Wednesday Reads

Posted: February 4, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

As usual, there is just too much news for anyone to deal with. I’m going to focus on the death of a great newspaper, the torture of an American city, the efforts of a vain and ignorant “president” to grab power and steal elections, and his obsession with building monstrosities. Here’s what’s happening.

The Death of The Washington Post

Benjamin Mullin, Katie Robertson and Erik Wemple at The New York Times: Washington Post Begins Laying Off More Than 300 Journalists.

The Washington Post told employees on Wednesday that it was beginning a widespread round of layoffs that are expected to decimate the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage.

The company is laying off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said.

The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first several years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.

Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas.

“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape,” Mr. Murray said. “And after some years when, candidly, The Post has had struggles.”

Mr. Murray further explained the rationale in an email, saying The Post was “too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product” and that online search traffic, partly because of the rise of generative A.I., had fallen by nearly half in the last three years. He added that The Post’s “daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years.”

“Even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience,” he said.

The Post’s sports section will close, though some of its reporters will stay on and move to the features department to cover the culture of sports. The Post’s metro section will shrink, and the books section will close, as will the “Post Reports” daily news podcast.

Mr. Murray told the staff that while The Post’s international coverage also would be reduced, reporters would remain in nearly a dozen locations. Reporters and editors in the Middle East were laid off, as well as in India and Australia.

At The Atlantic, former Post reporter Ashley Parker writes (gift link): The Murder of The Washington Post. Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.

Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)

The Post may yet rise, but this will be their enduring legacy.

Ashley Parker

What’s happening to the Post is a public tragedy, but for me, it is also very personal. When my parents’ basement recently flooded, amid the waterlogged boxes of old photos and vinyl records, we found my younger sister’s baby book. There, on a page reserved for memories from the month she was born—news about visits from doting grandparents, perhaps, or descriptions of her mewling gurgles—my dad had filled the lines with news from our hometown paper, The Washington Post.

“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).” “Irangate.” “The Bork nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.” “The NFL went on strike.” “Wall Street had the worst day since 1929!!!” “The U.S. was having a garbage crisis, i.e.; running out of disposal sites, esp. in the northeast.” (To be fair, he worked in waste management. But also … welcome to the world, Baby Girl!)

Which is to say: The Washington Post feels like a part of my family’s DNA, imprinted on our earliest memories, memorialized among clippings of our hair and other, more traditional, recollections (first diaper blowout, first word)….

The Post was also how I fell in love with journalism. Every newspaper lover has the section they read first—Sports, Comics, Metro—and mine was Style. The section, which debuted in 1969, was like nothing that had come before it, or what has come since: a newspaper that gave its writers the time and space and freedom and voice to produce narrative long-form journalism that was must-read, holding its own against the New Journalism magazine greats of the era. And for me, it was a chance to commune with giants—to read people such as Libby Copeland, Robin Givhan, Paul Hendrickson, Sally Quinn, David Von Drehle, Gene Weingarten, Marjorie Williams—and puzzle over how they’d done it.

Then, in 2017, I arrived at the Post as a reporter to cover the Trump White House, and I stayed for eight magical years. I had planned to stay forever. So what is happening at the Post right now—what has been happening there for a while—is personal. But it is also so much larger than me or any single person.

The least cynical explanation is that Bezos simply isn’t paying attention. Maybe—like so many of us initially—he was charmed by Lewis’s British accent and studied loucheness that mask an emperor whose bespoke threads are no clothes at all. Or maybe, as many of us who deeply love the Post fear, the decimation is the plan.

Bezos is killing the Post. I’m not sure if he just wants it to die or he wants it to become a propaganda arm of the Trump adminisration.

The Agony of Minneapolis

Corina Knoll at The New York Times (gift link): A Winter of Anguish for Minneapolis Children.

The morning her father called to say that he had been detained on a snowy Minneapolis road, Xochitl Soberanes was seized by an urgent and inescapable feeling. At 16 years old and the eldest of four, she would suddenly have to become the backbone of the family.

