MSNBC’s Ali Velshi tore Attorney General William Barr to shreds on Tuesday for playing dumb during his House testimony, particular on questions surrounding Donald Trump’s criminal friends.
Barr repeatedly denied having any knowledge about cases involving Trump’s corrupt allies, from Michael Flynn to Roger Stone to Michael Cohen.
“With respect to the Stone case, the attorney general said he stepped in and recommended a more lenient sentence entirely of his own accord, denying that he had any knowledge about the president’s thoughts about the matter, even though the president made his feelings clear in a tweet hours earlier,” Velshi pointed out.
“[Barr] needs to get some more feeds on his phone or something,” he added.
Video:
Ali Velshi crushes Bill Barr for playing dumb about all of Donald Trump’s criminal buddies. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/LVC2oV14Vd
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) July 29, 2020
Velshi said:
No legitimate reason to investigate [Michael Flynn], even though FBI intercepts clearly showed that Flynn lied to FBI agents when he said he did not discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador after Russia interfered in the election to help Donald Trump win the election. The attorney general has made no bones about the fact that he explicitly intervened in the case of Flynn as well as that of Trump’s longtime friend and one-time campaign adviser Roger Stone. Now, with respect to the Stone case, the attorney general said he stepped in and recommended a more lenient sentence entirely of his own accord, denying that he had any knowledge about the president’s thoughts about the matter, even though the president made his feelings clear in a tweet hours earlier. Everybody knew what president Trump was thinking about Roger Stone’s conviction. On the other issue of the president’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen being sent back to federal prison in what a federal judge later called an overt act of retaliation, Mr. Barr denied any knowledge. He told Democrats on the committee, ‘I didn’t even know of the decision to send him back.’ This guy needs to get some more feeds on his phone or something.
Barr’s DOJ is just an extension of Trump’s reelection campaign
With William Barr as his attorney general, Donald Trump has certainly gotten his money’s worth.
Not only has Barr let this president abuse his power and trample over the rule of law, but he has repeatedly meddled in cases that involve Trump.
And, as PoliticusUSA’s Jason Easley pointed out on Tuesday, Barr has most recently been actively helping Trump play up the myth that American cities are under siege, all to create mass fear ahead of the November election.
William Barr has never been the American people’s lawyer. He’s always been Donald Trump’s personal defender, and now he’s essentially a member of the president’s reelection campaign.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.