With fdr and radio and jfk and television. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Next remarks by attorney general william barr on his time in the trumpet ministration, the rule of law, and state lockdowns during the current about pandemic. From Hillsdale College this is a little more than an hour. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much, i am very honored to have been invited to speak at this dinner and i really appreciate your comments. Great to get to know you, ive been reading you over the years and it is a real delight to have ient the evening with you and am very pleased to be able to at this Hillsdale College celebration of our magnificent constitution. I am a great admirer of hillsdale. As i was telling larry, i do not get to make many speeches like this, i am usually talking about crime rates and that kind of thing. Dill to speak at his oflsdale because it is one the few institutions of Higher Learning where it is actually worthwhile spending the money to get an education at. [applause] and i mean that sincerely. Sadly, many colleges these days do not even teach the constitution much less celebrated celebrate it. Probably one out of every four americans do not know who we fought the revolution against. It is pretty pathetic. That number is increasing steadily as our educational institutions fail us. At hillsdale you recognize that the principles of the outing are as relevant today as ever and vital indeed, today to the survival of our great experimenter experiment here. I appreciate your observance and all you do for Civic Education and education period in this country. When many people think of the virtues of our constitution, they first mentioned the bill of rights, of course. That is the talking point of the constitution is the bill of rights, you have rights. I guess that makes sense, of the great guarantees of the elaborate, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, especially the rights to keep and bear arms are criticala few safeguards to our liberty, but as president reagan used to remind people of the soviet union the soviet union had a cause edition and even included some of these lofty sounding rights. Ultimately, those promises are just empty words because there was no rule of law in that society to enforce them. The rule of law is the linchpin of American Freedom and the critical guarantee of the rule of the rule of law comes from the constitutions structure of separation of powers. Elements of the rule of law and many safeguards built into our great constitution, but tonight i want to talk about the separation of powers. That byers recognized dividing the legislative ,xecutive and judicial powers each significant, but each limited, they would minimize the risk of any form of tyranny. That is the real genius of the constitution and it ultimately is more important to securing liberty than the bill of rights. After all, the bill of rights is a set of amendments to the original constitution, i know you will know that the framers did not think it was needed. They did not need to include into the constitution and express enumeration of rights. Today i want to talk about the power the constitution allocates to the executive branch particularly in the area of criminal justice. The Supreme Court has correctly held under article two of the constitution that the executive on the ability to decide whether or not to prosecute individuals on suspected crimes. We all know the executive vested with the responsibility of seeing the laws are faithfully executed, the power to execute and enforce law is an executive function altogether. That means discretion is vested in the executive to determine when and to exercise the prosecutorial power. The only significant limitation on that discretion comes from other provisions of the constitution, for example, the United States attorney could not decide to prosecute only people of a particular race or a particular religion. Aside from that limitation, which, thankfully remains only a hypothetical in our country, the executive has broad discretion to decide whether to bring criminal prosecutions in particular cases. The key question is then how the should executive exercise the prosecutorial discretion. This spring, one of my predecessors in this job, attorney general Robert Jackson gave a famous each to the congress of the United States attorneys in which he described the proper role and qualities of federal prosecutors. Of onlyjackson was one a handful i think we maybe, attorneys general who ultimately ended up as a justice on the Supreme Court. Eightas changed in the decades since Justice Jacksons remarks. Wisdoma man of uncommon and it is appropriate to consider his views today and how they apply in our modern era. Federal prosecutors possess tremendous power. Power that is necessary to enforce our laws and punish running doing wrongdoing, but power like any other power carries inherent potential for abuse. Justice jackson recognize this and as he put it, the prosecutor has more control over the life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in america. Prosecutors have the power to interviewe people, their friends, and they can do so on the basis of mere suspicion of wrongdoing. People facing federal investigations incur ruinous legal costs and often see their lives reduced to rubble before a charge is even filed. Justice jackson was not exaggerating when he said, while the prosecutor at his best is one of the most been efficient forces of our society, when he asked from alice, he is one of the worst. Think about the power of a prosecutor, does man have to answer to anything outside the office of the prosecutor . He can destroy peoples lives just by bringing an investigation, destroy the reputation, destroy their livelihood in todays world. It is not just individuals, think of the corporations. Accounting firm, thousands and thousands of jobs done away with in an instant because of a prosecutorial decision. A decision that was largely discretionary because individuals are initially