Barr is on the case (2)

Among his other interviews yesterday in the aftermath of the Department of Justice Inspector General Report on FISA abuse and related matters, Attorney General Barr appeared at the Wall Street Journal CEO Conference for a discussion with Journal editor at large Gerard Baker. The Journal has posted video of the entire interview on its site (I have embedded the video below) and here on Twitter.

I posted Barr’s interview with NBC’s Pete Williams here. I quoted a few of Barr’s notable statements in my post on the video, but the whole thing is really must viewing. I am afraid I may have failed to transcribe the most important bits. If you haven’t watched it and have any interest in the current investigation of the Russia hoax, please take the time to check it out now.

Barr’s interview with Baker is also worthy of attention It begins at about 25:00 of the video. It remains focused on the the Obama administration’s investigation of the Trump campaign and continuing FBI investigation into the Trump presidency for the following 20 minutes. Among the notable quotes are the following (the transcriptions are mine):

“The real meat of Horowitz’s work and the real thrust of the report actually deals with the conduct of the investigation [rather than its opening] where I think it quickly became apparent that it was a travesty and there were many abuses. And that’s by far the most important part of the report and I think Mike Horowitz would agree with that.”

“From day one [the investigation] generated exculpatory information and nothing that substantiated any kind of collusion.”

“It’s a big deal to use the law enforcement and intelligence resources of the United States government to investigate a [presidential] campaign, especially of the opposing party. I’m sure there were instances in the past, but I can’t think of any recent instances where that was done.”

“Where I disagree with [Horowitz] is I just think this [the basis for opening the investigation] was very flimsy.”

“From my experience, the normal thing to do in this situation — and I have had analogous experience — is to go to the campaign and here I don’t think there’s a legitimate explanation for why they didn’t, especially because they went to the Russians.”

“It’s hard to look at this stuff and not think it was a gross abuse.”

Baker then asks Barr whether he thinks the four FISA judges who approved the Obama administration’s FISA applications on Carter Page were “badly misled.” Answer: “Yes.”

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