When William Barr was attorney general in the early 1990s, he was outspoken about some of America's biggest problems — violent crime, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy. The "Age of Aquarius," he warned, had given way to crack babies and broken families, misery and squalor.
The rhetoric reflected Barr's deep-seated personal beliefs and was typical talk for a conservative Republican at a time when family values and tough-on-crime stances defined the party.
Now, as President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Barr is poised to return to the same job in a dramatically different Washington.
President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, William Barr, meets with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019. Barr, who served in the position in the early 1990s, has a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week and could be in place at the Justice Department as soon as February when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein leaves after Barr is confirmed. (AP PhotoJ. Scott Applewhite)
Republicans just pushed through the biggest criminal justice overhaul in a generation, easing prison sentences. Family-values are seldom discussed while Trump, twice-divorced and accused of affairs and sexual misconduct, sits in the White House. Serving Trump, who faces intensifying investigations from the department Barr would lead, is unlikely to compare with his tenure under President George H.W. Bush.
Trump demands loyalty, breaking with the practice of shielding law enforcement from political influence. He publicly browbeats Justice Department leadership and ousted his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for not protecting him in the Russia investigation. Though the pressures on Barr are bound to be enormous if he is confirmed, allies describe him as driven by his commitment to the department and clear-eyed about what is ahead.
"I have no doubt that he's aware of any unique or unusual challenges that this Justice Department, his Justice Department, will confront," said longtime friend and former colleague Chuck Cooper, who is also Sessions' lawyer. "He approaches these challenges as a public servant who loves his country and who's answering the call to service. That's the spirit in which Bill Barr is accepting these challenges."
The first challenge comes Tuesday when Democrats press him at his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his broad views of presidential power, including an unsolicited memo he sent the Justice Department last year criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether the president had sought to obstruct the Russia investigation.
Barr is likely to win confirmation and, given his past experience, probably won't face challenges over his qualifications the way other Trump nominees have. Republicans control the Senate and could pick up some support from Democrats eager for the departure of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Democrats wanted Whitaker to step aside from overseeing Mueller's investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign, citing Whitaker's criticism of the inquiry before he joined the department.
Barr would inherit that investigation as it reaches critical decisions and as Mueller's most prominent protector inside the department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, expects to depart.
Though Barr's handling of the investigation is the most pressing issue confronting him, equally important will be stabilizing a department riven by leadership tumult — as well as his own dynamic with Trump.
Though both Trump and Barr are plain-spoken native New Yorkers and generational contemporaries, the two appear to have little in common.
Barr, 68, is a practicing Catholic and longtime creature of Washington — a CIA alumnus who climbed the Justice Department ranks, associated with establishment figures long maligned by Trump and delivered legal reasoning behind some of the most consequential actions of the time, including the invasion of Panama.
Even if Barr doesn't introduce sweeping policy changes, he might nonetheless have to adjust to the shifting winds of the White House or fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The administration, for instance, recently backed legislation reducing mandatory minimum punishments and giving judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders.
Barr will reassure lawmakers that he supports the law, according to a person close to the confirmation process who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. That's a striking departure from Barr's insistence as attorney general, in the face of homicide rates that dwarf today's totals, that "we are not punitive enough" about violent crime.
Recipients of mandatory minimum sentences richly deserve them, he once said, denouncing as a myth the notion sympathetic and "hapless victims of the criminal-justice system" are languishing in prison longer than they deserve.
Barr's pro-law enforcement stance is so entrenched, one friend said, that as a Columbia University student in the 1960s he brought police coffee as they encountered protesters.
"He's very much a law-and-order guy. He believes the primary responsibility of government is to maintain the security of its citizens," said longtime friend Andrew G. McBride, a former Justice Department colleague.
As attorney general, Barr connected violent crime to a "moral crisis" in society, decrying high rates of divorce and drug addiction, and rising secularism that he said prevented children from discerning right from wrong.
"The prophets of the sexual revolution and the drug culture proclaimed the dawn of a new era of maturity and freedom, of peace and love," he said at a 1992 Chicago event. "That's not what happened — not by a long shot. Today we can see the grim harvest of the Age of Aquarius: Broken families, venereal diseases, teenage pregnancies, crack babies. We see misery and squalor, confusion and loneliness."
In speeches, he repeatedly mocked Woody Allen's justification — "The heart wants what it wants" — for his relationship with partner Mia Farrow's adopted daughter.
Try that rationale, he said, "as a foundation for any sort of human behavior and you will see at once the danger and moral corruption it entails."
The perspective could create an awkward coexistence with a president known for misstatements and embellishments and who, prosecutors say, directed hush money payments to cover up claims of extramarital relationships with two women.
It's not clear how often he and Trump will interact and under what circumstances. Friends insist he won't easily bend to the president's will, describing Barr as principled, smart and strong-willed.
"Bill is not a shrinking violet," said former colleague Timothy Flanigan. "Bill is tough, tough in a good way."
Barr didn't campaign for the job and even proposed other names to the White House instead of his own, one friend. Returning as attorney general to stabilize the department could be a career capstone of sorts.
"He can take this without worrying about career advancement," said C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel to George H.W. Bush. "If he were a lot younger, I'm not sure he would have done it."
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A big, new package of U.S. military aid will help Ukraine avoid defeat in its war with Russia. Winning will still be a long slog.
The arms and ammunition in the $61 billion military aid package should enable Ukraine to slow the Russian army's bloody advances and block its strikes on troops and civilians. And it will buy Ukraine time — for long-term planning about how to take back the fifth of the country now under Russian control.
