August 11, 2019

Above the Law's Elie Mystal weighs in on the damage that Trump and his "stooge" William Barr are doing to our institutions when asked by MSNBC's Joy Reid whether he can be trusted to fairly investigate the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

As Reid discussed in her opening, we've got Trump tweeting out conspiracy theories blaming Bill Clinton for his death, and a new report from The New York Times raises more questions about the supposed suicide. As Mystal rightly noted, we have no reason to believe Barr will get to the bottom of any of it.

REID: Does this sound normal to you that a federal institution of incarceration would take somebody who alleged to have tried to commit suicide, who, per Carol Leonnig this morning, his family said no, no, no, no. He was attacked two weeks ago, but you still had him on suicide watch. You take him off suicide watch and you don't give him any guards. What would you think about that?

MYSTAL: Somebody allowed this to happen and the only person with the authority to allow this to happen goes up through the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

REID: Right.

MYSTAL: The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports to the Department of Justice.

REID: Who runs the Department of Justice?

MYSTAL: The person who runs the Department of Justice is U.S. Attorney General William Barr, w ho has done nothing but appear to be a compromised stooge for the Trump administration.

REID: Do you trust William Barr to investigate this case sir?

MYSTAL: It is not just that I do not trust William Barr to investigate this case fairly. It is also that William Barr has done nothing to make me trust him. So when people are going to … look, I know that people are going to say I'm wearing the Reynolds Wrap around my head and I understand the problem with where we are going, right?

But my point is that instead of being angry at people who are treating this like a mystery, right? We need to understand that the federal government to this point has done nothing to engender the trust of the nation and this is what happens when you have a government that nobody can trust.

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