Their mother had died of pneumonia less than a year ago, so it was Xochitl who convinced her 4-year-old brother that their father was working late as they packed up belongings to go stay with a nearby aunt. That January night, a cousin found all four siblings curled up asleep in the same queen bed — cradled by Xochitl, who lay on the edge.

“We just wanted to be close together,” she said.

Xochitl cut her younger siblings’ breakfast into bite-size pieces.Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

For weeks, the Minneapolis area has been a landscape of intense turmoil as federal immigration agents face off against furious citizens. But there is a quieter upheaval taking place behind closed doors as the city’s youngest residents attempt to grasp the altering of their neighborhoods, their schools, their sense of security.

Regardless of what they might understand about the politics embedded in their surroundings, some things are clear: The adults in their lives are weary and overwhelmed. Neighbors are scared to leave the house. Bomb threats have been called in to schools. Events have been canceled. Friends are missing from classrooms. And parents have been taken.

“I was just thinking, ‘What are we going to do without him?’” Xochitl said about the day her father, Victor, did not come home. She began to insist to her aunt that she could finish her final exams and be available to help with her siblings. Within a week, her friend, a U.S. citizen, was also detained and later released.“It’s like living in fear all the time,” Xochitl said.

It is a sentiment that many children in the area speak of — this fear that now feels innate and will continue to linger in ways they cannot yet comprehend. They live in a world where a barrage of honks and whistles signal that immigration agents are in their midst, and that something bad could happen soon.

It is not unusual for them to see agents dressed in riot gear and carrying rifles stationed on their streets. And those who have found themselves swept up unwillingly into altercations have been left to endure the aftereffects.

Use the gift link to read more.

The New York Times: Border Czar Says He Is Pulling 700 Immigration Agents Out of Minneapolis.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said on Wednesday that the federal government would immediately withdraw 700 law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, scaling down the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.

Tom Homan

The change comes after the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers and agents to Minnesota, a deployment that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said was the agency’s “largest operation to date.” About 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state, Mr. Homan said.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said on Wednesday that the federal government would immediately withdraw 700 law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, scaling down the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.

The change comes after the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers and agents to Minnesota, a deployment that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said was the agency’s “largest operation to date.” About 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state, Mr. Homan said.

“This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement,” he added.

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, a Democrat, said in a statement that the reduction in officers was “a step in the right direction” but that 2,000 federal officers in the region was still “not de-escalation.”

“My message to the White House has been consistent — Operation Metro Surge has been catastrophic for our businesses and residents. It needs to end immediately,” he said, referring to the name of the federal crackdown in the city.

Mr. Homan also emphasized that immigration officers would focus on more targeted enforcement operations that prioritize arresting criminals who pose public safety threats. Last week, Mr. Homan said that was “the way we’ve always done it,” but that “we got away from it a little bit.”

Still, he said that any immigrants residing in the country illegally would not be exempt from enforcement operations.

“If you are in the country illegally, you are not off the table,” Mr. Homan said.

Again, we’ll see. I’m not holding my breath.

Stealing Elections

Max Rego at The Hill: Trump doubles down on suggesting federal government ‘get involved’ in state elections.

President Trump reiterated his support for nationalizing elections Tuesday, despite backlash from both sides of the aisle on the proposal.

“I want to see elections be honest, and if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after signing legislation to end a partial government shutdown, with Republican lawmakers surrounding him.

“Because if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” the president continued. “I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do ’em anyway.”

He added, “But when you see some of these states, about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is, I think the federal government [should get involved].”

Trump initially called for transferring control of elections from certain states to the federal government during an interview Monday with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who departed the bureau last month and returned to hosting his podcast.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,’” Trump said. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president referenced Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta — all Democratic-run cities — as places where “horrible corruption on elections” is occurring.

Read more at The Hill.

Nick Corasaniti at The New York Times: Trump’s Call to ‘Nationalize’ Elections Adds to State Officials’ Alarm.

