AG Barr calls coronavirus lockdown history’s ‘greatest intrusion on civil liberties’ — except for slavery
U.S. Attorney General William Barr
AP
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‘Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.’
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That’s Attorney General William Barr speaking at Hillsdale College on Wednesday in response to a question from the event’s host about the “constitutional hurdles” in keeping churches closed during the pandemic.
“Most of the governors do what bureaucrats always do, which is they … defy common sense,” Barr said. “They treat free citizens as babies that can’t take responsibility for themselves and others.”
As you can hear in this clip, his comment drew applause from the crowd:
Barr also took aim at his own Justice Department at the event, slamming prosecutors for behaving as “headhunters” in their pursuit of notable targets and politically charged cases.
But it was the slavery comment that really raised eyebrows.
South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, for instance, said Barr’s remarks were “the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, God-awful things I’ve ever heard” and that “slavery was not about saving lives. It was about devaluing lives.”
Barr immediately became a top-trending on Twitter
TWTR,
as intense backlash over his controversial take mounted:
Of course, not everybody was so critical:
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