Misleading Congress Appears to Be a Tactic of Barr
This tidbit was reported in an October 13, 1989 Los Angeles Times. In a June 21 (1989) legal opinion requested by Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, Assistant Atty. Gen. William P. Barr reversed a ruling dating back to the Carter Administration denying the FBI authority to take unilateral action overseas in what was then referred to as the President’s snatch authority. The earlier Carter ruling had also warned federal agents could face kidnaping charges abroad if they used such tactics.
The ruling was made with regard to bringing Panama’s Noriega to trial for drug- trafficking. Assistant Atty. Gen. William P. Barr refused to discuss the broad new grant of power, the legal grounds used to justify it, or even to acknowledge its existence even though the earlier ruling in 1980 was made public.
When Congress asked to see the full legal opinion; Barr refused and said he would provide an account that “summarizes the principal conclusions.”
Yale law school professor Harold Koh wrote that Barr’s position was “particularly egregious.”
Congress had no appetite for Barr’s stance and issued a subpoena to acquire the full OLC opinion out of the Justice Department.
Koh posits:
“Barr’s continuing refusal to release the 1989 opinion left outsiders with no way to tell whether it rested on factual assumptions that did not apply to the earlier situation, which part of the earlier opinion had not been overruled, or whether the overruling opinion contained nuances, subtleties, or exceptions that Barr’s summary in testimony simply omitted.”
In 1991, Congress obtained a copy of Barr’s 1989 opinion which was later published by the Clinton Administration. What Barr did not disclose and which can be reviewed in Just Security’s Ryan Goodman’s “Barr’s Playbook: He Misled Congress When Omitting Parts of Justice Dep’t Memo in 1989” was:
• The 1989 opinion asserted that the President could violate the United Nations Charter because such actions are “fundamentally political questions.”
• The Presumption of acts of Congress comply with international law.
• A failure to report to Congress the opinion discussed international law on abduction in foreign countries.
While not the principal conclusions of the opinion and whether wrong or right, Barr “represented to Congress in his written and oral testimony that the OLC opinion did not address these legal issues, even though it did.”
Ultimately, the 11th Circuit held that his arrest and prosecution in the U.S. was legitimate. As far as I can tell, the Supreme Court did not rule on his case.
Correction: the Supreme Court denied certiorari.
JackD:
Was the question that Barr conceals things and lies to Congress or that it is legitimate to abduct people and find out years later Barr lied?
The question was whether it was legitimate for the U.S. to go into a foreign country without permission and arrest someone. They claimed and the court agreed that he was not the “legitimate” leader of Panama.
Jack:
The post is from 1989 time span as updated recently. The COA decided in 1997. Up till that point, Congress was correct in doing what they did. The International Community did not agree.
On July 10, 1992, Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison.[
Yes, the 11th District decided in 1997. The issue was from 1989 for which Barr was subpoenaed by Congress. If Congress knew the 11th District COA would decide the way they did, then perhaps they would not have subpoenaed Barr for the full report which was published by the Clinton Administration. Barr is not going to tell us what we need to know now unless he is again forced to do so..
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Manuel Antonio NORIEGA, Defendant-Appellant.
Nos. 92-4687, 96-4471.
Decided: July 07, 1997
On December 29, the United Nations General Assembly voted, 75–20 with 40 abstentions, to condemn the invasion as a “flagrant violation of international law”.[118][119] The invasion was followed by widespread looting, as the Panamanian police stood by; Kempe reported that the looters caused half a billion U.S. dollars in damages, which the U.S. government later helped repair. According to a CBS poll, 92% of Panamanian adults supported the U.S. incursion, and 76% wished that U.S. forces had invaded in October during the coup. Activist Barbara Trent disputed this finding, saying in a 1992 Academy Award-winning documentary The Panama Deception that the Panamanian surveys were completed in wealthy, English-speaking neighborhoods in Panama City, among Panamanians most likely to support U.S. actions. Human Rights Watch described the reaction of the civilian population to the invasion as “generally sympathetic”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega
The legitimacy was not decided till 1997 by the 11th District COA or if you prefer 1992 when Noriega was convicted.
