order to legitimate the process we felt we had to reach a decision.

Here, the AG says that Mueller could have reached a decision, but did not and that OLC and DOJ policy wasn't a factor in it, and of course only he and Barr knows his reasonings, which they don't get into, but beyond that, Barr and RR decided on the conclusion themselves because it's essentially what they do.

JAN CRAWFORD: Well, I mean, he seemed to suggest yesterday that there was another venue for this and that was Congress.
WILLIAM BARR: Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting but, you know, the Department of Justice doesn't use our powers of investigating crimes as an adjunct to Congress. Congress is a separate branch of government and they can, you know, they have processes, we have our processes. Ours are related to the criminal justice process we are not an extension of Congress's investigative powers.

The AG is basically saying, we're not errand boys of Congress and as far as he is concern, he isn't aware of anything that Mueller was trying to suggest at his presser.

As the interview goes on, there is some minor issues regarding a call between them two and that for the most part, all the information in Muellers report was being analyzed to determine a conclusion.
At some point, Barr makes an interesting omission...

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I think Bob said that he was not going to engage in the analysis. He was, he was not going to make a determination one way or the other. And he also said that he could not say that the president was clearly did not violate the law, which of course is not the standard we use at the department. We have to determine whether there is clear violation of the law and so we applied the standards we would normally apply. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction.
JAN CRAWFORD: As a matter of law?
As a matter of law. In other words, we didn't agree with the legal analysis- a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department. It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law but then we didn't rely on that. We also looked at all the facts, tried to determine whether the government could establish all the elements and as to each of those episodes we felt that the evidence was deficient.

This is most likely the result of the hyper partisan Democrat lawyers on Muellers team.

All in all, the interview is an example of true justice at work and will continue to resolve the issues we see.

a few more nuggets...

WILLIAM BARR: Well, we live in a hyper-partisan age where people no longer really pay attention to the substance of what's said but as to who says it and what side they're on and what it's political ramifications are. The Department of Justice is all about the law, and the facts and the substance and I'm going to make the decisions based on the law and the facts and I realize that's intention with the political climate we live in because people are more interested in getting their way politically. so I think it just goes with the territory of being the attorney general in a hyper-partisan period of time.

WILLIAM BARR: Right, because I didn't think the body politic would allow us to go on radio silence for four weeks. I mean, people were camped outside my house and the department and every- there was all kinds of wild speculation going on. Former senior intelligence officials who were purporting to have it- or intimating that they had inside information were suggesting that the president and his family were going to be indicted and so forth--

WILLIAM BARR: Right, and talking heads and things like that, and these things affect the United States' ability to function in the world. We have an economy. It could affect the economy. It can affect - it can affect our foreign relations during very delicate period of time with, you know, serious adversaries in the world. So I felt- that in order to buy time, in order to get the report out, I had to state the bottom line just like you're announcing a verdict in a case. My purpose there was not to summarize every jot and tittle of the report and every, you know, angle that - that Mueller looked into. But, just state the bottom line which I did in the four page memo.

Floor is yours...
EDIT001: This was intentionally put into the mudpit was a result of some hardened stances, we shall see what becomes of it.

a reply to: Arnie123

Barr did his job
Muller did part of his job

Barrs decision will stand
Congress can impeach the president at their pleasure as they define the rules for such.

The rest is simply bluster

The Russia investigation was the biggest nothingburger in US history.

Just revealed.. Bob Mueller did not write much of that 9 minute statement he read earlier in the week.

originally posted by: Middleoftheroad
The Russia investigation was the biggest nothingburger in US history.

The 500 Witnesses who were interviewed spent more than 75 million dollars on attorney fees... houses and savings we're lost, and lives were ruined over that investigation.

originally posted by: carewemust
Just revealed.. Bob Mueller did not write much of that 9 minute statement he read earlier in the week.

Many guessed that was the case but I hadn't seen that confirmed. Can you link that, Care?

I just got through reading the transcript and was hoping someone had shared it here to comment on.

Very encouraging that Barr seems to understand and is sincere in restoring some faith in our justice system. It's obvious that not only is he exceptionally intelligent, but also a straight-shooter that's not afraid to speak his mind.

a reply to: The GUT

I absolutely agree.

a reply to: Arnie123

So many lies, so little time.

