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Judge Amy Berman Jackson s Barr rebuke opens the door to DOJ accountability
There are four possibilities for holding an attorney general accountable if evidence suggests he did abuse his office to protect a president.
Bill Barr needs to learn that good government requires transparency. Leah Millis / Reuters; MSNBC
May 7, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC
Good government requires transparency. It’s why we have a free press, enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s why Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”
And it’s why U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s 35-page opinion in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. U.S. Department of Justice is so important. In a move that drew only passing attention at the time, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2019 seeking guidance documents the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel provided to newly confirmed
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Conservatives are understandably concerned about Big Tech censorship, with some looking to use antitrust law to break up companies they don’t like.
Politicizing the antitrust enforcement process would only play into the Left’s hands. It would be like performing an appendectomy with a baseball bat it won’t accomplish what you say you want, but it will leave a mess on the floor.
The Left has long wanted to destroy the prevailing consumer welfare standard, a concept promulgated by conservative Judge Robert Bork that has now undergirded antitrust law for over four decades. The consumer welfare standard is simple. When evaluating alleged anti-competitive conduct, judges and regulators must look to whether the business practices in question have harmed consumers. Consumer harm is measured through tangible effects, such as higher prices or reduced product quality. The standard is designed to protect the competitive process, not individual firms in a marke