the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., august 23, 2022. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable thomas richard carper, a senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on friday, august 26, 2022. >> senators continued their summer recess this month and will next return for votes on september 6. as always follow the senate live here on c-span2. and we now return to our booktv programming. >> some of the obvious firebrands, the mel brooks, the don trump, jr. throughout the yelling to the crowd, even in context to others, very aggressive in interface. bill barr has a soft-spoken manner. he works the part of the sort of veteran lawyer. he's not a fight picker. he's not a bomb thrower but because he carried the weight of the justice department behind what he did and because he is so devious and soda did things under the veneer of intellectualism and the law i argue in a book a lot of what he did was more dangerous than some of the unhinged rhetoric to hear from o some of the more visible trump supporters. >> of course. he'sac working and actually wielded a position much more powerful than any of the -- and one of the last question want as before we get to these questions, we will start with the questions after this one is, look, we have seen the impact of bill barr onrr the justice department that the everlasting question as many camee from the trump administration is what about that time versus what when you look at history? so my question is, how did bill barr impact the justice department as a whole do think the impact isre permanent or ist already something that in your view we are clawing a way out of? >> i i think it will be long-lasting and one of my hopes is at the end is future attorney general to look at what bill barr did and say gee, that's not exactly right way to do things. that's not exactly ethical or moral or proper under prosecutorial principles. but it's easy and he got away with it for the most part and it was beneficial to them and beneficial to the president. so lot of what has to happen is we just need better people in these jobs. one of the things i steps in the book is there are two ways we can look at this. there's the written rules, the policies. what are doj's control policies, what is the law say? i offered in of the book nine policy prescriptions or legal things that need to be changed to prevento a future ag from going down the same road and committing some of the same trains, discretions bill barr committee. the other thing is d a chance to get back code meaning all of those unwritten rules of norms of ethics bill barr again never understood never know because he was never a try prosecutor, and in some instances you realize prosecutors, and i was taught this early and i experienced it, prosecutors are given a staggering amount of power. when i did my cases you realize ili started when i was 29 years old as a prosecutor, omar, and at the time i was a baby i had the power toad take away liberty from a human being to by doing that to destroy families and finances and businesses andnd relationships. and you learn that when you're in the trenches, when you going to a sensing and somebody has their kids there and you realize how much power you have and you learn to respect t that and you gain some humility. bill barr never had that. he never had to stand face-to-face with witnesses,, with defendants orda lawyers, wh judges. as result he approached his job with the lack of humility and you realize the only real thing standing between prosecutors and abuse of power one of the main thinks is the integrity and principles of the people have those jobs. one encouraging sign that i'm seeing from the merrick garland administration is reducing the very strict wall of separation between doj and why does. i think that's absolutely necessary. i'll give an example just recently. maybe a month or so ago and doj did the search warrant on rudy giuliani so that was reporting later the byron white as was ticked off because that night was by w his first joint address of congress. they wanted to be this big moment and get a big chunk of news media was diverted to this sensational raid on rudy. when i saw that story i thought good, good that's exactly what should be. the lasting doj should at least be doing his call to the white house and say were going to do big thing today that might take some media attention like are you cool with that?it the fact that i was glad to see the biden white house was ticked off at that because that's that should be. there should be no communication regarding the prosecutorial function of doj. i am d encouraged that we're making progress on the level we need policy changes as well. e of the questions here from the viewers don't freak out. i'm just going to your first name. if you don't want me to use your first and last name just put it in there. to start, ellen are you going to get reading e.g. carol, did they decide to continue with us to try to establish legal limits on how the president's responsibilities are or how to lose the case print is that a legal strategy makes sense in these policies royal strategy. >> it's an interesting question when i heard quite a bit. i don't think so, you have a duty as a prosecutor if you're going to pursue a case, say with any wire. to pursue it vigorously and i think it is an ethical for a prosecutor to say honoring this case up so that i can lose it. now it is possible, little bit of a variation on that. america garland and said, let's get a little bit more definitive guidance because we have a district court ruling, the trial of organ may be to bring it up to the court of appeals we will have a little bit more sort of definitive nets about where that line isn't whether