Attorney General William Barr went off on the so called “resistance” during a Friday speech at the Federalist Society’s 2019 National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C., warning that the political Left is “engaged in a war” to “cripple” and “sabotage” the Trump administration from being able to function.
“Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called ‘The Resistance,’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, ‘resistance’ is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power,” Barr said. “It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the ‘loyal opposition,’ as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.”
“A prime example of this is the Senate’s unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process,” Barr added. “The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval process for every appointee so as to prevent the president from building a functional government.”
“Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office. As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump nominees – each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant only to delay an inevitable confirmation,” Barr continued. “How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama’s first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush’s first term? Four times. It is reasonable to wonder whether a future president will actually be able to form a functioning administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate.”
WATCH:
AG Bill Barr on the Democrats: “they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool & maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of [the Trump admin]… they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government” pic.twitter.com/T2g03ATvcB
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 17, 2019
Later in his speech, Barr again took aim the political Left, highlighting that they, not Trump, are the ones guilty of shredding constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law.
“One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this President constantly accuse this Administration of ‘shredding’ constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. When I ask my friends on the other side, what exactly are you referring to? I get vacuous stares, followed by sputtering about the Travel Ban or some such thing,” Barr said. “While the President has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook, he was upfront about that beforehand, and the people voted for him. What I am talking about today are fundamental constitutional precepts. The fact is that this administration’s policy initiatives and proposed rules, including the Travel Ban, have transgressed neither constitutional, nor traditional, norms, and have been amply supported by the law and patiently litigated through the court system to vindication.”
“Indeed, measures undertaken by this administration seem a bit tame when compared to some of the unprecedented steps taken by the Obama administration’s aggressive exercises of executive power – such as, under its DACA program, refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration law,” Barr continued. “The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of ‘Resistance’ against this administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.”
WATCH:
Attorney General William Barr: “The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of ‘Resistance’ against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.” pic.twitter.com/xj45Z24di3
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 17, 2019