Bill Barr gave a speech yesterday, which caused a great triggering among former Obama officials and DOJ careerists. In it, he suggested that far too many bureaucrats and appointees spend their time headhunting for political reasons while hiding behind their supposed moral superiority. (READ Attorney General Bill Barr Uses Hillsdale Speech To Hammer DOJ’s Culture of Political and Extreme Prosecutions.)

This caused Sally Yates, an Obama flack who refused to enforce a Trump directive early on and was fired, to lash out. Yates has also been near the center of the investigation into Obama administration actions regarding the Trump campaign.

This is the AG demeaning the career men and women of his own department, comparing them to preschoolers. These dedicated public servants are working hard every day to try to get it right. They deserve his respect, not disdain. https://t.co/KiwCfedcAC

— Sally Yates (@SallyQYates) September 17, 2020

This is important because it says everything about what’s wrong with the culture at the DOJ, as well as in other agencies. This faux glorification where we pretend that “career” bureaucrats are robots with no biases and an inability to do anything but act in a professional manner is insulting and dangerous. It places a bubble around government figures who do not need a bubble. They need accountability.

Take Yates herself, for example. This is a person we were assured was above board, not just by Democrats, but by Republicans alike. In the end, she spoke at the DNC and has spent the last four years writing politically charged op-eds. There was never anything objective or non-biased about this woman. Yet, our ridiculous bureaucratic culture demanded she be respected. Why, exactly? Because she took home a fat check and pension while not having to face voters for her actions? Is that supposed to make her more virtuous than most?

Yates’ freak out on Barr is revealing because it shows an arrogance that permeates our executive agencies that needs to be rooted out.

One of the reasons Donald Trump should get a second term is that the vitally important work of cleansing Obama corruption from the highest levels of the federal government clearly isn't finished yet.

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) September 17, 2020

Our system is broken. It allows political hacks like Yates to embed themselves under the guise of neutrality while sabotaging anyone they disagree with. It also protects corruption in other forms, such as prosecutorial misconduct. These career officials don’t need a bubble. They need accountability.

That the GOP has so played into the false idea of careerists being above reproach is one of their greatest betrayals. Anyone with a brain could have seen where this was going to lead, especially given the political make-up of our nation’s capital, which is where all those careerists live. It was never a secret that 90+% of them are Democrats. That should have been combated, not coddled. The result is people like Sally Yates gaining high positions of power.

Bill Barr speaking frankly about all this is refreshing. It’s about time someone was willing to tell the truth and speak the obvious. The DOJ is not full of innocents. It’s full of partisan flacks, and it’s time they are treated as such, and more importantly, reined in.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)