this falls on one side of the line or the other. could've been a motivation garland bennett think that's close to what she's asking but i think it's possible but i don't think he is case sort of more extreme version of that and some people but garland wants to take the case get a second ruling. he didn't appeal the case, it would be open they would be and we would have the judge kaplan's ruling, not as powerful as a court of the feels ruling but i think that is possible. it is good thought. >> one of the questions audio to nexus from rj to says that bill barr as we know, john carl over at abc news and part of this was where those claims about i didn't think these voter fraud claims were real all along came about previous question is what he believed is trying to rewrite history and do believe he is a future in a future in the administration. >> so i think he's trying to rewrite history because he must preserve his reputation and his legacy and standing. in sort of a polite society. bill barr by the way is very image-conscious pretty don't let him, cortisol i don't really read the papers. and during his confirmation he said i really don't want this job predict no way, there's plenty of evidence that is very image-conscious including from some i can't really disclose of the folks i know who know him that he will talk to the media and he knows about my book and is not happy which i take as a good sign. so if you look at the atlantic article, it is so one-sided that it leaves out the whole six months that bill barr was fanning the flames. and it kept falling down saying when it is sort of come up with an explanation. and when i say those things to congress and i really didn't mean this really met this narrow way, or even maybe for even knowledge. and since things before it turned out to be wrong. when i realized they were on, i corrected it. i would be okay with that, i would have at least given him partial credit for that but is nowhere to be seen in this article. i didn't go to journalism school and not sure exactly how people ask him that as a report that there. but is presenting us only the little sliver of the story that is good for him. one other thing that was missing was supposed script, bill barr had this moment of courage finally in december, december 120 said there's no evidence of voter fraud. many undercut himself again in his resignation letter which is this sort of fawning voted to donald trump and then he goes out of his way to say, i just consulted with you in the white house president and it was a pleasure to advise you that were still investigating the possibility of election fraud meaning, that's all he needs. now he can say the bill barr didn't say that he still looking pretty did him a favor on his way out he undermined his own brief moment of courage and he seems to be very clear that that's exactly what he did. if you didn't care, why would he go out of his way to talk to john carl he was only a very incomplete pretty similar, what he did with all report predict one sliver that was good for whatever position he wanted and he ignored and tried to admit it, the huge body of evidence that went the other way but the difference is unlike the mueller report when he lied about it, we know that he said all of those things because of his microphone and on camera. so we can we should call them out predict. >> in this follows a pattern of the officials. and just say you know what, i am going to restart. >> and the other part of the question, no i don't think he has any other aspirations to work in another ministration he's about 32 years old now if i'm not mistaken he made a fortune by the way rated he was worth at least $40 million when he became a g for the second time so he has set financially think he just wants to save his reputation, who wouldn't. but we don't have to buy it. >> and you brought it back again, that he served in their multiple administrations some of the questions from sandra or sondra, is that bill barr is ag under bush and we heard at least less about him, why and how did he change. >> we knew far less about them. his major controversy with the run contract defendants which was a bit of foreshadowing because it helps to live off of these people who could've could've harmed the present or vice president for that case, is interesting. what changed. i think the general tenor of our politics change between 1993 and 2018. and with a trump's own, much more extreme version and protect yourself and attack everyone else and justify the means i'm a politics i think that bill barr is on board flattening the book i talked about the big question though why did bill barr want this job. he had plenty of money, and he says in his confirmation. i'm semi- retarded just want to spend time with my grandchildren. i think three reasons, one is our, the mounted been out of the public eye and not a political powerful man for 25 years. there's nothing wrong with that and try to get promoted and did as a prosecutor so good. i don't have a problem with that in the second, the let's not this not be misled by his sort of need this stuff, the mountaintop power in the audition it and he got it. the second thing is that bill barr is long had an extreme view of the law and unitary executive meaning the present sort of inner political system but bill barr push that so far to the point that he lost hustling the course because he is constantly arguing but he often succeeds in protecting trump by just going to court and dragging these things out to the sort of until he would then the third thing was sort of an moment that

Related Keywords

Delaware , United States , Whitehouse , District Of Columbia , Washington , America , Mel Brooks , Thomas Richard Carper , Patrick J Leahy , John Carl ,