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Sep 17, 2020

AG Bill Barr Compares COVID Lockdowns to Slavery at Hillsdale College, Criticizes Prosecutors: Transcript

Bill Barr Hillsdale college slavery comments
Rev › Blog › Transcripts › AG Bill Barr Compares COVID Lockdowns to Slavery at Hillsdale College, Criticizes Prosecutors: Transcript

At Hillsdale College’s annual Constitution Day Celebration, Attorney General William Barr said coronavirus related lockdowns were the biggest intrusion on civil liberties since slavery. He also criticized his own prosecutors at the Justice Department for political motives. Read the transcript here.

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Comparing Slavery to Coronavirus Lockdowns

William Barr: (00:21)
… putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders is like house arrest.

William Barr: (00:35)
Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.

William Barr: (00:48)
A person in the white coat is not the grand seer who can come up with the right decision for society. A free people makes its decision through its elected representative.

Criticizing Justice Department Prosecutors

William Barr: (01:06)
…proposition who can quarrel with the proposition Black Lives Matter, but they’re not interested in Black lives. They’re interested in props, a small number of Blacks who were killed by police during conflict with police … usually less than a dozen a year, who they can use as props to achieve a much broader political agenda.

William Barr: (01:45)
Our prosecutors have all too often inserted themselves into the political process based on the flimsiest of legal theories.

William Barr: (02:05)
Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency.

William Barr: (02:19)
What do you mean by interfere? Under the law, the law prosecutorial power is vested in the Attorney General, and these people are agents of the Attorney General. And as I say to FBI agents, whose agent do you think you are? I don’t say this in a pompous way, but that is the chain of authority and legitimacy in the Department of Justice.

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