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65/ In Feb., he issued restrictions on investigations into politically sensitive individuals. Any "investigations into a presidential candidate or campaign & illegal contributions, donations or expenditures by foreign nationals..." must be approved by him. https://n.pr/3jj6IhG
66/ Barr believes in the "unitary executive" theory which he says grants the president unlimited powers. The W. Bush admin relied on it for warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. Barr pushed the theory as AG for H.W. Bush. Before that, Reagan's lawyer Edwin Meese pushed for it.
67/ The theory also overlaps with Barr's religious liberty beliefs of one God—and that God's moral guidance—as the ultimate decider. https://bit.ly/358NKXe
68/ As he told a University of Notre Dame audience last yr: "Judeo-Christian moral standards are the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct. They reflect the rules that are best for man…They are like God's instruction manual for the best running of man and human society."
69/ He pushes religious freedom training in the DOJ and has prioritized its religious freedom cases. https://nyti.ms/2Ex5TTH
70/ Claire McCusker Murray is №3 at the DOJ. In March, she led some of the training sessions for DOJ lawyers on religious liberty law. She's co-Vice-Chair of the DOJ's Religious Liberty Task Force.
https://bit.ly/2DymCFG
https://bit.ly/2DymCFG
71/ She's clerked for Alito and Kavanaugh and later became a partner at K&E. She's the Principal Deputy Assoc. AG and oversees more than 10 different DOJ departments including Civil Rights, Antitrust and the Environment. https://bit.ly/2DymCFG
72/ In July, she issued DOJ guidance on religious groups now being able to obtain public funding. It was in response to SCOTUS' conservative 5-member majority decision in "Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue" to allow religious groups equal access to public grant programs.
73/ The case was argued by Jeff Wall, Trump's current Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He's a member of the Federalist Society who clerked for Thomas before working at K&E.
https://bit.ly/3kgsRxH
https://bit.ly/3kgsRxH
74/ Jeffrey Rosen is also a member of the Federalist society. He's Barr's №2 at the DOJ and has has no experience as a prosecutor but oversees the DOJ's prosecutors' offices, federal prisons and FBI offices. https://reut.rs/35RnEpE
75/ He was previously the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Dept. of Transportation where he worked with Secretary Elaine Chao to rewrite fuel efficiency regulations and set drone policy.
76/ Rosen was a K&E partner for almost 30 yrs and practiced "complex business litigation" at the firm. He & Barr both defended large corporations who used complex tax strategies to avoid paying billion$ in US taxes from its overseas subsidiaries. https://on.wsj.com/2F7QdGg
77/ He enables Barr to carry out his Judeo-Christian agenda.
78/ Barr's a member of Opus Dei, the far right Roman Catholic group who came to America in 1949 "to introduce Opus Dei to the people." https://wapo.st/31ZpW6f
79/ Father Joseph Muzquiz, one of the first three members of Opus Dei to be ordained to the priesthood, said the group found such a receptive community in Chicago that it decided to open its first U.S. Opus Dei center for men on the city's South side.
https://bit.ly/2QZ26ks
https://bit.ly/2QZ26ks
80/ Its location puts it next to the U of C campus. That was because "…they wanted to try to bring people who would be influential in the general culture into closer contact with the Lord," said Cardinal Francis George, the eighth Archbishop of Chicago.
https://bit.ly/32p8sAj
https://bit.ly/32p8sAj
81/ Today, there are six Opus Dei administered schools and centers in the Chicago area. https://bit.ly/3c6Hi4h
82/ Almost 30 yrs ago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, then Archbishop of Chicago, entrusted Chicago's St. Mary of the Angels Parish to the priests of Opus Dei. At the time, that made it 1 of only 3 parishes in North America to be administered by Opus Dei. https://bit.ly/2F7xBpQ
83/ The Catholic Information Center (CIC) is also led by Opus Dei. It's 2 blocks from the WH. It's a bookstore, chapel & gathering place for the conservative Catholics in Washington D.C. Barr was its director from 2014–2017. Leonard Leo's on its board. https://bit.ly/32qu6CU
84/ Thomas D. Yannucci is the board's current chairman. He's worked at K&E since 1980 and is Chair Emeritus of its Management Committee.
https://bit.ly/3muIOST
https://bit.ly/3muIOST
85/ He's run the David M. Yannucci Charitable Foundation with his family since 2001. It's given at least $265,000 to the CIC over the last decade. He's also a co-founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and a contributor to the Federalist Society. https://bit.ly/3awdzBm
86/ Pat Cipollone was also a CIC board member. As a student, he helped lead the Federalist Society student chapter at U of C. He was a speechwriter for Barr during the H.W. Bush administration and was recruited by Yannucci to work at K&E. https://bit.ly/3m1gibg
87/ Cipollone prepped Trump for his 2016 presidential debates and was an advisor to him during Mueller's investigation. He's Trump's White House counsel and was the lead attorney in his impeachment trial. https://nyti.ms/2PZ3Iug
88/ He also works with Asst. AG's Brian Benczkowski's office. https://bit.ly/2EkV72P
89/ Benczkowski is a K&E partner and a member of the its Government, Regulatory & Internal Investigations Practice Group. While there in 2017, he represented Russia's Alfa Bank against claims it and the Trump organization had servers sharing data.
https://bit.ly/3hl7sBn
https://bit.ly/3hl7sBn
90/ He supervised the investigation that produced the Stroz Friedberg report. It "found no evidence of any connections or communications between Alfa Bank and The Trump Organization occurring in 2017."
https://bit.ly/2EXoEQg
https://bit.ly/2EXoEQg
91/ The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the following in its Volume 5 report:
https://bit.ly/2FrGw62
https://bit.ly/2FrGw62
92/ Multiple scientists found numerous connections between the Trump, Alfa Bank and Spectrum Health servers. http://bit.ly/2J3wdnh
93/ Benczkowski was head of the DOJ's Criminal Division for two years until he left in July. It was that division that received the initial whistle-blower complaint about Trump's alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
94/ Benczkowski constrained the investigation into Trump's dealings with Zelensky. Deputy White House Counsel John Eisenberg hid the call "transcript" on a classified server & refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena. Cipollone worked to hide the information from Congress.
95/ Eisenberg focused on white-collar, complex civil litigation and data-security issues for K&E. He clerked for Thomas. He's the Asst. and Dep. Counsel to Trump & legal advisor to the NatSec Counsel. He was appointed by then NatSec Advisor Michael Flynn.
https://bit.ly/2Fg9BRr
https://bit.ly/2Fg9BRr
96/ In 2017, he was one of three White House officials that leaked classified documents to Devin Nunes during the House Intelligence Committee Russia investigation. He later refused a subpoena to appear at Trump's impeachment trial. https://wapo.st/359Rjwa
97/ The list goes on. There's Robert Bork, John Bolton, Patrick Philbin, Nicholas Trutanich, Jeffrey Harris, Jamieson Greer, Britt Grant, Jennifer Koester and many more. https://bit.ly/3iEOGXb
98/ And there are more on the way. K&E also has a legal clinic at U of C where law students work with corporate clients to advise on various legal matters. The students successfully worked with Koch Industries on a project last year.
https://bit.ly/3bQPmGg
https://bit.ly/3bQPmGg
This story can be read in long form here: https://medium.com/@brianmohr/libertys-legal-enablers-528d98268429
