"And that is both the core of Trumpism and it is the core of Barr's legal theory of running the Justice Department," Atlantic writer Adam Serwer said.
December 11, 2019

Chris Hayes talked to Atlantic writer Adam Serwer in the wake of Bill Barr's extraordinary statement implying some people should have fewer rights.

"Adam, you've written a lot about how Trump and Barr and others say the same attitude about due process, civil liberties," Hayes said.

"It's extraordinary, after Barr said last week that communities who criticize law enforcement can't count on their protection, that those sworn officers of the law are mobsters in which they don't get their protection money, they can't do it," Serwer said.

"And at the corollary of that is really a belief Barr and Trump had that some American citizens have the full rights of being American citizens and other Americans simply do not. And that is both the core of Trumpism and it is the core of Barr's legal theory of running the Justice Department, which is tragic irony given the origin of the Justice Department in the aftermath of the Civil War, which was to protect those new Americans who had recently been emancipated. It's a disgrace."

"It was created to stop the Klan from exercising terrorism over those newly enfranchised Americans who wanted to express their democratic and First Amendment rights, the First Amendment that Mr. Barr was talking about in that interview," Hayes said.

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