President Trump’s declaration that he wants to “nationalize” voting in the United States arrives at a perilous moment for the relationship between the federal government and top election officials across the country.

While the executive branch has no explicit authority over elections, generations of secretaries of state have relied on the intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses, among other assistance, that only the federal government can provide.

But as Mr. Trump has escalated efforts to involve the administration in election and voting matters while also eliminating programs designed to fortify these systems against attacks, secretaries of state and other top state election officials, including some Republican ones, have begun to sound alarms. Some see what was once a crucial partnership as frayed beyond repair.

They point to Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, his continued false claims that the contest was rigged, the presence of election deniers in influential government positions and his administration’s attempts to dig up evidence of widespread voter fraud that year, even though none have ever been found.

The worry, these election officials say, is that Mr. Trump and his allies might try to interfere in or cast doubt on this year’s midterm elections. The president is urgently trying to defend the Republican majorities in Congress, and the political environment has appeared to grow less friendly to his party.

Jay Inslee

Jay Inslee at Meidas+: Don’t Let ICE Freeze Voting.

Of all the threats we face, the threat that Donald Trump will use ICE and Border {atrol agents to suppress the vote calls for a response by the Senate in the pending budget bill. By word and deed, Trump has shown an intent to do all he can to subvert a free and fair election this November. He must be stopped.

Who would bet $5 that Donald Trump, the man who staged an attempted coup and urged a Governor to “find” 11,000 votes, is not going to interfere with the ability of Americans to cast their votes this November? Who thinks that his “moral code,” the only thing that he says restricts him, will prevent him from using his massive ICE private army from suppressing the vote in Democratic precincts? Who thinks Steve Bannon is kidding when he says Trump will use federal agents to screen voters?

Donald Trump represents the largest threat to free and fair voting in American history since Jim Crow. He has demonstrated time and again, his willingness to subvert our democratic norms. His recent extortion note to Minnesota and his seizure of Georgia ballots are clarion calls for action to stop him from using ICE to suppress the vote.

Think about the private voter suppression army he has entirely at his disposal, an organization purportedly in existence to deal with immigration, but which could be used for Trump’s best survival tool, the suppression of votes in Democratic precincts in competitive districts and states.

Unless something changes, what we have seen in Minneapolis is just the harbinger to the use of ICE and the Border Patrol as a massive and strategically planned voter suppression campaign, surrounding polling places with intimidating federal agents.

By separating the Homeland Security budget from the rest, the dedicated Senate Democrats now have a chance to put roadblocks in Trump’s path.

Read the rest at the link.

Nick Corasaniti and Richard Fausset at The New York Times: Fulton County in Georgia Challenges the F.B.I.’s Seizure of 2020 Ballots.

Fulton County in Georgia took legal action on Wednesday demanding that the federal government return ballots and other election materials from the 2020 presidential contest that the F.B.I. seized last week.

The motion was filed under seal in federal court in Georgia, according to Jessica Corbitt, a spokeswoman for Fulton County. The motion also seeks the unsealing of the affidavit that was filed in support of the search warrant that allowed F.B.I. agents to conduct an extraordinary search of the county’s election headquarters.

At a news conference on Wednesday morning, Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, cast the legal action as a means of upholding the Constitution, as well as the rights of Fulton County voters.

“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections,” he said. “Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”

The move follows a chaotic week in Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta and is Georgia’s most populous county, after F.B.I. agents conducted an extraordinary search and took away pallets of ballots and other materials.

Local officials were particularly alarmed and confused by the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, whose agency’s involvement in elections traditionally pertains only to foreign influence. The day after the search, she met with some of the agents who had participated and called Mr. Trump on her cellphone, The New York Times reported on Monday. After initially not picking up, he called back and spoke to them on speakerphone, asking them questions and praising and thanking them, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting.

Destroying the Culture of Washington, DC

The Washington Post: Trump plans to install Christopher Columbus statue outside White House.

