AG William Barr: Coronavirus Lockdowns ‘Greatest Intrusion on Civil Liberties’ Since Slavery

13

Unjustified, illegal …… stealth overthrow of our Constitutional Republic.

Related: Nashville Democrat Mayor’s Office, Health Dept. Concealed Very Low COVID Numbers To Keep Bars, Restaurants CLOSED, shocking emails show

Pamela Geller Files Lawsuit Against Gov. Cuomo and De Blasio Who Support BLM Protests but Suspend First Amendment for All Others

Story continues below advertisement

AG William Barr: Coronavirus Lockdowns ‘Greatest Intrusion on Civil Liberties’ Since Slavery

By Breitbart, September 17, 2020:

Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday evening “other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint,” coronavirus lockdowns were the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”

Barr’s comments came during a Constitution Day celebration at Hillsdale College, commemorating the date in 1789 when the Constitution was signed by the Framers in Philadelphia.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Barr has expressed alarm at the restrictions imposed by state authorities on First Amendment rights, particularly the freedom of religion.

In April, Barr’s Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys to “be on the lookout for state and local directives that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”

He explained that while there might be “reasonable and temporary restrictions” on some First Amendment rights for the sake of public health, they should not become an “overbearing infringement.”

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division subsequently took a stand against state and local governments that were restricting religious services to an extreme extent. As Breitbart News reported, the division’s interventions often prompted a relaxation of the rules.

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Pennsylvania’s coronavirus lockdowns were unconstitutional. While the state’s actions may have been “undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” Judge William Stickman IV ruled, “even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered. The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms — in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble.”

Stickman, 41, is an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Barr’s comments came in addition to prepared remarks in which he criticized DOJ prosecutors for abusing their power, and defended the intervention of senior DOJ leadership in the decisions made by lower-level prosecutors.

Barr said (as prepared for delivery):

The most basic check on prosecutorial power is politics. It is counter-intuitive to say that, as we rightly strive to maintain an apolitical system of criminal justice. But political accountability—politics—is what ultimately ensures our system does its work fairly and with proper recognition of the many interests and values at stake. Government power completely divorced from politics is tyranny.

Line prosecutors, by contrast, are generally part of the permanent bureaucracy. They do not have the political legitimacy to be the public face of tough decisions and they lack the political buy-in necessary to publicly defend those decisions. Nor can the public and its representatives hold civil servants accountable in the same way as appointed officials. Indeed, the public’s only tool to hold the government accountable is an election — and the bureaucracy is neither elected nor easily replaced by those who are.

Name one successful organization where the lowest level employees’ decisions are deemed sacrosanct. There aren’t any. Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it’s no way to run a federal agency. Good leaders at the Justice Department—as at any organization—need to trust and support their subordinates. But that does not mean blindly deferring to whatever those subordinates want to do.

Active engagement in our cases by senior officials is also essential to the rule of law. The essence of the rule of law is that whatever rule you apply in one case must be the same rule you would apply to similar cases. Treating each person equally before the law includes how the Department enforces the law.

We should not prosecute someone for wire fraud in Manhattan using a legal theory we would not equally pursue in Madison or in Montgomery, or allow prosecutors in one division to bring charges using a theory that a group of prosecutors in the division down the hall would not deploy against someone who engaged in indistinguishable conduct.

Taking a capacious approach to criminal law is not only unfair to criminal defendants and bad for the Justice Department’s track record at the Supreme Court, it is corrosive to our political system. If criminal statutes are endlessly manipulable, then everything becomes a potential crime.

This criminalization of politics is not healthy.  The criminal law is supposed to be reserved for the most egregious misconduct — conduct so bad that our society has decided it requires serious punishment, up to and including being locked away in a cage.  These tools are not built to resolve political disputes and it would be a decidedly bad development for us to go the way of third world nations where new administrations routinely prosecute their predecessors for various ill-defined crimes against the state.  The political winners ritually prosecuting the political losers is not the stuff of a mature democracy.

Barr’s comments come as critics accuse him and the president of interfering in the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and in the sentencing of former Trump associate Roger Stone.

CNN anchor Don Lemon was flabbergasted: “I don’t know what to say,” he said, in reporting Barr’s remarks.

 

 

 

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.

Follow Pamela Geller on
Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.

If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
13 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jay
Jay
3 years ago

Barr should take CONTROL and end this once and for all.
Leaving it up the hundreds of Radical Left politicians,
each going their own way, is not working.

DVader
DVader
3 years ago
Reply to  Jay

Thanks for advocating the overthrow of constitutional democracy.

Jay
Jay
3 years ago
Reply to  DVader

You misspelled “Democrat socialist”

santashandler
santashandler
3 years ago

“In April, Barr’s Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys to “be on the lookout for state and local directives that couldbe violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.” Gee, they’ve known since April that cities and states were violating citizens rights and done nothing about it. Does it take that long for a memorandum to get to everyone in the DOJ? The fact that more businesses are closing and people are needlessly still losing their jobs, means the DOJ is negligent in its duties. They all will be held accountable at some point.

mtman2
mtman2
3 years ago

People have to understand he’s saying this intentional forced deprivation of American Rights against us is LEGION…!

Drew the Infidel
Drew the Infidel
3 years ago

When it comes to trampling your civil liberties, just think of mask mandates as “inserting the thin end of the wedge first”.

What next, gun control and/or confiscation through “red flag” laws?

Both are social experiments to gauge how far the general public can be pushed on any given issue.

ed
ed
3 years ago

Just remember, Drew….Hell YES, Beto (THINKS he) is taking your guns !!!

Drew the Infidel
Drew the Infidel
3 years ago
Reply to  ed

I have a T-shirt that says, “Come and take it, Francis” with a silhouette of an AR-15.

ed
ed
3 years ago

NICE !!

ed
ed
3 years ago

“AG William Barr: Coronavirus Lockdowns ‘Greatest Intrusion on Civil Liberties’ Since Slavery”

Thank you, AG Barr. Now sir….if I could make one small request:

Ahem……(in my BEST ebonics)….I WANTS JUSTICE !!! I WANTS PEACE !! I WANTS MY REPARATIONS !!!!!!!

Thank you for your time, Sir, and have a pleasant day….

Leonard Payne
Leonard Payne
3 years ago

Half the State of Missouri is being violated – Springfield has a total mask order ….. in direct violation of the Constitution and USC Title 18, section 241 – Conspiracy against Rights, and Section 241 – Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law.

DVader
DVader
3 years ago

Right. Having people stay home for a couple of weeks during a highly contagious pandemic is almost as bad as lifetime servitude.
What a babbling idiot.

Merchantseamen
Merchantseamen
3 years ago

Pfft..on Barr. He is part of the problem. He has been a part of the D.C. bubble for 35 years.

Sponsored
Geller Report
Thanks for sharing!