“Ultimately it offers Ukraine the prospect of staying in the war this year,” said Michael Clarke, visiting professor in war studies at King’s College London. “Sometimes in warfare you’ve just got to stay in it. You’ve just got to avoid being rolled over.”
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the package on Saturday after months of delays by some Republicans wary of U.S. involvement overseas. It was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, and President Joe Biden said he would sign it Wednesday.
The difference could be felt within days on the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russia’s much larger army has been slowly taking territory against massively outgunned Ukrainian forces.
The aid approval means Ukraine may be able to release artillery ammunition from dwindling stocks that it has been rationing. More equipment will come soon from American stocks in Poland and Germany, and later from the U.S.
The first shipments are expected to arrive by the beginning of next week, said Davyd Arakhamia, a lawmaker with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.
But opposition lawmaker Vadym Ivchenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee, said logistical challenges and bureaucracy could delay shipments to Ukraine by two to three months, and it would be even longer before they reach the front line.
While details of the shipments are classified, Ukraine’s most urgent needs are artillery shells to stop Russian troops from advancing, and anti-aircraft missiles to protect people and infrastructure from missiles, drones and bombs.
What’s coming first is not always what front-line commanders need most, said Arakhamia, the Ukrainian lawmaker. He said that even a military giant like the U.S. does not have stockpiles of everything.
“The logic behind this first package was, you (the U.S.) finds our top priorities and then you see what you have in the warehouses,” Arakhamia said. “And sometimes they do not match.”
Hope for future breakthroughs for Ukraine still hangs on more timely deliveries of Western aid, lawmakers acknowledge.
Many experts believe that both Ukraine and Russia are exhausted by two years of war and won’t be able to mount a major offensive — one capable of making big strategic gains — until next year.
Still, Russia is pushing forward at several points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, using tanks, wave after wave of infantry troops and satellite-guided gliding bombs to pummel Ukrainian forces. Russia is also hitting power plants and pounding Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is only about 30 kilometers (some 20 miles) from the Russian border.
Ivchenko said the goal for Ukraine’s forces now is to “hold the line” until the bulk of new supplies arrive by mid-summer. Then, they can focus on trying to recapture territory recently lost in the Donetsk region.
“And probably ... at the end of summer we’ll see some movement, offensive movement of the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.
Some military experts doubt Ukraine has the resources to mount even small offensives very soon.
The U.S. funding “can probably only help stabilize the Ukrainian position for this year and begin preparations for operations in 2025,” said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank.
In the best-case scenario for Ukraine, the American aid will give commanders time to reorganize and train its army — applying lessons learned from its failed summer 2023 offensive. It may also galvanize Ukraine’s allies in Europe to increase aid.
“So this just wasn’t about Ukraine and the United States, this really affected our entire 51-country coalition,” said U.S. Congressman Bill Keating, a Democrat who visited Kyiv on Monday as part of a four-member congressional delegation.
Zelenskyy insists Ukraine's war aim is to recapture all its territory from Russia — including Crimea, seized illegally in 2014. Even if the war ultimately ends through negotiation, as many experts believe, Ukraine wants to do that from as strong a position as possible.
Whatever happens on the battlefield, Ukraine still faces variables beyond its control.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who seeks to retake the White House in the November election, has said he would end the war within days of taking office. And the 27-nation Europe Union includes leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and Slovakian Prime Minister Richard Fico, who have opposed arming Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies have held back from supplying some arms out of concern about escalation or depleting their own stocks. Ukraine says that to win the war it needs longer-range missiles it could use for potentially game-changing operations such as cutting off occupied Crimea, where's Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
It wants Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMs, from the U.S. and Taurus cruise missiles from Germany. Both governments have resisted calls to send them because they are capable of striking targets deep within Russian territory.
The new bill authorizes the president to send Ukraine ATACMS “as soon as practicable.” It's unclear what that will mean in practice.
Sometimes, promised weapons have arrived late, or not at all. Zelenskyy recently pointed out that Ukraine is still waiting for the F-16 fighter jets it was promised a year ago.
Meanwhile, Russia is using its advantage in troops and weapons to push back Ukrainian forces, perhaps seeking to make maximum gains before Ukraine's new supplies arrive.
For weeks it has pummeled the small eastern city of Chasiv Yar, at the cost of 900 soldiers killed and wounded a day, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
Capturing the strategically important hill town would allow them to move toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, key cities Ukraine controls in the eastern region of Donetsk. It would be a significant win for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Western officials say is bent on toppling Ukraine’s pro-Western government.
Russian pressure was aimed not just at gaining territory, but on undermining Zelenskyy and bolstering critics who say his war plan is failing, said Clarke of King's College London.
The U.S. aid package decreases the likelihood of a political crisis in Ukraine, and U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson deserves credit for pushing it through Congress, he said.
"He held history in his hands,” Clarke said.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
From left, U.S. representatives Nathaniel Moran, R-Tx, Tom Kean Jr, R-NJ, Bill Keating, D-Mass, and Madeleine Deane, D-Pa, talk to journalists during a joint news conference outside Saint Michael cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. A newly approved package of $61 billion in U.S. aid may prevent Ukraine from losing its war against Russia. But winning it will be a long slog. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A volunteer makes a camouflage net at a facility producing material for Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. A newly approved package of $61 billion in U.S. aid may prevent Ukraine from losing its war against Russia. But winning it will be a long slog. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Davyd Arakhamia, a lawmaker with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, talks during an interview with Associated Press in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A woman rallies to raise awareness on the fate of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Ribbons with the colors of the European Union and Ukraine are attached to a tree next to memorial wall of Ukrainian soldiers killed during the war in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
The body of a woman killed by Russian bombardment in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Soldiers carry the coffins of two Ukrainian army sergeants during their funeral in Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