Check out this absurd guest on Faux News:
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/ken-starr-says-he-fears-mueller-team-put-together-an-anti-trump-report/
Ken Starr is accusing Team Mueller of writing a partisan report! I guess he thinks there was not enough on Bill Clinton’s sex life!
Jack,
Looks like they may be playing that hand again with regard to Venezuela.
Nanute,
In Noriega’s case they had a claim of violation of U.S. criminal laws re drugs. With Maduro, not so clear. I wouldn’t doubt they’re working on it.
run,
I wasn’t arguing in support of Barr’s statements, deceptive or otherwise. I was simply pointing out that the U.S. courts ended up supporting his position. I also was not arguing in support of the court’s holding. I generally agree with the U.N.’s condemnation of our action and believe that it simply added to the experiences that convince central and southern Americans that the U.S. treats the continents as part of its empire. Most of the U.S.’s actions have been in support of U.S. business interests in other countries which is ironic in a country that took its land by force from the British empire and from the indigenous people who occupied that land to begin with.
Jack:
The “whole” point of this post was Barr misleading 13(?) page memo which deceptively misled Congress well before Noriega was captured, the first trial, and the Appeal to the 11th COA. Unless you are telling me, both courts said it is ok to mislead Congress? I seriously doubt they did. If they did, I will read both decisions as I would like to see what they said about Barr misleading Congress. The courts finding are separate from Barr failure to supply the information Congress asked for from Barr.
No, the courts did not say it was OK to mislead Congress. They didn’t address that question. I doubt that question could be presented to the courts in any meaningful way. The reason the questions were posed to Barr in the first place was because of concern about the lawfulness of the “snatch” issue. The courts did address that. I agree with you that Barr is not to be trusted.
Jack:
As expected, Barr has come out and disagreed with Mueller’s findings (just a quick reading of a comment). If Mueller would talk (doubtful), it would be good to hear what he had to say.
Maduro was elected, a detail the “west” puts under the rug.
Russia and China hold quite an amount of Venezuelan debt. .
Barr appeared to make the odd argument that Trump’s actions that were arguably obstruction or justice were not illegal because he did them while “justifiably angry”, or words to that effect. The man is a shill, pure and simple.
Jack:
Even though Repubs could appoint him, Barr has a history of deflecting and/or supporting an issue regardless of it being ethical or legal, and Dems always fail to point this out using his actions in the past as an example.
Barr is simply a horrible excuse for a human being. Seems like trump attracts those kind of people.
“Say what you will about the Nixon people, but they worked at their crimes. What we saw Thursday, when William Barr cemented his legacy as a hack in constitutional history, was one of the laziest attempts at a political cover-up you ever will see. Barr wasn’t even trying hard, and it showed, most graphically, when he explained what he believes the El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago’s motivation in this whole affair.
‘In assessing the President’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as President, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President’s personal culpability.
Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, the President took no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the President had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.’
My god, what a complete tool this man is.
First of all, there was nothing “unprecedented” about the president*’s situation. Ask all the people who got ground up in Ken Starr’s endless pursuit of Bill Clinton. (Susan McDougal might have a little something to say.)
Second, Barr seriously argued that the president* couldn’t be expected to follow the law because he was frustrated and mad. If the president* obstructed justice, well, it was the media’s fault.
Third, Barr seriously argued that a president* fired the FBI director and forced out his previous attorney general, in both cases because, in the president*’s fevered mind, they insufficiently protected him.
And, last, this president* doesn’t “sincerely believe” anything. At least, not longer than five minutes at a time. This was living, breathing, writhing corruption, right there in front of god and the world.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27194275/william-barr-press-conference-robert-mueller-testify/