President Donald Trump is planning to install a statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds, according to three people with knowledge of the pending move,in his latest effort to remake the presidential campus and celebrate the famed and controversial explorer.

In 2020, demonstrators targeted monuments deemed symbols of racism, colonialism, and oppression.

The statue is set to be located on the south side of the grounds, by E Street and north of the Ellipse, two of the people said, although they cautioned that plans could change. The three people spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak on private discussions. The piece is a reconstruction of a statue unveiled in Baltimore by then-President Ronald Reagan and dumped in the city’s harbor by protestersin 2020 as a racial reckoning swept the country.

A group of Italian American businessmen and politicians, working with local sculptors, obtained the destroyed pieces and rebuilt the statue with financial support from local charities and federal grant funding.

Bill Martin, an Italian American businessman who helped recover the remnants of the original sculpture and organize a campaign to rebuild it, said the statue is expected to be transferred from a warehouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to the Trump administration in coming weeks.

The White House declined to comment on its plans but praised the 15th-century explorer.

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.

The Independent: Trump reveals latest rendering of what he calls: ‘the much anticipated White House Ballroom.’

President Donald Trump shared a new rendering showing his vision for a new White House ballroom replacing the now-demolished East Wing.

Trump celebrated his $400 million project on social media, posting that it will be the “Greatest of its kind ever built!!”

A rendering of President Donald Trump’s ‘New East Wing’ at the White House, including his nearly 90,000 square foot ballroom (The White House)

He wrote on Truth Social Tuesday that the new building “replaces the very small, dilapidated, and rebuilt many times, East Wing, with a magnificent New East Wing.” He also said that the new structure will be taller than the White House’s Executive Mansion.

“If you notice, the North Wall is a replica of the North Facade of the White House,” he wrote in the post.

The new rendering is generally similar to previous drawings of the upcoming ballroom shared by Trump.

The ballroom is projected to be approximately 90,000 square feet, and the attached “New East Wing” complex will include a new office for the First Lady, a new movie theater, and a commercial kitchen.

Trump’s decision to demolish the historic East Wing for a ritzy ballroom has been met with severe criticism, particularly from historic preservationists.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration in December in an effort to force the president to submit his plans for the ballroom to several review bodies, including Congress and the public. The lawsuit asked a court to pause his construction project until those demands are met.

Construction at the site has not been ordered to stop and Trump’s Department of Justice is moving to try to ensure that doesn’t change.

A DOJ filing on Monday asked a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to stay any injunction into the construction over alleged “national security” concerns, ABC News reports.

That’s all I have for today. I hope you find something of interest here.

Thursday Reads

Posted: June 11, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

A statue depicting Christopher Columbus is seen with its head removed at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park on June 10, 2020 in Boston. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)

Good Morning!!

The movement inspired by the murder of George Floyd has inspired more than the Black Lives Matter protests. People are toppling statues now, and not just the ones of confederate traitors.

Someone beheaded the Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End yesterday. (The North End used to be Boston’s “little Italy.”) WBZ (CBS) Boston: Beheaded Christopher Columbus Statue In Boston Will Be Removed From North End Park.

The Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End will be removed after it was beheaded early Wednesday morning. Mayor Marty Walsh said it will be put in storage and there will now be conversations about the “historic meaning” of the incident and whether it will ever go back up.

The statue in Christopher Columbus Park on Atlantic Avenue was surrounded by crime scene tape as the head lay on the ground next to the base.

Now, as police investigate how it happened, local indigenous groups are calling on the mayor to remove the statue for good.

“It’s a park dedicated to white supremacy,” said Mahtowin Munro of the United American Indians of New England. “It’s a park dedicated to indigenous genocide.” [….]

The head was also cut off back in 2006. The statue was doused with red paint in June 2015 with the words “Black Lives Matter” spray-painted on the base.

Another statue of Columbus was taken down at Minnesota’s state capitol in St. Paul. Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Protesters topple Columbus statue on Minnesota Capitol grounds.

