by Bob Barr | May 7, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller George Soros, along with Michael Bloomberg, has become the man conservatives love to hate; and with good reason. He harbors extreme left-wing political views, he is fabulously wealthy, and he has long-exhibited a willingness to “put his money where his mouth is.” Perhaps even more important than his wealth, however, is the fact that Soros understands that to effect lasting and systemic societal change, requires a consistent focus on politics at the local level. In this, Soros shares an understanding with Bloomberg; but where the former New York Mayor continues to focus like a laser on one issue — gun control — Soros is intent on achieving a far broader goal – to alter the basic structure of our judicial system. Soros cleverly — and smartly — has concluded that one of the most effective vehicles through which to accomplish this ambitious goal, is to fund left-leaning candidates for the one elected office that perhaps more than any other is able to change the fundamental values by which communities function — the local district attorney or “D.A.” While Soros’ crusade to implement this plan has not met with success in every instance, his victories in just the past four years have been significant. Throughout our nation’s history, prosecutors have enjoyed significant power to decide which cases to investigate and prosecute. The principle of “prosecutorial discretion” inherited from British law, clothes prosecutors with immunity against being second-guessed in their decisions about which cases to pursue and which to leave aside — in other words, what values to prioritize by prosecuting which crimes. Thus, if a prosecutor determines...
by Bob Barr | Apr 24, 2019 | Uncategorized |
FoxNews.com by Bob Barr Some House Democrats who are calling for impeachment proceedings against President Trump on a charge of obstruction of justice claim that President Clinton was impeached in 1998 for far less serious misconduct. As a leader of the Clinton impeachment effort, I disagree. I still believe the Clinton impeachment was justified. But based on what is now in the public record, I don’t believe a Trump impeachment is warranted. Clinton, of course, remained in office after the House impeached him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice because the Senate acquitted him in a trial. Even if the Democratic-controlled House impeached President Trump, he would also likely stay in office after a Senate trial. Impeachment simply means the House charges the president with serious misconduct it considers to be what the Constitution calls “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The phrase is not defined in the Constitution, and in a sense can mean whatever a simple majority in the House says it means. However, there are two instances in which sitting presidents have been impeached – Andrew Johnson and Clinton – and one in which President Nixon almost certainly would have been impeached had he not first resigned. Looking at these cases gives us clear guidance that there needs to be a very substantial and substantive basis set forth on the record in order for the impeachment process to have the credibility it merits. With Democrats in majority control of the House – holding 235 seats, compared to the 197 seats held by Republicans – odds are that the Democrats can impeach Trump if they want to. Congressional Democrats opposed to...
by Bob Barr | Apr 24, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com The Cold War years of the 1960s gave rise to two very different cinematic characterizations of spies – the debonair but ruthless James Bond (aka “Agent 007”), and the bumbling but likeable Maxwell Smart (aka “Agent 86”). Now, half a century later, the federal government has jailed 30-year old Maria Butina as a Russian spy and has asserted that her secretive actions posed a serious threat to our nation’s security. The reality, however, is that Butina’s activities fit far more easily into an episode of Get Smart than as a serious espionage case. During her time as both a visitor and a student in the U.S. from 2015 until her arrest and indictment last year, Butina attended numerous political events while maintaining contacts with officials in her home country. The Department of Justice appropriately has alleged that acting in this manner, Butina violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by failing to register thereunder. She ultimately was pressured into pleading guilty to conspiring to violate that statute. In spite of being arrested and held in solitary confinement for what essentially constitutes an administrative offense, Butina’s biggest mistake appears to be that her activities and her paperwork omission placed her squarely within the ongoing narrative of Russian collusion. The Sentencing Memorandum filed last week by the Justice Department, for example, concedes that Butina is neither “a spy in the traditional sense” nor a “trained intelligence officer.” The government instead asserts that Butina conspired to use “connections” developed during her sojourn in the United States to create “backchannel communications” to the Russian government. Characterizing all this as a serious espionage conspiracy, however,...