He's exactly right that anti-Trump forces, not Trump, are responsible for the erosion of American institutions. All we have to do is look at the political justice system, the political intelligence community, the political media, and democrat astorturfing.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
a reply to: Arnie123

So many lies, so little time.

tut, tut snookums, the lies are about to be sorted out. There is a good chance we will all get to see behind the curtain and only then will we find out about true integrity. Some will show it, and some will not. Time will tell where you land.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
a reply to: Arnie123

So many lies, so little time.

Fascinating...

You hold Mueller in high regard and his report as gospel, yet Barr is telling lies???


No, the report has concluded and the decision formally left in the hands of the DOJ. They determined there was NOT sufficient evidence that would fall under obstruction of justice. As cited by the AG, they went through all 11 instances of "possible" obstruction and determined that none were of any merit to justify Obstruction of Justice.
Mueller's presser the other day was just that, a presser and nothing more. Not a signal to Congress or anything of that nature. In fact, Nadler knows the American people don't favor impeachment and without hard evidence, there isn't anything he and the Dems can do.
The only thing he'll do is simply continue to push more frivolous investigations while the Republicans continue to push legislation.
Ultimately, in the end, you just didn't quite have the power and ammo for a long term fight, like the Tariffs, Trump has you people figured out, y'all are too linear, y'all think too linear, it's like watching all your secret meetings in a small room, but the house is made of glass.
It's done, as Trump said, CASE CLOSED!

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
a reply to: Arnie123

So many lies, so little time.

Is it me or does this quote come off as "Comey-ish"?


Just missing a photo of some trees in a forest.

originally posted by: carewemust
Just revealed.. Bob Mueller did not write much of that 9 minute statement he read earlier in the week.

Blackmail 😎

Or a great act to place Democrats in a comfort zone 😎

I'm pretty sure a majority of Americans--especially those who have researched this issue--understand the need to look past partisanship. Some quotes from the transcript:

WILLIAM BARR: Right, when I, when I joined the CIA almost 50 years ago as an intern and this was during the Vietnam, civil rights era and there had been a lot…there were a lot of pending investigations of the CIA and there the issues were what was- when was it appropriate for intelligence agencies, the FBI too was under investigation.

You know, the penetration of civil rights groups because at the time there was concerns about contacts with, you know, communist funded front groups and things like that and you know how deeply could you get into civil rights groups or anti-Vietnam war groups. A lot of these groups were in contact with foreign adversaries, they had some contact with front organizations and so forth and there were a lot of rules put in place and those rules are under the attorney general.

The attorney general’s responsibility is to make sure that these powers are not used to tread upon first amendment activity and that certainly was a big part of my formative years of dealing with those issues. The fact that today people just seem to brush aside the idea that it is okay to you know, to engage in these activities against a political campaign is stunning to me especially when the media doesn’t seem to think that it’s worth looking into. They’re supposed to be the watchdogs of, you know, our civil liberties.

WILLIAM BARR: Well, we live in a hyper-partisan age where people no longer really pay attention to the substance of what’s said but as to who says it and what side they’re on and what it’s political ramifications are. The Department of Justice is all about the law, and the facts and the substance and I’m going to make the decisions based on the law and the facts and I realize that’s intention with the political climate we live in because people are more interested in getting their way politically. so I think it just goes with the territory of being the attorney general in a hyper-partisan period of time.

WILLIAM BARR: Right and I don’t have any reason to doubt that, but I’m wondering what exactly was the response to it if they were alarmed. Surely the response should have been more than just, you know, dangling a confidential informant in front of a peripheral player in the Trump Campaign.

WILLIAM BARR: Oh yes, and I think he is being very supportive and we’re working together on, you know, trying to reconstruct what happened. People have to understand, you know, one of the things here is that these efforts in 2016, these counter-intelligence activities that were directed at the Trump Campaign, were not done in the normal course and not through the normal procedures as a far as I can tell. And a lot of the people who were involved are no longer there.

WILLIAM BARR: Whether it’s adequately predicated. And look, I think if we — we are worried about foreign influence in the campaign? We should be because the heart of our system is the peaceful transfer of power through elections and what gives the government legitimacy is that process. And if foreign elements can come in and affect it, that’s bad for the republic. But by the same token, it’s just as, it’s just as dangerous to the continuation of self-government and our republican system, republic that we not allow government power, law enforcement or intelligence power, to play a role in politics, to intrude into politics, and affect elections.