responsible for the crimes and the question of whether or not youre going to impede that to the corporation and take down the corporation is largely a discretionary call by prosecutors. , going after Ad Corporation or a white collar defendant is like shooting fish in a barrel, there is no contest. You threaten a company with criminal liability and all the collateral effects that that has , no corporation is going to go to trial. The prosecutors know that, it is just a question of how large the check is going to be. That is always in control of a prosecutor. The power, as Justice Jackson power that the secutor has is not merely it can strike at citizens not with just in individual strength, but with all the force of the government itself. That has to be carefully calibrated and carefully supervised. Because left unchecked, it has the power to inflict far more harm than it prevents. The most basic check on prosecutorial power is political accountability. It is counterintuitive to say that as we rightly strive to maintain an apolitical system of criminal justice. Political accountability, politics, is what ultimately ensures our system does its work fairly and with proper recognition of the many interests and values at stake. Completelypower divorced from political accountability is tyranny. Justice jackson understood this, president iallained appointment and Senate Confirmation of the United States attorneys and the Senior Department of justice officials they areegitimizes exercises of the sovereign power. You are required to win an expression of confidence in your character by both the legislative and executive branches of government before assuming the responsibilities of a federal prosecutor. Since Justice Jacksons remarks, it has become a commonplace to argue that prosecutorial decisions are legitimate only when they are lowest level line prosecutors, the career prosecutors handling any given case. Ironically, some of those same critics see no problem in campaigning for highly campaigned district attorneys to remake state and local prosecutorial offices in their preferred progressive image which often involves overriding a considered judgment of the career prosecutors and police officers. Aside from that hypocrisy, the notion that a line prosecutors should make the final decisions within the department of justice is completely wrong and it is antithetical to the basic values that under guards our entire system. The Justice Department is not a gardener that watches over a society, impervious to the ebbs and flows of politics. It is an Agency Within the executive branch of a democratic government form of where the power of the state is ultimately imposed in the people acting through their elected president and their elected representatives. [applause] i know i do not include many applause warnings in my prepared speeches. [laughter] to beknown this was going a fireside chat, i wouldve cut the shorter, but i will give you something to clap at later, ok . [laughter] the men and women who have ultimate authority in the Justice Department are the ones on whom our elected officials have conferred that responsibility, by president ial appointment and Senate Confirmation. That blessing by the two political branches of government gives these officials democratic legitimacy that career officials do not possess. The same process that produces these officials also holds them accountable, the elected president can fire Senior Department of justice officials at will and the elected congress can summon them to explain their decisions to the peoples representatives. Theuse these officials have of the president and congress, they also have a statute to resist these political pressures when necessary and they can take the heat for what the department of justice does or does not do. Contrast,cutors, by are generally part of a permanent bureaucracy, they do not have the political agendas legitimacy to be the public face for decisions and they lack the political buy into publicly defended those decisions. Nor can the public and its representative told Civil Servants accountable in the same way as appointed officials. Indeed, the publics only tool to hold the government election. E is an the bureaucracy is neither elected, nor easily replaced by those who are. Because these officials are installed by the democratic process, that is, the appointees, they are the most equipped to make the judgment calls concerning how we should wield our prosecutorial power. Andustice scalia observed perhaps his most admired judicial opinion, his dissent in almostn versus olson, all investigative and prosecutorial decisions including the ultimate decision, whether after a technical violation of the law has been found, prosecution is warranted involve the balancing of innumerable legal and practical considerations. Those considerations do not need do need to be balanced in each and every case as Justice Scalia also pointed out, it is nice to see nice to say let justice be done while the heavens may fall, but it is does not conform with reality. It would do farm far more m than good to abandon rather to ensure that every violation of kamala is doing is investigated and prosecuted by the nth degree. Our system worked works best when led by judgment and consideration of alternative sanctions. All the things that supervisors provide. Cases must be supervised by someone who does not have a broad focus, but who is gauged in pursuing a general agenda. That person need not be a prosecutor, but someone who can balance the importance of a vigorous prosecution with other competing values. General, the attorney senior doj officials, and u. S. Are indeed political, but they are political in a good and necessary sense. Of notrom the importance fully decoupling Law Enforcement from the constraining and moderating forces of politics, devolving all in authority down to the most junior officials did not even make sense as a matter of basic management. Organizationessful or institution where the lowest level employees decisions are