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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly A. Strassel has just conferred her Adult of the Year Award on a man who deserves it, Attorney General William Barr. And Ms. Strassel writes with sufficient distance from the swamp to be taken seriously. Her column, titled Potomac Watch, is, I am told, composed from her lair in Alaska. That ought to insulate her from the swamps fumes and from Wall Streets, too.

Moreover, though the attorney general has been a presence in Washington for years, he is not simply a Washington creature. He is his own man. A few months back, when it fell to me to introduce him at a professional dinner, I made bold to say, I hope I am not mispronouncing your last name, General Barr. The accent is on the first syllable is it not?

He, in a very good-natured way, assured me that it was. You must remember that I am a stickler for pronunciation, and the attorney general has a well-developed sense of the absurd.

Ms. Strassel in her award-conferring column noted that upon being nominated for attorney general by President Donald Trump in December 2018 he received the respect that he deserves. Official Washington was quick to note Mr. Barrs years of nonpartisan facility with the law observable in years spent at the Justice Department, at the CIA and in private practice. He was known as a serious student of the law and of the U.S. Constitution. All agreed he would not be anyones toady.

Yet Ms. Strassel notes that his honeymoon is over. He has begun to be vilified precisely because he has maintained an impartial view of the Justice Department and has kept his promises. This demonstrated integrity by the attorney general has commenced one of the more obvious, not to mention nasty, delegitimization campaigns in modern Beltway history.

Official Washington has been yapping at the attorney generals appointment of John Durham a prosecutor of squeaky-clean reputation to investigate the FBIs probe into the 2016 Trump campaign. It became hysterical when the attorney general stated his own view that the Inspector Generals December report confirmed that, as Mr. Barr put it, the FBI suspicions about the 2016 campaign were insufficient to justify the steps taken by the countrys top cops.

The campaign against him continues. Former FBI Director William Webster has joined the attack and Eric Holder, perhaps the most partisan attorney general ever, has too. All the high-minded talk of Mr. Barrs early days in office has been forgotten. Who else will come forward? Perhaps Pope Francis?

Few people in the country today have demonstrated deeper insight into Spygate, the investigation into those who have been investigating the elected president of the United States, than Kimberley Strassel. In her column I detected a genuine note of alarm.

Is it possible that the investigation of the investigators could be brought to an end? Could the media render Attorney General Barr or prosecutor John Durham suspect? Will they uncover an incriminating telephone call? How long can the Democrat-controlled House mire these men in one of their investigations? Is it possible that the whole finely-tuned investigation overseen by the attorney general will come to a grinding halt because of Democratic subterfuge?

Well, I do not think it is likely, but it is possible.

As Ms. Strassel writes, the evidence against the FBI has steadily accumulated. Recall if you will the December report of Inspector General Michael Horowitz. If Americans are ever going to be able to see what happened in 2016 with the FBI and with other intelligence agencies, the work of Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr must continue.

My guess is there are going to be indictments coming, possibly as early as this spring. Then the wheels of justice will expose the wrongdoing. Or possibly there is no wrongdoing. Let our system of justice decide.

I am putting my trust in the courts after putting my faith in prosecutor Durham, Attorney General Barr and Inspector General Horowitz. As for Ms. Strassel, I turn to her Potomac Watch column every Friday. Last week, she pointed to William Barr as the Adult of the Year. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was doubtless appalled, and Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, thought to dig up more dirt on him. Has the Hon. Schiff discovered that Mr. Barr was cited for jaywalking in 1967? Look into it, fellows.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author most recently of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

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Attorney General William Barr, 'Adult of the Year' - Washington Times

Here is news you probably cant use: a new Texas Law Review analysis by University of Chicago law professor William Baude concludesthat Justice Hugo Black, who served on the Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971, was unconstitutionally appointed.

The relevant text is the Constitutions Article I, Section 6, which says No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time.

At the time of his appointment Black was serving as a senator from Alabamaas part of a Congress that had enacted new retirement benefits for Justices, and while his backers argued that the clause did not apply to bar his nomination, Baude concludes that it probably did. One litigant before the high court challenged Blacks right to serve, but the Court chose to sidestep the merits of that claim by ruling against its standing, and the controversydied.

All of this might seem purely academic. At this remove there would be no way to unscramble the legal omelet as to Blacks jurisprudential contributions, even were there a will. (Despite an unpromising start, the Alabaman eventually showed a libertarian streak on many Bill of Rights issues.)

But the issue is not quite so remote as that, because more than a few contemporary commentators have flirted in some cases more than flirted with claims that the makeup of the present Supreme Court is illegitimate.

After the Senate leadership refused to hold hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, the editorial board of the New York Times repeatedly declared the seat of the late Justice Scalia to have been stolen, and then-Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said of eventual nominee Neil Gorsuch that hes not there properly.

The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy brought renewed attack, with former Attorney General Eric Holder declaring that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court can justifiably be questioned and other high-profile figures taking a similar line.

Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky raised the ante with this remarkable assertion in The American Prospect: each of the five conservative justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh or someone like him (emphasis added) came on to the Court in a manner that lacks legitimacy. Perhaps at some point it will lead to open defiance of the Court.

Other commentators were happy to take up the exciting theme that future Court opinions written by, or decided by the votes of, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and perhaps other Justices might meet with open defiance or resistance from a future Democratic president, from state officials, or from people marching in the streets.

What can the Supreme Court do? Send its tiny police force to storm the White House? wrote Mark Joseph Stern at Slate. Libertarian-minded law professor Ilya Somin, who does not welcome the efforts to de-legitimize the Court or promote defiance of its rulings, nonetheless found them worth taking seriously enough to analyze at length last year.

Baudes research may provide a bit of reassurance in this respect. The challenge to the legitimacy of Blacks seat fizzled in part because it gained little headway with the public, but much more because the Courts other Justices welcomed Black aboard.

Most of the scenarios in which triumphant Democrats in 2021 or 2022 defy Supreme Court rulings are difficult to reconcile with the reality that the Courts liberal Justices have, to all appearances, been entirely content to regard Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as legitimate colleagues, and would, themselves, neither counsel nor welcome defiance of Court rulings. As I wrote last year, "the federal courts are not as polarized and tribal as much of the higher political class and punditry at nomination time."

Baude puts it this way at the conclusion of his article: the real source of constitutional settlement in our system is not always judicial decision, but sometimes sheer practice.

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Disputed Appointments and the Supreme Court's Legitimacy, in 1937 and Today - Cato Institute

Now, operatives in both parties are readying for an unprecedented fight in 2020 to elect those who will be the mapmakers in state legislative races across the country.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder and his group, the National Democratic Redistricting Commission, are leading the battle for Democrats. The group and its affiliates recently announced they had raised $52 million since 2017. They're targeting state legislative races in a dozen states, with more than half below the Mason-Dixon line.

"I'm bound and determined to make sure that candidates, activists and voters understand the stakes of the redistricting battle and the long-term consequences for our democracy," Holder said in a statement.

On the other side, the Republican State Leadership Committee is readying a defensive operation known as Right Lines 2020 to try and maintain the GOP's successes in 2010, sending out former House Speakers Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Newt Gingrich to raise money and keep the party focused on redistricting.

The Republicans are targeting races in 14 states, with six in the South. They declined to put a dollar number on the effort, but have said they are "planning multimillion-dollar investments in key states."

"We can't just assume that the success we've enjoyed in the states is going to be there," RSLC President Austin Chambers said, adding that he is concerned Republicans are more focused on re-electing President Donald Trump than the fight for statehouses that's so crucial to redistricting. "We're going to have to fight like hell to keep it this is as serious as a heart attack."

While each state's process is different, there are three key Southern battlegrounds next year, experts and party officials said:

Legislatures in other Southern states, including Georgia and Louisiana, also are in play.

Virginia poses a key test for national Democrats, who like Holder typically say they want fair not gerrymandered districts. Democrats have control in the state Legislature and the governor's mansion. If they wanted to gerrymander next year, they'll likely have the power.

"When Democrats are out of power, they say all the right things about gerrymandering," Li said. "But Virginia is a state with a lot of congressional districts and whether Democrats walk the walk when they have power Virginia's going to be a big test of that. Its a big test for Eric Holder."

John Bisognano, executive director of Holder's redistricting group, said Holder has spoken out against Democrats seeking to rig the system and the former AG also has expressed support for nonpartisan redistricting, a concept that's grown in popularity as states seek to opt out of the gerrymandering wars.

In the last decade, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Utah implemented changes to their congressional redistricting processes, with some states authorizing bipartisan commissions with the work in an effort to reduce the role of state lawmakers. For example, Missouri will ask a nonpartisan demographer to draw district lines, subject to approval by a commission made up of both Republicans and Democrats.

Still, not all commissions are created equally. In Ohio, voters passed a referendum last year requiring bipartisan support for redistricting plans in an attempt to prevent one party from forcing their House maps on the other. If the parties can't reach agreement, a bipartisan commission would draw the districts, but both Democrats and Republicans are angling for power on that commission and partisans can still push through four-year maps without minority party support.

"We supported an independent commission well, we supported a commission," Bisognano said. "It's a commission of politicians."

Given that, both parties say the Ohio Statehouse is a top target in 2020.

CORRECTION (Dec. 29, 2019, 11:24 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the number of seats Democrats in North Carolina need to gain to take control of the legislature. It is at least four in the state Senate and six in the House; not eight in the Senate and 11 in the House.

Jane C. Timm is a political reporter for NBC News, fact checking elections and covering voting rights.

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Gerrymandering is alive and well. The coming battle will be bigger than ever. - NBC News

(Getty Images)

Commenting on the corruption at the Justice Department and the FBI in 2016, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said that then-President Barack Obama "knew all about" the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign and "was more than happy" to violate Americans' civil rights "so he could get Donald Trump."

