Why is William Barr behaving so badly?

Even The Washington Examiner is wondering, what is going on?
Shame on William Barr!  First, he legitimizes Trump's obstruction of justice reported by Robert Mueller and now his reputation is being further compromised by appearing to accept emoluments*, while being entertained at Trump hotels.

Echo report in Vox by Aaron Rupar

Attorney (#fakeAGBarr) General William Barr was photographed dining at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night — a business his boss, Donald Trump, still owns and profits from, and one that has become something of a de facto clubhouse for business people and government officials looking to curry favor with the president.

In fact, The Washington Examiner reported how the spotting of Trump and Barr comes at a time when Democrats in Congress are fighting the Justice Department for full access to special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has accused the Trump administration of a "cover-up" that extends to Democrat-led investigations into Trump, his inner circle, and his finances, while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has called the attorney general Trump's "personal attorney."

Zach Everson, who reports on conflicts of interest stemming from the Trump International Hotel, tweeted that it was his “first time seeing Barr” at the hotel.

Trump was also at the hotel for an event hosted by America First Action, the Super PAC supporting his reelection. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported that the plan was for Trump to address “high-dollar donors” who have contributed to his reelection effort.

ABC’s Ali Dukakis snapped a photo of Barr dining at a restaurant in the hotel.

Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to divest from the business he still owns and profits from while president. Although his sons Donald Jr. and Eric are responsible for the day-to-day management of his corporate empire, the hotel — which Trump leases from the federal government — is one of his most lucrative properties. According to a financial disclosure form released earlier this month, Trump International generated nearly $40.8 million in revenue for the president in 2018.

Not only do people who spend money at Trump’s hotel directly line the president’s pockets, creating potential conflicts of interest the Constitution’s emoluments clause is aimed at preventing, but by patronizing the Trump International on a night the president was there for a political event, Barr promoted Trump’s business. For donors, lobbyists, or foreign governments who want access to the administration, the message is clear: Patronizing the president’s business is a way to get it.

In theory, the attorney general is supposed to run the Department of Justice independently of the executive branch. 

This is a principle Trump seemed to understand back in the summer of 2016, when he made a big deal about then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch having a private conversation at the Phoenix, Arizona, airport with Bill Clinton while the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was still open.

That meeting was also a bad look, and it resulted in Lynch saying, “I certainly wouldn’t do it again.” She tried to quell concerns by announcing she’d accept whatever charging recommendation regarding Clinton the FBI made.

But the norm of DOJ independence is being obliterated by the Trump administration. Barr’s visit to Trump’s hotel came less than two months after he sent a misleading letter to Congress announcing that Trump would not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, despite the evidence of obstruction laid out in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report — a report he wouldn’t make public until weeks later.

Since then, Barr has conferred legitimacy upon Trump’s flimsy conspiracy theories about the entire Mueller investigation being rooted in anti-Trump bias in the FBI, and threatened to investigate Democrats who accused him of lying to Congress during his testimony about the Mueller report. 

Trump, for his part, has promised that Barr “is going to give a very fair look” to the baseless treason allegations he’s made against law enforcement officials and Democrats.

Barr has now taken things further and patronized the president’s business on the same night of an event meant to help his reelection campaign. That the Lynch-Clinton meeting was a huge scandal and Barr’s trip to the Trump International isn’t reflects the extent to which the Trump administration has normalized corruption.

*A salary, fee, or profit from employment or office.

#fakeBarrLetter - egregious letter did not exonerate Donald Trump: multiple echo opinions

Echo opinion published in Rolling Stone by Tim Dickinson

...."Barr letter was wildly inadequate"...

Release the Mueller report now- Byron York in The Washington Examiner

NPR:  After #fakeBarrLetter was released, an overwhelming majority wants full Mueller report (special counsel) released. 

Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone: For the sake of American democracy, and the public’s faith in our justice system, the full, final report produced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller must be made public. Immediately.

Sunday’s slender, four-page memo to Congress by Attorney General William Barr was wildly inadequate. Claiming that the special counsel had not found an illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, Barr provided a cursory summary of Mueller’s findings — managing to not even quote a complete sentence of the actual report.

More egregious: Barr used the same letter to slam shut a heavy door that Mueller appeared to intentionally leave open. The special counsel presented evidence for a possible charge of obstruction of justice by Donald Trump, writing: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Mueller described “difficult issues” of fact and law that needed to be weighed, based on 22 months of investigation. Barr made his assessment in less than 48 hours, concluding that no such crime had been committed, because the president’s (all too public) attempts at a cover-up did not, in the end, conceal an underlying crime.

The Mueller report must be released in full. The impetus behind the special counsel statute is to enable investigations to take place outside the normal bounds of partisanship. Even in our hyper-polarized environment, Mueller’s investigation appeared insulated from the thrum of politics, gaining the trust of nearly 60 percent of Americans. It is unacceptable, then, that the only public glimpse of the special counsel’s work has been filtered through a Trump political appointee.

And Barr is not just any political appointee. 

In fact, he may have been picked to lead the Justice Department precisely because of his views that Trump is immune from obstruction of justice charges in the context of this particular investigation. In June 2018, five months before his appointment by president Trump to lead the DOJ, Barr submitted a memo titled simply “Mueller’s ‘Obstruction’ Theory.”

That memo is nearly five times the length of Barr’s Sunday letter to Congress. Last summer, Barr wrote that Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, and his suggestion that Comey not prosecute former national security adviser Michael Flynn, were not acts of obstruction absent an underlying crime. “[T]he President’s motive in removing Comey and commenting on Flynn could not have been ‘corrupt’ unless the President and his campaign were actually guilty of illegal collusion,” Barr wrote, “[b]ecause the obstruction claim is entirely dependent on first finding collusion.” In sum, Barr concluded: “Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived.” (#fakeBarrLetter)

In his new letter to Congress, Barr leaned on the same logic in justifying his decision not to indict Trump for obstruction: “In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that ‘the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.’” Barr added another sentence or two of legalese, but the Attorney General is saying, in essence, that a coverup in the absence of an underlying crime is not obstruction.

Barr’s behavior in this case raises a troubling possibility: That his appointment to head the Department of Justice, and his work in that post under color of law, is itself an act of obstruction by the president of the United States — that Trump is using his powers as the nation’s chief executive to tip the scales of justice in his own favor.

Until the Mueller report is released in full, Americans will rightly doubt the integrity of our justice system. That creeping doubt is a cancer, capable of hollowing trust in yet another core institution of our republic. Sunshine in this case is the only cure. But Barr, in his letter to Congress, indicated that he intends to shield some of Mueller’s work product from public view, citing secrecy that “protects the integrity of grand jury proceedings.”

The full publication of Mueller’s report and evidence will not satisfy everyone. Some Russiagate theorists will never be convinced that President Trump’s rise to the White House was possible in absence of a partnership with Vladimir Putin. The confounding decision by Mueller not to make a prosecutorial recommendation on the obstruction of justice charge may remain confounding, even in the light of all evidence. But the citizens of our democracy deserve the chance to struggle over these facts, honestly and evenly.

Congress has made clear its intention: By a vote of 420 to 0 the House of Representatives has called for the release of the Mueller report. A recent poll found 81 percent of the American public also want the report published in its entirety. Neal Katyal, who helped draft the regulations that govern the special counsel, wrote recently: “Absolutely nothing in the law or the regulations prevents the report from becoming public.” The health of our democracy depends on it.