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Barr Brings Accountability

Trump’s foes call it‘stunning and scary.’ Here’s whatthey have to be scared about.

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April11, 2019 646 pm ET

Kimberley A. Strassel

The most inadvertently honest reaction to Attorney General William Barr’s congressional

testimony this week came from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Mr. Barr had bluntly called out the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “spying” on the

Trump campaign in 2016. Mr. Clapper said that was both “stunning and scary.” Indeed.

No doubt a lot of former Obama administration and Hillary Clinton campaign officials,

opposition guns for hire, and media members are stunned and scared that the Justice

Department finally has a leader willing to address the FBI’s behavior in 2016. They worked

very hard to make sure such an accounting never happened. Only in that context can we

understand the frantic new Democratic-media campaign to tar the attorney general.

Mr. Barr told the Senate Wednesday that one question he wants answered is why nobody

at the FBI briefed the Trump campaign about concerns that low-level aides might have

had inappropriate contacts with Russians. That’s “normally” what happens, Mr. Barr said,

and the Trump campaign had two obvious people to brief— Rudy Giuliani and Chris

Christie, both former federal prosecutors.

It wasn’t only the Trump campaign that the FBI kept in the dark. The bureau routinely

briefs Congress on sensitive counterintelligence operations. Yet former Director James

Comey admits he deliberately hid his work from both the House and the Senate. And the

FBI kept information from yet another overseer, the judicial branch, failing to tell the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the Clinton campaign and Democratic

National Committee had paid for the dossier it presented as a basis for a surveillance

warrant against Carter Page, a U.S. citizen.

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Why the secrecy? Mr. Comey testified that the Trump probe was simply too sensitive for

members of congressional intelligence committees to know about—an unbelievable

statement given the heavy publicity he gave the investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s improper

handling of classified information. Here’s a more plausible explanation: Mr. Comey and

his crew have also testified that they were all convinced Mrs. Clinton would win the

election. That would have meant that no politician other than the incoming Democratic

president would have known the FBI had spied on the Trump team. Nor would the public.

A Clinton presidency would have ensured no accountability.

Mr. Trump’s victory destroyed that scenario, and it became clear that the new Republican

president would soon know that the former Democratic administration had surveilled his

campaign on the basis of information from his rival. At that point two things happened.

Neither was accidental, and both were aimed, again, at forestalling accountability.

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First, Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials, including Mr. Clapper, engineered the

public release of all the scandalous claims against Mr. Trump, to provide some cover. As

liberal commentator Matt Taibbi notes in his new book, “Hate Inc.” Mr. Comey’s Jan. 6,

2017, briefing of the president-elect about the dossier was a classic Washington “trick.” It

served as the “pretext” to get the details out, a “news hook” to allow the press to publish

the dossier—with its salacious fictions about prostitutes and Moscow hotel rooms—and

go wild.

Democrats used the furor in their successful push for a special counsel, which gave

greater legitimacy to the FBI’s probe. The appointment of a special counsel also froze

other oversight. Congress can’t have access to certain documents or ask witnesses certain

questions, since that might interfere with the probe. The White House can’t demand

answers, because that too would interfere. Mr. Trump’s adversaries got to hide behind

Robert Mueller for nearly two years.

Second, Democrats mobilized against the other big threat, incoming Attorney General Jeff

Sessions, who had the authority to conduct an internal review. Don’t forget, the dossier

wasn’t delivered only to the FBI. Its ultimate owners were the Clinton campaign and the

DNC. And one huge outstanding question is just how many Democrats pushing for Mr.

Sessions’ recusal in early 2017 did so with full knowledge of the FBI-Clinton tie-up.

Certainly no Republicans were aware, and thus they were clueless to the bigger

consequences of the unnecessary Sessions recusal.

Namely, that no outsider would take a hard look at the FBI. The Russia question fell to

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, an institutionalist who would go on to sign the

final application for a surveillance warrant against Mr. Page. Again, no accountability.

Meantime, wonder why Democrats tried so hard to mau-mau Mr. Barr into also recusing

himself? The goal all along has been to deep-six any discovery until a Democrat returns to

the White House.

Mr. Barr didn’t merely refuse to recuse; he’s made clear he plans to plumb the FBI’s

actions thoroughly. That makes him Threat No. 1 to everyone who participated in these

abuses, and it’s why the liberal media establishment is now disparaging his integrity.

They are stunned and scared—that accountability has returned to the Justice

Department.

Senate Cloakroom

@SenateCloakroom

Invoked, 55-42: Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #35 Wendy Ruth Sherman to be Deputy Secretary of State

@StateDept

12:30 PM · Apr 13, 2021·Twitter Web App

https://twitter.com/SenateCloakroom/status/1382053500260073480?s=20

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Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman is a professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, she is a senior fellow at the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Ambassador Sherman is senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is currently an MSNBC global affairs contributor and on the USA TODAY Board of Contributors. Ambassador Sherman is the author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence published by PublicAffairs, September 2018.

She serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, and the Massachusetts Women's Forum. Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama. Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was vice chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and special advisor to president Clinton and policy coordinator on North Korea, and assistant secretary for legislative affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher.

Ambassador Sherman, with a Masters in Social Work, began her career as director of child Welfare for the State of Maryland. Later, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, served as director of EMILY’s List and ran Campaign ’88 at the Democratic National Committee for the Dukakis presidential campaign. She served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/wendy-sherman