🔹 Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department by Elie Honig

Rating: 4 of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

By: Kato Justus

Elie Honig’s debut novel Hatchet Man is a significant historical work berating Attorney General William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) under the Trump administration. As a former SDNY AG, Honig lays out a chronology with so many critically damning facts and detailed perspectives that readers are likely to highlight every page. Barr first appeared on the public scene with his now-infamous “audition memo.” “In it, Barr writes that the president has ‘complete authority to start or stop a law enforcement proceeding.’ Barr later amplifies this notion, declaring that ‘the President’s law enforcement powers extend to all matters, including those in which he has a personal stake.’”

People may wonder why Barr, a wealthy, semi-retired, and former AG under H.W. Bush, would want a second go at the job? Honig’s insights offer a pretty straightforward answer: power and Barr’s conservative, right-wing, anti-secular, anti-gay ideology. The AG holds staggering power. He can make life and death decisions, has a security detail, people stand when he walks in the room, “It can get heady being a prosecutor. You hold unimaginable power, and you can do almost anything you please and go almost anywhere you want.” And “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America.” 

Barr’s ultimate demonstration of his power crescendoed on June 1, 2020.  After Trump’s insistence whining, Barr arranged to have unmarked law enforcement officers attack Black Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Park. These officers cleared the streets around St. John’s church—so Trump could casually stroll over, stand in front of the church, hold a Bible, and have his picture taken. The force used was savage as they clubbed, fired flash-bangs, rubber bullets, deployed pepper bombs/tear gas against the protesting citizens.

Another example of Barr flexing his power is when he began executing death row inmates. “…no federal inmate had actually been executed since 2003. Following Barr’s orders, DOJ carried out ten executions from July 2020 through the end of Barr’s tenure in late December, all by lethal injection…” and to put a fine point on his power “…the federal government carried out three more executions after Barr left office but before the end of Trump’s presidency, on January 13, 14, and 16, 2021. These people would have been spared once Biden took office just hours later. But Barr made sure to flex the full might of his office, in the most dramatic manner, on his way out the door.”

The second reason Barr wanted the AG job was to create cultural dissonance. He actively sought to ingrain a Christian fundamentalist theocracy. According to Barr, “religion was the answer to virtually all things: its proper role was to guide public life and impose order on society, and its absence caused widespread societal ills.”

“Thus, Barr declared, ‘in the Framers’ view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people.’…only “religious people” can sustain free government. Religion, ‘gives us the right rules to live by.’”

“And in his view, it’s not so much religion itself that must prevail, but only a certain type of religion: ‘In fact, Judeo-Christian moral standards are the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct.’”

In short, the Barr/Trump union was a match made in Hell. Barr recognized he could use Trump as a vehicle to the power and ideological goals he deeply craved. And, Trump did get his “Roy Cohn.” Together, they were a ghoulish nightmare,  a dynamic, demonic duo. Dare I say evil?

At the end of the book, Honig makes policy recommendations to stop such a Barr/Trump fiasco from ever occurring again. Honig recognizes the need for supporting legislation, but his main proposal is for additional, more strident rules and policies to the Justice Department’s manual. 

I agree with Honig's keen recommendations for rule changes. However, I take issue with that assessment too. What good are the rules, norms, and standards when the leaders simply throw the rule book out the window and spit on it?

Before Barr started the job, the Justice Department’s Rule Book already had long-standing guidelines for nearly everything he bent or broke. Rules are meaningless to people like Barr and Trump. Here, in this one area, I think Honig is naive and pollyannish. On this topic, Honig shows himself to be an optimistic hero in a cape and all because he thinks rules are enough. For a good guy like Honig, honorably adhering to policy is all that is required. However, for the Barrs of the world—new laws with inescapable “you will be indicted” harsh penalties are the only deterrent available. Perhaps, in an updated version of his book, Honig will assess the laws that Congress should pass to stop this from ever happening again.

I still have at least a dozen questions I’d love to hear Honig’s response to or see discussed. Elie, would you be willing to entertain or respond to my questions? A moot for your book?

Hatchet Man is a well-written history of how Barr destroyed the Department of Justice. It is jammed with facts and filled with the outrage one would expect from a former SDNY prosecutor—one of the good guys. I highly recommend you preorder your July 6th copy right now.