United States: Minister of Justice Bill Bar resigns

Until recently, he was a staunch among Donald Trump’s followers. US Justice Minister Bill Barr resigned Monday, December 14. He had refused to follow the Republican president in the desperate challenge of his defeat. As usual, it is the billionaire who made the news public on Twitter, attaching the letter of resignation from his minister.

“Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family, Assistant Justice Minister Jeff Rosen, an incredible person, will be acting,” the president wrote. “Our relationship has been very good” and Bill Barr has “done an exceptional job,” he added.

Donald Trump’s wrath

But his departure had been mentioned for a few weeks. He had suffered the wrath of Donald Trump for not having denounced the electoral fraud alleged by the host of the White House and likely, according to him, to invalidate the victory of Joe Biden in the presidential election in November. The Ministries of Homeland Security and Justice “have investigated and, so far, have found nothing to support them”, he said on 1^is December.

Donald Trump persists in denouncing massive fraud and refuses to acknowledge his defeat. But his camp has never managed to provide any evidence to support these accusations and the dozens of legal appeals he has presented have been almost all rejected, including those that reached the Supreme Court. The former real estate mogul has also expressed in recent days his “great disappointment”, because the Minister of Justice did not reveal before the November election the existence of an investigation into the situation. tax of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

A strong supporter of the death penalty

With his debonair and round glasses, Bill Barr had yet established himself in the government as one of the strongest defenders of Donald Trump and the ultraconservative right. This 70-year-old jurist is a fervent supporter of an extensive reading of presidential powers, of the death penalty, or of the powers of the federal police in the management of demonstrations against police violence, a historic movement that has crossed the country since the death by George Floyd.

Upon his arrival at the head of the ministry in February 2019, this calm man, with a good-natured tone, enjoyed a fairly smooth image. He had already held this position in the early 1990s, a pledge of seriousness in an administration where novices in politics were legion.

The “president’s lawyer”

But this relative consensus was shattered and Bill Barr quickly found himself given the nickname “President’s Advocate”. He was notably accused of having done everything to protect Donald Trump in the investigation by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller into a possible collusion between Russia and the Republican candidate’s campaign team in 2016. At the end of 2019, he had thus supported a theory developed by the billionaire, in total contradiction to his own ministry.

Donald Trump then assured that the FBI had opened an investigation into possible links between Moscow and his campaign team for political reasons, an accusation swept away by the Inspector General, an independent authority within the ministry. But Bill Barr had preferred to criticize the federal police and the possible “bad faith” of certain agents. According to his supporters, this native of New York, a graduate of the prestigious Columbia University, was not defending Donald Trump, but the presidential office.

He has never ceased to denounce the Democratic opposition and the American left which, according to him, have launched “a systematic attack on standards and the rule of law”, subjecting the president to “constant harassment”. A practicing Catholic, he also lamented a decline in religious values ​​in the United States and a “campaign” by progressives “to destroy the traditional moral order,” while standing alongside a twice-divorced president whose sexist comments caused a scandal in 2016.