Attorney General Bill Barr will be on the witness stand in Washington DC this weeks, answering a bevy of questions being lobbed in his general direction by a litany of lawmakers.
But, as it turns out, Barr appears to have a bit of an agenda of his own to discuss…and he’ll take direct shots at the extremist agitators who have hijacked peaceful protests in Portland and beyond.
Attorney General William Barr plans to tell the House Judiciary Committee that the violent unrest in Portland is “an assault on the Government of the United States,” according to a copy of his prepared remarks obtained by CBS News. In the remarks, Barr also accuses Democratic members of the House Judiciary committee of trying to “discredit” him.
“To state what should be obvious, peaceful protesters do not throw explosives into federal courthouses, tear down plywood with crowbars, or launch fecal matter at federal officers. Such acts are in fact federal crimes under statutes enacted by this Congress,” Barr says.
Barr will appear in front of the committee on Tuesday for an oversight hearing. In his opening remarks, he discusses the unrest that has followed George Floyd’s death — but while he acknowledges that “every instance of excessive force is unacceptable and must be addressed,” he decries calls to defund the police, saying “the demonization of police is not only unfair and inconsistent with the principle that all people should be treated as individuals, but gravely injurious to our inner city communities.”
President Trump’s insistence on being the “law and order President” appears to also be on Barr’s mind, and this terse language appears to attempt to explain how federal forces wound up engaged in crowd control in the Pacific Northwest.
