William Barr as AG proves the truism that by forgetting history, it is bound to be repeated

Far from categorically “exonerating” Donald Trump on Russian collusion and obstruction charges, a more careful reading of the Mueller report reveals that Mueller and his team were continuously hindered from discovering the full truth by the refusal of many Trump loyalists-at-any-cost to either voluntarily testify truthfully or testify at all; the failure to find sufficient evidence to indict these uncooperative witnesses for crimes stymied efforts to force them to talk. We have a right to ask about what they were trying to conceal from the public and prosecutors about either Trump’s or their own wrongdoing. We know that Roger Stone—whose voice we heard bragging about his “role” in advancing an imminent anti-Clinton Wikileaks dump in the presence of Trump—has in the past boasted about his “prowess” in telling lies to keep the media off-guard, although his recent arrest for lying has left him appearing equally as flummoxed by the evidence he was not immune from the consequences of wrongdoing as Julian Assange appeared to be when he was forcibly carried out of the Ecuadoran embassy to face extradition proceedings (a London police officer in the foreground could barely disguise a chuckle at the bizarre scene).  

But not only should we be concerned about the apparent obstruction and still possible collusion by Trump associates is the almost criminal presence of William Barr as attorney general. I think that many Senators decided he was “acceptable” when he praised Robert Mueller as a person, without actually examining his record for clues about how he would act in fact. We are suddenly “remembering” now that Barr’s attitude on immigration, civil rights and law enforcement may be even more extremist and racist than Jeff Sessions’, and we have also seen his stand on the Affordable Care Act as completely partisan with no thought of the consequences to the many millions who rely on it.  But then again the media is partly at fault for falling down hard in its failure to remind the public that this could have all been prophesized by Barr’s past actions as attorney general under the George H.W. Bush presidency (from here, Bush I). 

If you were born after 1973, you probably don’t have a proper grasp of the Iran-Contra scandal, which may actually have been worse than Watergate, and where potentially treasonable activity occurred. People may have seen the Tom Cruise “true story” movie about a pilot who worked out of a secret airstrip funded by a rogue government operation run by Oliver North, “importing” illegal drugs used to pay for guns “exported” to Nicaraguan “freedom fighters,” who were actually nothing more than common thugs looking to receive freeware for their “services.” But Iran-Contra went well beyond that; Congress had passed an amendment banning aid to the Contras, and in order to contravene the law Ronald Reagan directed administration officials to do “something” to support the recently ousted right-wing murder regime in Nicaragua, with the idea of concealing Reagan's culpability with "plausible deniability."

Top Reagan administration officials found a “backdoor” in the most unlikely of circumstances: selling through Israeli “third-party” cooperation weapons (including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles) to the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Iran was continuously portraying the US as the “Great Satan” and was bankrolling terrorism and Islamic insurgencies in the region. The rogue “secret government” operated by North—whose blind fanaticism provided “cover” for his administration handlers when the whole operation blew-up—used the profits from the sale of weapons to help fund the Contras against the legitimate Sandinista government. It is interesting to note that while the U.S. (regardless of the party was in power) actively tried to undermine left-wing regimes in Latin America, it failed in Nicaragua, and "socialist" reforms there begun by the Sandinista government are in large part responsible for that country not being a major source of migrants to the U.S.

What was Barr’s role in this criminal endeavor? After Bush I was elected president, he consulted with the then AG on pardons for one convicted criminal, three who pleaded guilty, and two soon to be on trial—including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, during whose trial prosecutor Lawrence Walsh hoped to expose the full extent of the criminal acts of Reagan administration officials, including that of the former vice president and now president. The highly partisan Barr strongly favored pardons for the same reasons he assailed the Mueller investigation: that the Iran-Contra investigation was just an illegal “witch hunt” against “patriotic” people. But even then Weinberger’s pardon was seen as a bald attempt by Bush I and Barr to obstruct justice—oh, how “we” forget.

Bush I, with the active support of Barr, would pardon all six of those former Reagan administration officials of crimes that Bill Moyers detailed in a documentary that revealed  “A Constitution in Crisis” event where the executive branch concocted a “shadow government” that placed itself beyond the reach of any law or oversight to engage in illegal acts. Everyone involved in the scandal knew what they were doing was illegal, but they satisfied themselves that the American public would “understand” their “patriotic” acts in promulgating an 80s version of a "red scare." This clearly showed that Barr back  then had absolutely no respect for the law—the same concept of “law” that the Trump administration repeatedly foists on asylum seekers from the same Central American countries whose repressive regimes the Reagan and Bush I administrations backed with military hardware to use for the purpose of “legalized” murder and oppression. 

Now we see Barr at it again, the person we heard at the recent Congressional hearings who smugly and contemptuously gave non-answers or Fox News talking points to Democratic lawmakers, the same one whose press conference today betrayed not one single iota of judicial independence, let alone a respect for the law. There can be no doubt that Trump and his associates see in Barr a blindly partisan political hack who will do anything to shield his “boss” because of his hatred of anyone left of far-right.