deemed sacrosanct. There are not any. Letting the most Junior Members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency. Good leaders at the department of justice, at any organizations , need to trust and support their subordinates. That does not mean blindly deferring to whatever those subordinates want to do. One of the more annoying things that i hear and face, this is been going on for decades. Politicalge idea that officials interfere in investigations or in cases. What you mean by interfere . Under the law, all prosecutorial power is vested in the attorney general. Agents of there attorney general. Fbi agents, whose agent do you think you are . I do not say this in a pompous way, but that is the chain of in thety and legitimacy department of justice. I say, what exactly am i interfering with . When you boil it right down is the will of the most Junior Member of the organization. He has some idea that he wants to do something, what makes that sacrosanct . What makes the judgment of the next layer up or the next layer or up . And havingfanning up more broader experience and a broader portfolio and a broader the lineve, what makes attorney handling a particular case, their judgment so sacrosanct . The idea i guess is they are not political and therefore their judgments will not be political. From my experience in the department, in two different , career employees are not apolitical necessarily. Some are, some are very political and can set their politics at the door, and others cant. Partisan, but they are not apolitical, necessarily. They are human beings like everybody else and they are usually less experienced individuals than of their supervisors. This is what the president , the congress, and the public expects when something goes wrong in the department of justice, the buck has to stop somewhere and that is at the top. The statute i referenced was 28 notsection 509 which could be player, all functions of the offices of the department of justice and all functions of agencies and employees of the department of justice are vested in the attorney general. And because the attorney general is ultimately politically accountable for every decision i andhe department makes, my predecessors have had an obligation to ensure that we make the correct decision. The attorney general, the assistant attorneys general, the attorneys are not figureheads, we are supervisors. Our job is to supervise and anything less is an advocate in add location. It is also essential to the rule of law, the essence of the rule of law is that whatever rule you apply in one case must be the same rule you would apply in a similar case. Treating each person similarly before the law includes how the department enforces the law. We should not prosecute someone for wire fraud in manhattan notg a legal fairy we would equally pursue in medicine or montgomery or allow prosecutors in one decision to bring charges using a theory that a group of prosecutors in another division down the hall would not deploy against someone who is engaged in indistinguishable conduct. We must strive for consistency, that is yet another reason why centralized Senior Leadership exists. To harmonize the disparate views of our many prosecutors in a consistent policy for the department. I was being interviewed by a member of the press, it was a radio interview, and i got one of these questions like, why are you interfering in some cases over here or over there . I said why do you think we have one attorney general . States,93 districts, 50 93 districts. Do you think each u. S. Attorney should be a law into themselves . What you think we have one attorney general, for uniformity of law. For having consistency in the application of law, for having someone who has the entire perspective of the playing field. And the cameramen are all nodding their head, this makes sense. [laughter] proceed ind we must all districts with that uniformity of policy which is necessary to the prestige of federal law, but i think it is more involved than prestige. Uniformity is what protects us. , oure end of the day system is really the crystallization of the golden rule and a political system. That is ultimately what protects us, which is, i am not willing to do to somebody else what i am not willing to have done to me. That is ultimately the foundation of our freedom. [applause] we see that in the legislative branch, think about it constitutionally, im talking about the constitution tonight. The legislature in the United States cannot make one law that applies in new york and another in california. There are a lot of reasons for that, think about it, then you could have little fractions in the country buying a favor and building a majority to adopt rules that do not apply to everyone the same. It is also because you cannot have the rest of the country say we are going to go to war and by the way the draft law only applies to new york. Thestitutional constitution requires uniformity. Everybody. Pply to applies to the enforcement of law. Requireduniformity is because that is the ultimate decider of freedom. All the supervision will not be enough without a strong culture across the department of fairness and commitment to even hand of justice. T is what justice that Justice Jackson called the decency of a federal prosecutor, sounds quaint today, doesnt it . In his turn of phrase, even when the government technically loses one e, it has really won if justice has been done. We want our prosecutors to be aggressive in their pursuit of justice, but we want to ensure that justice is ultimately administers administered dispassionately. Prosecutor is to try the case and attempt to achieve a conviction of guilt. That is when the job of the prosecutor is over. In a some cases we may express our views as to what the sentence should be, but the sentencing belongs to the judge, the judicial function. After the prosecutor wins the , we like that competitiveness, we like that spirit and aggressiveness, once won, passionse must cool. That is why the sentence is given by the neu