William Barr Has a Long History of Abusing Civil Rights and Liberties in the Name of ‘National Security’
UPDATE: On Feb. 14, 2019, the Senate confirmed William Barr to be the next attorney general of the United States by a vote of 54-45.
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings on William Barr’s nomination to be the next attorney general of the United States, offering senators an opportunity to scrutinize his record and views.
Such scrutiny is especially crucial in the Trump era. As we’ve seen throughout his time in office, from imposing the Muslim ban to the recent shutdown fight over border wall funding, President Trump has tried to use “national security” as a pretext to justify discriminatory or otherwise illegal policies.
That’s why his nomination of William Barr should concern everyone — because Barr has a long record of doing the same thing during the George H.W. Bush administration. If confirmed to be Trump’s attorney general, Barr could enable the president to act on many of his worst instincts.
Defending discriminatory profiling
In the lead up to the Persian Gulf War, the FBI questioned hundreds of Arab-Americans. It these interviews were to solicit information about terrorism. Barr, who served as deputy attorney general at the time, defended the FBI’s actions, that they were needed “to solicit information about potential terrorist activity and to request the future assistance of these individuals.”
Community activists said that the FBI was and because of their identity. Many of the people who were questioned said that they were interrogated about their and — based not on actual evidence, but on national origin. As an official charged with upholding the law, Barr should know not only are such practices offensive, , and a waste of limited resources, but they also undermine the very constitutional rights he swore to protect.
Supporting secret military trials
And Barr’s history doesn’t stop there.
Following the 1988 Lockerbie Bombings, Barr the idea of the president convening secret military tribunals to try people accused of involvement with suspected terrorist activities. Barr the idea of secret military trials after the 9/11 attacks and in support of President George W. Bush’s decision to order them without congressional authorization.
Barr that the president has the power to order such trials as long as he cites “national defense” interests. Barr said that “no war need be declared for this power to come into being,” and that there is “no geographical limit” for the president to exercise such powers. Anyone declared a foreign adversary, he said, “is not entitled to constitutional protections.”
More recently, Barr’s belief that the president has virtually unchecked security powers is also seen in his of the first version of Trump’s Muslim ban.
Such beliefs are in keeping with his sweeping views of executive power. Indeed, Barr has that “the real threat to domestic liberties is the artificial restriction of our powers of national defense by gratuitously expanding constitutional guarantees beyond their intended office.”
Endorsing detention and denying rights
Barr’s nomination should trouble anyone worried about executive overreach, especially as Trump is trying to go beyond his authority to ban asylum-seekers and detention, including the separation of parents from their children.
During the George H.W. Bush-era, Barr endorsed the administration’s use of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay to detain Haitians seeking asylum in the U.S., denying them to legal advice during their asylum proceedings. A federal judge the government for indefinitely detaining the Haitians and denying them access to legal counsel.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has that it will force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims for protection are processed. And right now, the president is to formally declare a national emergency in order to build his border wall without congressional approval or appropriations.
As Trump leads attacks on civil liberties and the rule of law, often by making false claims about national security, senators must ask Barr about his troubling record and make sure that he will not become a rubber stamp for the president’s unlawful actions.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.