Barr Says DOJ May Act Against Governors With Strict Virus Limits [View all]
Source: Bloomberg
The Justice Department will consider taking legal action against governors who continue to impose stringent rules for dealing with the coronavirus that infringe on constitutional rights once the crisis subsides in their states, Attorney General William Barr said.
Blunt means to deal with the pandemic, such as stay-at-home orders and directives shutting down businesses, are justified up to a point, Barr said in an interview Tuesday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” Eventually, though, states should move to more targeted measures, Barr said. He said he supports the approach laid out by President Donald Trump.
“We have to give businesses more freedom to operate in a way that’s reasonably safe,” Barr said. “To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce -- our common market that we have here -- then we’ll have to address that.”
Barr’s comments come as the Trump administration and states are struggling -- and at times fighting with each other -- over the best approach to deal with the crisis. Trump has stoked tensions with some Democratic governors who are dealing with protests against stringent social-distancing rules, even as his administration backs guidelines that call for states to open up gradually.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-21/barr-says-doj-may-act-against-governors-with-strict-virus-limits
Barr is acting in concert with Trump to force States to end social distancing by May irrespective of casualties so that Trump can point to the artificially generated growth in employment while also blaming the resulting increase in deaths on Governors on the one hand while just denying them outright on the other.
David Frum pretty much called out this strategy in the Atlantic.
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