DiGenova added that the two leaders of the coup to oust Trump are former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.

People do not have the beginning of an understanding of the role that John Brennan played in this," said diGenova during a Dec. 31 interview with the One America News Network."He is a monstrously important person and I underscore monstrously important person. He has done more damage to the Central Intelligence Agency. Its equal to what James Comey has done to the FBI."

When asked whether people responsible for the spying on the Trump campaign shouldgo to jail, diGenova, a former Special Counsel, said,People should go to jail for the Carter Page stuff, for lying on the FISA warrants, on misleading the FISA courts, submitting false documents to the FISA courts. Those are all felonious acts."

"For me, what matters is accountability at this point," said diGenova. "You have two institutions that are vital to American freedom the FBI and the Justice Department. They were completely corrupted under two attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch with the authority and knowledge of the then-president of the United States, Barack Obama."

DiGenova then noted that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice had written an email on Jan. 20 -- the day of Trump's inauguration -- "memorializing that there had been a meeting on Jan. 5 with the president of the United States and all senior law enforcement and intelligence officials" where Obama had claimed that the spying on Trump was done by the book and justified.

President Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan. (Getty Images)

"I want to thank Susan Rice for being so stupid and so arrogant to write that email on Jan. 20," said diGenova, "because that is Exhibit A that Barack Obama knew all about this from start to finish, and was more than happy to have the civil rights of massive numbers of Americans violated so he could get Donald Trump.

This was not hard," to understand, he said."If youre a good prosecutor, you look at the facts in the Trump case, and the Page case, the Flynn case theres only one conclusion you can come to. None of this makes any sense. None of these people were evil, none of them. They were framed and the whole process was playing out."

(Getty Images)

"You knew it on July 5, 2016 when James Comey announced, usurping the functions of the attorney general, that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Hillary Clinton," said diGenova, who prosecuted Jonathan Pollard for spying for Israel.

"That was ludicrous," he said."She destroyed 33,000 emails that were under subpoena. If you or I did that we would be in prison today. She got a break because she was Hillary Clinton and James Comey was trying to kiss her fanny because he wanted something from her when she became president of the United States."

(Getty Images)

All of these people who watched that news conference and didnt think that was a disgrace for the FBI, and then subsequently watch all this stuff involving Trump and Page and Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn and couldnt see that the corrupt investigative process of the FBI and the DOJ was being used to basically conduct a coup detat --I mean, you have to be an idiot," said diGenova.

Any first-year assistant U.S. attorney would look at all these facts and say theres a coup underway, theres a conspiracy," he said."But for those of us who thought that, The Washington Post, The New York Times [suggested] we were conspiracy theorists. You know what?Pretty damn good theory it appears today.

The One America News Network then asked diGenova about the actions taken by John Brennan, who was the CIA director under Obama.

DiGenova said, "Theres no doubt that John Brennan was the primogenitor of the entire counterintelligence investigation. It was John Brennan who went to James Comey and basically pummeled him into starting a counterintelligence investigation against Trump."

"Brennans at the heart of this," he said.

(Getty Images)

People do not have the beginning of an understanding of the role that John Brennan played in this," added diGenova."He is a monstrously important person and I underscore monstrously important person. He has done more damage to the Central Intelligence Agency. Its equal to what James Comey has done to the FBI.

Its pretty clear that James Comey will go down in history as the single worst FBI director in history," said diGenova. "He and John Brennan are the coup leaders.

DiGenova is a founding partner of the law firm diGenova & Toensing, LLP. He is aa former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Rules Committee, former Independent Counsel, and former Special Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives.

h/t OAN Network

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DiGenova: Comey and Brennan 'Are The Coup Leaders' and 'Obama Knew All About This' - CNSNews.com

President Trump is waging a war against the free press, according to presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, and on the other hand, former Attorney General Eric Holder was its champion.

Yes, Klobuchar seriously suggested during Thursday's Democratic primary debate that Holder did more to preserve the rights of the press than Trump a ridiculous statement to anyone who remembers U.S. politics before 2016.

Trump is certainly no friend to the media, but the comparison is ridiculous, considering Holder was the head of a Justice Department that secretly obtained phone records for reporters and editors that worked at the Associated Press news agency.

There is an argument to be made that Trump has done a disservice to the press in both rhetoric and action. He has regularly decried the media as the enemy of the people and did away with the daily White House press briefings. But to claim he is worse than Holder, who seized private, home phone information from more than 20 individual reporters, is absurd.

When confronted about this violation, Holder insisted the DOJ had done nothing wrong. Spying on journalists was necessary, he said, considering there was a prominent national security leak that needed investigating. But Holder never offered specifics and instead left this as an open-ended, unconvincing excuse.

Trump is disparaging journalists, but Holder did much worse. Even the Left admitted as much when the news about Holders subpoena broke. To suggest otherwise now is negligent at best and dishonest at worst, and Klobuchar should know better.

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Amy Klobuchar is wrong: Eric Holder was no friend to the media - Washington Examiner