Tough-on-crime record trails U.S.
attorney general nominee into Senate hearings
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[January 10, 2019]
By Sarah N. Lynch and Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald
Trump's nominee for U.S. attorney general is expected to tell a Senate
panel next week that he supports a new law easing prison sentences for
some criminals, even though he advocated for decades for just the
opposite.
William Barr for much of his career championed a get-tough approach to
crime that has recently lost favor, culminating last month in Trump
signing into law the biggest overhaul of the criminal justice system in
a generation.
The First Step Act, enacted with strong bipartisan support in Congress,
reduces mandatory minimum sentences for some nonviolent, low-level
offenders and makes it easier for prisoners to qualify for early release
to halfway houses or home confinement.
Trump signed it into law just weeks after he nominated Barr, who issued
a report during an earlier stint as attorney general in the 1990s called
"The Case for More Incarceration."
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Barr is expected to say that he will support the new law when he appears
before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings next
week, according to two sources familiar with his preparations.
"We believe that Barr's position will be somewhat moderated when he
testifies if for no other reason than that his boss (Trump) fully
subscribes to the First Step approach," said Fraternal Order of Police
executive director Jim Pasco, who said he had been in touch with people
helping Barr prepare for the Senate hearings.
The Senate, controlled by Trump's fellow Republicans, is expected to
confirm Barr's nomination to again head the Justice Department.
OVERSHADOWED BY MUELLER
Concerns about Barr's record on criminal justice have so far taken a
back seat to questions about how he would handle Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the
Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Trump has denied any collusion with
Moscow and Russia has said it did not meddle in the election.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the incoming chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, said he did not discuss the First Step Act when
Barr visited him at his office on Wednesday. "That would have been a
good question to ask him," Graham said after the meeting.
But criminal justice advocates said they were working with lawmakers on
the committee to make sure Barr will be questioned in detail about
specific elements of the new law to ensure that he will support it.
"It certainly appears he holds an old-school view of our criminal
justice system, but there is an overwhelming majority of members of the
House and Senate on both sides of the aisle who do not feel that way,"
said Holly Harris, executive director of Justice Action Network, a
coalition of criminal-justice groups across the political spectrum.
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![](../images/011019PICS/news_c5.jpg)
U.S. Attorney General nominee William Barr attends a meeting on
Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 9, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young
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Another advocate, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was
unlikely Trump would have nominated Barr without a commitment to
support the First Step Act.
'EXTREMELY TROUBLING'
Democratic Senator Cory Booker, a member of the Judiciary Committee,
is among those concerned by Barr's record. "Barr took an extremely
troubling approach to mass incarceration in the nineties at the DOJ
and it doesn't look like his views have changed much," said a Booker
aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As attorney general, Barr would be in a position to influence how
prisoners would be released into halfway houses or home confinement.
"It's frustrating to think we might have found one of the few people
who are still stuck in the 1980s and 1990s on these issues," said
Kevin Ring, head of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which has
worked to reduce minimum prison terms.
Barr was attorney general in 1991-1993, a time when U.S. crime rates
reached an all-time high of 758 incidents per 100,00 people. They
have since fallen by nearly half, to a rate of 394 incidents per
100,000 people in 2017, according to the FBI.
At that time, Barr advocated long prison sentences to keep violent
criminals off the streets. "First, prisons work. Second, we need
more of them," Barr's Justice Department wrote in a 1992 report.
Barr maintained his get-tough stance after leaving office. Along
with other former law enforcement officials, he lobbied against
earlier versions of the First Step Act in 2014 and 2015.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jan/10/images/ads/current/peacock_sda_121218.png)
When Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November, Barr
and two other former attorneys general penned a Washington Post
opinion piece that praised Sessions for directing prosecutors to
pursue the severest penalties possible.
Barr's advocacy came as others were concluding that mandatory
minimum sentences and other tough policies had taken too harsh a
toll, especially on African-Americans and Latinos, and were costing
taxpayers too much money.
(Reporting by Sarah Lynch and Andy Sullivan, Editing by Kevin
Drawbaugh and Rosalba O'Brien)
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