- I don't think it's necessary.
I think that's overkill to put a barrier
from one side of the border to the other.
- [Narrator] That's William Barr,
what Steve Bannon would look like with a very minor glow-up.
He's the top law enforcement official of our country,
he plays the bagpipes,
he thinks Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided,
and he believes the Mueller report,
which specifically said did not exonerate the president
exonerated the president.
William Pelham Barr was born in 1950 in New York City
to a mother and father who both taught
at Columbia University on the Upper West Side,
the same school Barr graduated from in 1973
with a master's degree in government and Chinese studies.
After graduating, Barr worked in the Chinese unit
for the CIA by day and attended classes
at George Washington University's law school by night.
He graduated in 1977 and left the agency for a clerkship
with a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the early-'80s, Barr served on the domestic policy staff
in the Reagan Administration
before being tapped by George H.W. Bush
to assistant attorney general
for the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.
It was in this post
that Barr exercised his summarize-and-redact muscle,
the same muscle he'd go on to use
for Home Alone 2 cameo star Donald J. Trump.
Under George H.W. Bush, Barr wrote and tried to hide
a very controversial legal opinion,
seemingly suggesting that the US could unilaterally,
without the go-ahead from international governments,
send its FBI agents
to overthrow a foreign leader from power.
Barr was asked to hand over the legal memo
containing the rationale for allowing something like this.
He declined and instead offered a 13-page document
that summarized the principle conclusions.
But when Congress eventually obtained the full memo in 1991,
it was discovered that his summary left out
some of the conclusions in the full memo, which is bad.
- What does bad mean?
- [Narrator] Ryan Goodman,
a former Defense Department special counsel,
wrote that Barr's summary,
"Omitted some of the most consequential
"and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion.
"And there was evidently no justifiable reason
"for having withheld those parts
"from Congress or the public."
Barr became attorney general in 1991
and was confirmed despite saying things like this.
- So, I think that my views are consistent
with the views that have been taken by the department
since 1983, which is that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided
and should be overruled.
- [Narrator] Barr said he would step up
the department's anti-drug activities,
go after violent crime, and enforce civil rights laws.
- And to be proactive and,
as I said, civil rights will be a priority.
- [Narrator] Shortly after muttering that statement,
Barr signed off on a 37-page report
titled The Case for More Incarceration,
in which the Justice Department called on the country
to increase incarceration rates
and build more jails and prisons.
Barr went further in an interview
with the Los Angeles Times in 1992,
where, when asked about racial disparities in prisons,
Barr argued that the Justice System was fair overall
and does not treat people differently based on race.
He then went on to seemingly blame the Rodney King riots
in part on immigration.
Rough stuff.
Barr continued stirring up controversy
when he advocated pardoning six extremely controversial
former Reagan White House officials.
The New York Times ran a story in 1992,
Bush Pardons Six in Iran Affair,
Prosecutor Assails Cover-Up.
The six former aides Barr lobbied to pardon
included ones convicted of lying to Congress
or withholding information
during the Iran Contra investigation
in which senior officials secretly facilitated
the sale of arms to Iran.
The Reagan and Bush Administrations
were also accused of funneling billions of dollars in loans
to Saddam Hussein in what was termed Iraqgate.
Barr was accused of protecting the president
by refusing a congressional request
to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the matter.
Reports at the time paint a harrowing image of Barr.
New York Times columnist William Safire
called Barr the Coverup-General.
With a track record of alleged coverups,
blaming police brutality on immigration,
and going through great lengths to protect the president,
it's clear why Trump might've chosen Barr to protect him.
But months before he was tapped,
Barr continued punching up his resume,
seemingly just in case Trump was looking for more qualities.
He probably wasn't, that was probably enough.
But nevertheless, in 2017,
Barr wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post
titled Trump Made the Right Call on Comey.
Barr also reportedly believed
that there was more reason to investigate Hillary Clinton
than the guy he wanted a job from.
In June 2018, as if Barr didn't already have the gig,
he sent an unsolicited memo
to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
In the memo, called Mueller's Obstruction Theory,
Barr, in 19 pages, basically laid the groundwork
for the argument that Mueller
might be investigating a made-up crime.
- Memo stated a fatal flaw
in Mueller's interpretation of 1512(c)(2),
is that while defining obstruction
solely as acting corruptly,
Mueller offers no definition of what corruptly means.
My understanding is that there's nothing
in the public record that sheds light
on his definition of obstruction.
Do you know what his definition is?
- I don't know what his definition is.
- [Narrator] Barr went on to clear up
what his memo really was.
- Well, as I said, I was speculating.
- [Narrator] Special Counsel Robert Mueller
handed his report over to Barr in March 2019
after a nearly two-year investigation
surrounding Russia's election interference
and whether it colluded with Donald Trump.
Eight Americans once affiliated with
the Trump campaign or administration,
25 Russians, three Russian companies,
and two others were charged in the investigation.
Just two days after Mueller turned in
his more-than-400-page report,
it was reduced to just four pages
of Barr's famous principle conclusions.
- Did you personally review all of the underlying evidence?
- No, we took and accept-- - Did--
- We accepted statements-- - Did Mr. Rosenstein?
- No, we accepted the statements in the report
as the factual record.
We did not go underneath it
to see whether or not they were accurate.
We accepted it as accurate.
- [Narrator] After Barr released
his four-page summary of Mueller's findings,
Mueller wrote him a letter expressing concern
that Barr had mischaracterized his report,
because Barr was totally that kid in class
who lied about reading the book.
And Mueller went further when he spoke to the public
for the first time after roughly two years of silence.
- If we had had confidence
that the president clearly did not commit a crime,
we would have said so.
- [Narrator] Barr seemingly believed
because Mueller didn't charge Trump with obstruction,
the president was exonerated.
But really, under the Justice Department rules,
you can not indict a sitting president.
It has to go to Congress.
- Under longstanding department policy,
a present president cannot be charged with a federal crime
while he is in office.
- [Narrator] The special counsel investigation
reported 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice
involving the president,
including Trump's failed attempt to fire Mueller.
And in so many words, Mueller hinted at the possibility
of an impeachment inquiry by Congress,
stating, "The Constitution requires a process
"other than the criminal justice system
"to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing."
While Barr's days of protecting past, current,
and possible future presidents seem to be far from over,
one thing's for certain:
No one, not Barr or the president of the United States,
is above the law.
Eh, we think.