Protesters lassoed a statue of Christopher Columbus outside the State Capitol Wednesday afternoon and pulled it to the ground, saying their action was a step toward healing for Indian communities.

People danced in a circle around the Christopher Columbus statue after it was toppled on Wednesday night on the Minnesota State Capitol grounds in St. Paul.

Dozens of people gathered by the statue on the grounds outside the Capitol before pulling it down. American Indian Movement activist Mike Forcia talked to a State Patrol captain sent to the scene to encourage protesters to follow a legal process for removing the statue, which has stood on the Capitol grounds since 1931. Forcia said they had tried that route many times and it had not worked.

The protesters then looped a rope around the statue and quickly pulled it off the stone pedestal and to the ground. The patrol officer watched from a distance as protesters sang and took photos with the statue for about half an hour.

State officials said they had been warned about the action via social media. It was mentioned at a news conference an hour and a half earlier with Gov. Tim Walz. Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said then that the patrol would meet the protesters and seek an alternative resolution.

In Richmond, VA, a Columbus statue was pulled down, set on fire, and rolled into a lake. Another Columbus statue was vandalized in Houston and another in Miami.

Two other stories of note on the topic of racism and Black Lives Matter protests:

Associated Press: Pope sends strong message to US Catholics after Floyd death.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis called George Floyd by name, twice, and offered support to an American bishop who knelt in prayer during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Cardinals black and white have spoken out about Floyd’s death, and the Vatican’s communications juggernaut has shifted into overdrive to draw attention to the cause he now represents.

Christopher Columbus statue dumped in lake in Richmond, VA

Under normal circumstances, Floyd’s killing at the hands of a white police officer and the global protests denouncing racism and police brutality might have drawn a muted diplomatic response from the Holy See. But in a U.S. election year, the intensity and consistency of the Vatican’s reaction suggests that, from the pope on down, it is seeking to encourage anti-racism protesters while making a clear statement about where American Catholics should stand ahead of President Donald Trump’s bid for a second term in November….

Last week, Francis denounced the “sin of racism” and twice identified Floyd as the victim of a “tragic” killing. In a message read in Italian and English during his general audience, Francis expressed concerns about violence during the protests, saying it was self-destructive.

Read more at the link.

CNN: A Missouri woman asked Merriam-Webster to update its definition of racism and now officials will make the change.

Kennedy Mitchum wasn’t expecting much when she emailed Merriam-Webster last month, but she wanted to let the dictionary publisher know that she thought its definition of the word racism was inadequate.

So she was surprised when an editor responded and even more surprised that the company agreed to update the entry.

Mitchum has gotten into a lot conversations about racism and injustice where people have pointed to the dictionary to prove that they’re not racist. It’s happened a lot more lately as the world reacts to the death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers….

Kennedy Mitchum

“I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world,” she told CNN. “The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice it’s the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans.”
Merriam-Webster’s first definition of racism is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” [….]

Mitchum said she sent her email on a Thursday night and got a reply from editor Alex Chambers the next morning.

After a few emails, Chambers agreed that the entry should be updated and said a new definition is being drafted.

“This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem,” Chambers said in the email, which was provided to CNN. “We sincerely thank you for repeatedly writing in and apologize for the harm and offense we have caused in failing to address this issue sooner.”

Meanwhile, a backlash against Trump and his pet AG Bill Barr is building over the violent clearing of Lafayette Square to facilitation Trump’s ludicrous Bible photo op last week.

Tom McCarthy at The Guardian: ‘An abuse of power’: alarm grows over top Trump lieutenant’s military masquerade.

…[T]he top law enforcement official in the country, the attorney general, William Barr, is facing an internal crisis of confidence and growing calls for his own resignation.

Barr stands accused of directing violence against peaceful demonstrators outside the White House earlier this month, and with peddling a conspiracy theory advanced by Donald Trump in an attempt to smear protesters, who enjoy wide public support.