JAN CRAWFORD: So it’s just as dangerous- So when we talk about foreign interference versus say a government abuse of power, which is more troubling?

WILLIAM BARR: Well they’re both, they’re both troubling.

JAN CRAWFORD: Equally?

WILLIAM BARR: In my mind, they are, sure. I mean, republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state. And you know, there is that tendency that they know better and that, you know, they’re there to protect as guardians of the people. That can easily translate into essentially supervening the will of the majority and getting your own way as a government official.

JAN CRAWFORD: And you are concerned that that may have happened in 2016?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I just think it has to be carefully look at because the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign to me is unprecedented and it’s a serious red line that’s been crossed.

WILLIAM BARR: That’s one of the, you know, one of the key responsibilities of the Attorney General, core responsibilities of the Attorney General is to make sure that government power is not abused and that the right of Americans are not transgressed by abusive government power. That’s the responsibility of the Attorney General.

JAN CRAWFORD: What have you seen? What evidence? What makes you think, I need to take a look at this? I mean, what have you seen in the summer of 2016?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I’ll say at this point is that it, you know, I- like many other people who are familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I’d get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions, and that some of the facts that- that I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.

WILLIAM BARR: Yes but you know, when you’re dealing with official government contact, intent is frequently a murky issue. I’m not suggesting that people did what they did necessarily because of conscious, nefarious motives. Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest, the better good. They don’t realize that what they’re doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have. They start viewing themselves as the guardians of the people that are more informed and insensitive than everybody else. They can- in their own mind, they can have those kinds of motives. And sometimes they can look at evidence and facts through a biased prism that they themselves don’t realize.

WILLIAM BARR: That something objectively as applied as a neutral principle across the board really you know, shouldn’t be the standard used in the case but because they have a particular bias they don’t see that. So that’s why procedures and standards are important and review afterward is an important way of making sure that government power is being conscientiously and properly applied. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there are people- you know, that people have crossed lines have done so with corrupt intent or anything like that.

JAN CRAWFORD: But it seems like you have a concern that there may have been a bias by top officials in the FBI as they looked at whether to launch and conduct this investigation?

WILLIAM BARR: Well it’s hard to read some of the texts with and not feel that there was gross bias at work and they’re appalling. And if the shoe were on the other–

JAN CRAWFORD: Appalling.

WILLIAM BARR: Those were appalling. And on their face they were very damning and I think if the shoe was on the other foot we could be hearing a lot about it. If those kinds of discussions were held you know when Obama first ran for office, people talking about Obama in those tones and suggesting that “Oh that he might be a Manchurian candidate for Islam or something like that.” You know some wild accusations like that and you had that kind of discussion back and forth, you don’t think we would be hearing a lot more about it?

originally posted by: carewemust
Just revealed.. Bob Mueller did not write much of that 9 minute statement he read earlier in the week.

The statement was probably written by the same person that wrote his report.

Weissmann.

It's also coming out that Mueller wasn't around a lot when the investigation was taking place.

Probably spending time with Comey in a motel room somewhere...

a reply to: carewemust

A lot of what he said he read from the report.

So what he didnt write it.

He's the boss. He has staff for stuff like that.
Is this a foreign concept or something?

a reply to: carewemust

boo hoo

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: carewemust

A lot of what he said he read from the report.

So what he didnt write it.

He's the boss. He has staff for stuff like that.
Is this a foreign concept or something?

A lot of what he read he was quite unfamiliar with, if you watched his presser.

Or he wouldn't have flat out lied and had to have it corrected later that night.

Wonder how much of his report he is actually familiar with?

Don't worry about that part of it... defense lawyers are going through it now since Barr pointed out that Mueller and team were not even aware of the right laws in the first place...

a reply to: Sillyolme

The Supreme Court might declare the entire Bueller Report unConstitutional 😎

This exchange was quite interesting.........

JAN CRAWFORD: What have you seen? What evidence? What makes you think, I need to take a look at this? I mean, what have you seen in the summer of 2016?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I'll say at this point is that it, you know, I- like many other people who are familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I'd get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions, and that some of the facts that- that I've learned don't hang together with the official explanations of what happened.

JAN CRAWFORD: What do you mean by that?

WILLIAM BARR: That's all I really will say. Things are just not jiving.....