Holy mother of god, grab your pearls, kidz.
Ken Starr has some “concerns” he’d like you to be aware of, and no, it is not that A.G. Barr has both shared an ongoing criminal investigative report from the DOJ with the White House (a former ‘red line’) and, no, it is not that A.G. Barr is holding a “press conference” to get “ahead” of the release.
No, he is “concerned” that Mueller’s team might have been “non-neutral” in its investigation. Prepare yourself, Per Charlie Pierce over at Esquire:
“The concern that I think is a fair concern is, is the report going to be written in a fair and balanced way? It is a concern,” Starr said on “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. “Now why the concern? Because of Bob Mueller, who I hold in very high regard, his choice of staff. So many questions have been raised about that staff and their leanings and so forth. And they've had the opportunity without any kind of cross examination, any kind of check, any kind of balance to write whatever they want to write. And that I think legitimately raises concern of fairness and balance.”
And no one at Fox died in the bomb-blast from irony’s plutonium core going super-critical.
Ohhhh, where to even begin?
Well, since when did criminal investigations become premised upon a “both siderism” thing?
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Or, we can begin by noting, as Charlie did, that concerns about “fairness and balance” on any kind of “check” and without opportunity for any kind of “cross-examination” sure didn’t factor into anything Starr cared about when chasing Bill Clinton:
As Charlie Pierce notes:
This is coming from the guy who threw Susan McDougal in jail because she wouldn't lie for him, and who published every salacious detail he could gather about President Bill Clinton's assignations with Monica Lewinsky because he was encouraged to do so by an ambitious subordinate named Brett Kavanaugh.
We have a new definition of IOKIYAR, or IOKIYADJT, since I just don’t see this level of “concern” raising its head for any other Republican. Of course, we don’t have Michelle Bachman falling down in worship of just “any old Republican,” only the biblical-sent “DJ.” (That’s his new name from me, “DJ” deprives him of that “brand” he loves so much, as well as the title that I don’t believe he’s earned).
Somehow, no one at Fox News pointed out that there were no “cross-examinations” within Starr’s shop.
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Meanwhile, I DO have some real concerns about this upcoming day and release.
WTF is Barr doing having a press-conference PRIOR to releasing the report? He is having a press conference at least 2 hours prior to releasing the report!
Might I also mention that Barr is waiting until late in the day Thursday, which to my agnostic — atheist friends here (of which, I am one), is “Holy Thursday” or the day of The Last Supper” and pretty much the beginning of the most holy three day period in the Christian calendar. It had to wait till now, huh, buddy?
Congress is also out of session, I’m sure that, too, is nothing but a coincidence.
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Chris Mathews, god bless him right now, is calling out essentially “what the hell is wrong with this country?” Noting that Barr is essentially taunting the country, that they can get away with this. Yes, he CAN share it with the White House first, YES, he CAN redact whatever the fck he wants. Yes, he CAN ignore Congressional subpoenas. And Chris EVEN called out the NYT and WaPo as “allowing these incriminations on democracy,” as well as calling out Pelosi as essentially “tired” of dealing with Trump.
And here is the same takeaway from The Daily Beast:
Tomorrow, Bill Barr will continue his shenanigans by releasing a copy of the Mueller report expected to be so heavily redacted that we may not be able to see much besides the articles “a” “and” and “the” on many pages. Barr’s sweeping interpretation of what he chooses to redact has already been previewed for Congress and the America people, and his answer is everything he damn well pleases. If they hurt Trump, expect a black box to cover every single word.
There will be many who throw up their hands in frustration and anger. That’s a feature of the Trump/Barr/Giuliani strategy. Their stonewalling hasn’t been punished by Congress or the courts at any turn, and they feel invincible. They’re counting on exhaustion and fury to be the primary reaction to one more outrage, one more coverup, one more example of Trumpian corruption and lawlessness.
I suppose it does mean that there are parts of the report that Barr is still “worried about,” seeing as how he’s “DJ’s” Roy Cohn.
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Not surprising, given how “neutral” Mueller’s team of …. what? Republicans? That’s what Mueller was, that’s what Rosenstein was, anyway, given Starr’s concern that Mueller’s team didn’t include … a Brett Cavanaugh, I suppose there well could be some damaging facts in it.
Things like … DJ fired the Director of the FBI because he kept investigating Russia!
Oh, wait.
Peace, y’all, and don’t buy a damn thing Barr is selling. Barr is 10x worse than I had even let myself contemplate. It IS time to demand more action. This is it, this is where we should draw the line. We need the full report, we need Mueller testifying to Congress, and we need Barr sitting uncomfortably right alongside, explaining himself, and why the White House got an advanced, unredacted copy, but the PEOPLE cannot.
Let Ken Starr deal with THOSE “legitimate concerns” about “fairness and balance.”
Irony, 4-17-2019, RIP
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My novels, which aren’t the least bit balanced, but more than fair, and have a higher rating than Barr.