Trump/Barr attack on protesters in Lafayette Park

In the first 16 months of his tenure, Barr caught criticism for compromising justice department independence with his seemingly lockstep defense of Trump, whether he was protecting the president from the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller or intervening in criminal cases against the former Trump aides Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.

But Barr’s critics now fear that he has taken a new step, of trying on a military hat as the president’s top lieutenant in the antagonistic posture the White House has taken against street protests that have sprung up after the killing of George Floyd, an African American man, in Minneapolis by white police officers.

A bit more:

The attorney general’s denial at the weekend that systemic racism was a problem in US law enforcement prompted new calls for his resignation.

“I think there’s racism in the United States still, but I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist,” Barr told CBS News’ Face the Nation. “And I would say, you know, the president, before any of this happened, was out in front on this issue.”

On no planet has Trump been “out in front” in the campaign against racist policing, said Kandace Montgomery, director of Black Visions, a Twin Cities-based activist organization.

“William Barr is a white man who is serving a racist administration, so of course he’s going to deny the fact that the current law enforcement system is systemically racist,” Montgomery said.

Bill Barr checking out the “troops” before ordering them to attack peaceful protesters.

The Washington Post: More than 1,250 former Justice Dept. workers call for internal watchdog to probe Barr role in clearing demonstrators from Lafayette Square.

More than 1,250 former Justice Department workers on Wednesday called on the agency’s internal watchdog to investigate Attorney General William P. Barr’s involvement in law enforcement’s move last week to push a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators back from Lafayette Square using horses and gas.

In a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the group said it was “deeply concerned about the Department’s actions, and those of Attorney General William Barr himself, in response to the nationwide lawful gatherings to protest the systemic racism that has plagued this country throughout its history.”

“In particular, we are disturbed by Attorney General Barr’s possible role in ordering law enforcement personnel to suppress a peaceful domestic protest in Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020, for the purpose of enabling President Trump to walk across the street from the White House and stage a photo op at St. John’s Church, a politically motivated event in which Attorney General Barr participated,” the group wrote.

The group asked Horowitz to “immediately open and conduct an investigation of the full scope of the Attorney General’s and the DOJ’s role” in that and other events.

“The rule of law, the maintenance of the Department’s integrity, and the very safety of our citizens demand nothing less,” the group wrote.

Barr was also publicly excoriated by former Judge John Gleeson for his attempt to drop charges against Michael Flynn. Paul Waldman at The Washington Post: A retired judge’s sharp rebuke of William Barr confirms the worst.

Judge John Gleeson

Back in May, long after Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in their investigation into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election — which got him fired as national security adviser after 24 days on the job — Barr took the extraordinary step of seeking to drop the case against him before he could be sentenced. In response, the judge in the case asked a respected retired judge to make a recommendation about how this highly unusual situation should be handled.

That retired judge, John Gleeson, not only recommended that Flynn be sentenced as planned but issued a scathing report condemning the Justice Department’s actions in the case:

In his argument, Gleeson said the government’s “ostensible grounds” for seeking dismissal were “conclusively disproven” by its own earlier briefs; contradict the court’s prior orders and Justice Department positions taken in other cases; and “are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact.”

A former federal prosecutor and judge for 22 years in Brooklyn — best known for putting the late mob boss John Gotti behind bars and presiding over the trial of “Wolf of Wall Street” stockbroker Jordan Belfort — Gleeson wrote that judges are empowered to protect their court’s integrity “from prosecutors who undertake corrupt, politically motivated dismissals. That is what has happened here. The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President.”

Not only that, Gleeson stated that “Flynn has indeed committed perjury in these proceedings, for which he deserves punishment,” but recommended that instead of a separate prosecution, Flynn’s misdeeds should be taken into account when he is sentenced for the crime he pleaded guilty to.

Read the rest at the WaPo.

Of course there is much more news out there. I’ll add some links in the comment thread and I hope you will too.