by Bob Barr | Apr 10, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com As the saying goes, “it was great while it lasted.” On Friday, March 29th U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued an 86-page Order declaring unconstitutional California’s law criminalizing possession of firearm magazines with a capacity to hold more than 10 rounds. The senior jurist, who was confirmed to his post in 2004 following nomination by President George W. Bush, went further than do most judges when striking down a state law as contrary to the U.S. Constitution. He directed that his Order be effective immediately. In other words, Judge Benitez did not allow California to continue to enforce the unconstitutional law while the state appealed the decision (a process that can be expected to take months). Unfortunately, less than one week later – on Thursday, April 4th – Benitez relented, and stayed his Order so as to give California’s very liberal Attorney General, former Congressman Xavier Becerra, opportunity to appeal the decision to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Notwithstanding the judge’s about-face, his lengthy opinion declaring the magazine ban incompatible with the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms,” deserves continued scrutiny and praise. The opinion is strikingly lucid in explaining both the history and the practical necessity of allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, if they so choose, with a firearm capable of firing more than 10 rounds without reloading. At the outset, Benitez properly underpins his analysis of the magazine ban by asserting that at its core, the Second Amendment is about self-defense; not hunting, not gun collecting, but defense of one’s person, family and home. Moreover, as he explains further,...
by Bob Barr | Apr 9, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller If you were to guess the most critical problem faced by President Trump in dealing with the flood of illegal immigration at our southern border, what would it be? Foreign government-sponsored migration caravans? Funding for the border wall? A shortage of border patrol agents? Indeed, these all are aspects of the serious problems Trump is encountering in addressing the ongoing crisis at out southern border; but they fail to get to the heart of the problem the president faces in taking steps to solve the crisis. In a word, judges are the main obstacle standing between the president and his ability to seriously address the border crisis. Federal judges. Interestingly, our founding fathers warned of this very problem more than two centuries ago. “At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1823. “Experience however soon shewed in what way they were to become the most dangerous.” Jefferson’s comments reflect what many of our founders feared; that while the the powers of the republic were vested in three co-ordinate (not “co-equal”) branches, each acting as a check on the others, the furtive creep of judicial power over the years would lead to an imbalance in power, inviting a tyranny of the judiciary. This is exactly where we find ourselves today, 230 years after the Constitution was ratified. Article III of the Constitution outlines specific and limited responsibilities for the federal judiciary; but it was not until the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, that the concept of judicial review of the nation’s...
by Bob Barr | Apr 3, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com In the aftermath of the February 2018 mass murder at a Parkland, Florida high school, it became readily apparent that danger signs and evidence abounded that a disturbed former student at the school was likely going to commit such a heinous crime. Despite local, state and federal law enforcement officials having possession of such knowledge, they failed to act on that information even though they had lawful and ready means to do so. Now, rather than hold responsible those who failed in their responsibilities in that tragedy, and to address specifically the reasons why our law enforcement and judicial systems failed in that instance, state governments and the Congress of the United States are moving to dramatically reduce due process protections for everyone, or at least for everyone who owns a firearm. The vehicle being used to thus undermine citizens’ rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, are so-called “red flag” laws (also known as “Emergency Risk Protections Orders”). The problems evident in the Parkland mass murder and others – Sutherland Springs, Texas in 2017, Charleston, SC in 2015, and Sandy Hook in 2012 — are very real and very serious; and need to be addressed. However, doing so in ways that expand the government’s power to confiscate law-abiding citizens’ firearms without affording them long-standing and constitutionally-based due process, is neither necessary nor appropriate. Yet this is precisely what is happening. To gun-control advocates like 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker, every mass shooting is the result of insufficient gun-control laws – “loopholes” in Liberal Speak. To them, the failure on the part of law enforcement and other government agencies...
