Todd Bishop
With US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially launching an impeachment investigation of US President Donald Trump on September 24, the US Department of Justice was spotlighted by public opinion in this storm.
Although the target of the impeachment is Trump himself, there is also the US Attorney General, William Barr, in the eye of public opinion. The role of Barr before and after the “Tong Umen” call was greatly questioned by the US Democratic Party and mainstream public opinion.
Barr’s allegations
The US intelligence agency’s anonymous whistleblower’s prosecution information was disclosed to the public on September 26, which mentioned that Barr’s “Tongwumen” seemed to be involved.
According to the call records disclosed by the White House, Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky mentioned that Barr and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo can cooperate with Uzbekistan in investigating former US Vice President Joe Biden. communication.
However, the US Department of Justice issued a statement on September 25, denying that Barr had had any conversation with Trump “to let Ukraine investigate Biden or his son.”
As the Minister of Justice, Barr was instructed by Trump to investigate his campaign opponents in 2020. This was very suspicious. Since then, his denial and the handling of relevant documents have allowed the Democratic Party to almost confirm that he is “covering crimes.” “.”
When the acting National Intelligence Director (Joseph Maguire) received information from the prosecutor and asked to submit it to Congress, he contacted the Justice Department. The decision given by the US Department of Justice at the time was that the complaint was not within the scope of legal requirements. This is incredible to many people because the prosecutor law requires such information to be submitted to Congress.
At this moment, there are countless question marks in American public opinion. Does Bar and Zelensky contact and cooperate according to Trump’s request? How much did he participate in the investigation of Biden’s incident? Is the decision of the Ministry of Justice to prevent the reporting of information to the Congress to be related to Barr?
This is not the first time Balr has been accused of overprotecting or even harbouring Trump. In the previous “TongRumen” investigation, Barr published a summary of the report to the public before the report of the special prosecutor Robert Mueller, which was later distorted by Muller.
Perhaps because of this background, Pelosi issued the allegations that Barr is already protecting Trump from “rogue.”
The true function of the judiciary is challenged
The choices that Barr made after taking office may not be surprising to the observers.
Before he served as the Attorney General, the former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was forced to resign because he was criticized by Trump for not contributing enough to the government in the “Treaty of Russia” investigation. Under this pressure, the expectations of the next Minister of Justice are naturally an official who can help Trump maintain a political image.
Although Bar has the experience and background of the judiciary, more and more comments suggest that instead of saying that Barr is the US Attorney General, it is better to say that he is a private lawyer of Trump.
Indeed, Barr can participate in the investigation of Biden and his son in Ukraine on the grounds of “anti-corruption”. However, if the same reason is true, Barr should also make the same effort by Trump’s previous pornographic seal fee incident, which violated the campaign’s financial problems, the inauguration fund corruption case, and other presidential scandals.
However, the reality is that he is not interested in investigating Trump’s scandal, especially after the announcement of the Muller report. However, the Justice Department is still investigating the “mail door” issue of Trump’s former rival Hillary Clinton. No matter how you look at it, this choice has a tendency to be political.
Maintaining the legal interests of the US government is one of the important duties of the Attorney General. At the same time, however, the Ministry of Justice also has the guarantee of the implementation of the law and the protection of the law’s responsibility for the equality of all citizens of the United States. Public opinion believes that the Ministry of Justice is responsible to the government and the state, not just the president.
Barr’s suspicions are asking the outside world to question the credibility of the US Department of Justice. In the domestic judicial case, the investigation can be conducted selectively, so what about other cases?
For example, the US Department of Justice’s investigation and sanctions against Chinese technology companies, and even the arrest of Huawei’s senior executive Meng Xizhou, these accusations are more likely to be questioned in this context. After all, Trump’s remarks that linked Huawei’s trade agreements with China and the United States have been astounding. Today’s Justice Department has a hard time saying that these allegations and investigations have nothing to do with the political intentions of the United States.
Some commentators believe that the US judicial system is experiencing unprecedented challenges, and this statement is not false. Regardless of Trump’s impeachment results, whether Barr has misconduct in the middle of this, the dilemma of the judicial department’s performance of functions should be squarely addressed.
