December 10th 2019

Bill Berkowitz

Given his October speech at Notre Dame University where Attorney General William Barr’s Christian nationalism, as well as his willful ignorance regarding the separation of church and state, was on full display, another more recent speech to the conservative legal group the Federalist Society at their annual conference, where he touted the imperial powers of the Trump presidency, and his almost total servile obeisance to Donald Trump, it is difficult to imagine that anything Barr might do or say would be surprising. Yet, before an audience made up of mostly police officers, Barr issued a stark — if coded — warning to communities of color that they better obey the police or risk losing “police protection.”

Barr’s menacing words, delivered at the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in Policing ceremony honoring the work of law enforcement at the Justice Department, was marked by him saying that communities the police serve have to start showing "respect.” 

Although Barr didn’t specify which communities he was referring to, it appeared to be a blatant threat to communities of color that – in the infamous words of George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer -- they need to watch what they do and watch what they say. 

Barr said “They have to start showing more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves. If communities don't give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.”

"Barr was using coded language to highlight black and brown communities as the communities that are 'critical of police,'" the activist DeRay Mckesson pointed out.

“It is wholly irresponsible for the nation's chief law enforcement officer to criticize people who are seeking a better, more fair system as being anti-police," said Vanita Gupta, who served in the Justice Department under Obama.

Barr’s remarks dovetail with his actions as attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration. According to New York magazine’s Andrew Rice, “Barr advocated punitive measures to fight gangs and gun offenses, and the department produced a report with the now-infamous title ‘The Case for More Incarceration.’”

Interestingly enough, since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, and the subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement across the country, there have been many efforts launched at trying to improve police-community relations. 

As Damon Linker wrote in This Week, “It's hard to read [Barr’s words] without hearing it as a threat to minority (and especially African American) communities that have taken a stand in recent years against police brutality and excessive force. Show proper deference to the police, the nation's chief law enforcement officer is saying, or else the cops may choose to stop protecting you. The protection the police provide is conditional, in other words, on your obedience.”

Linker, the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test, added: “But Barr's statement isn't just an expression of authoritarianism. It's also a reflection of the mob-boss mentality that prevails in the administration Barr serves with such abundant loyalty and enthusiasm. Barr delivered his remarks during a week when the impeachment inquiry in Congress moved to the House Judiciary Committee, where representatives heard testimony about whether, among other things, it is acceptable for the president of the United States to threaten to withhold desperately needed military aid from a vastly weaker country in order to get that country to perform a ‘dirty tricks’ political favor that would personally benefit that president.”

Last week, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont “asked the Justice Department’s internal ethics watchdog on Thursday to investigate Attorney General William P. Barr for blessing a secret program at the Drug Enforcement Administration more than a quarter-century ago that went on to collect billions of records of Americans’ phone calls,” The New York Times reported. 

“Mr. Barr’s authorization of this sweeping surveillance program without requiring, at minimum, an appropriate legal analysis, was not consistent with his oath to support and defend the Constitution and it likely amounted to professional misconduct,” the senators wrote to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Barr makes no apologies for his subservience to Trump: He recently told New York Magazine’s Andrew Rice that: “People who had a lot of antipathy toward Trump seemed to be willing to go to any lengths to injure his administration. I felt that was unfair and harmful to the system and important institutions, including the presidency, and I felt there should be people in the Department of Justice to help navigate through these times.”

Rice provided a short review of Barr’s actions since becoming Attorney General:

“[O]ver the past year, with bureaucratic dexterity and bluff self-assurance, Barr has effectively turned the Justice Department to face down Trump’s adversaries. In the spring, he brought a muffled conclusion to special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, managing the release of his report in a way that limited its impact and declaring the evidence did not show Trump committed obstruction of justice. Barr then initiated a secretive internal probe of the origins of the Russia investigation, headed by veteran prosecutor John Durham, who is scrutinizing the FBI and CIA. Barr, who claims there was “spying” on Trump’s campaign, has played a hands-on role in Durham’s work, traveling the world to convince foreign intelligence services to cooperate in his investigation of the investigation.”