MSNBC's Joe Scarborough condemned Attorney General William Barr's "disgraceful" speech before the conservative Federal Society.
The "Morning Joe" host and former Republican lawmaker described Barr's speech as dishonest and harmful to the rule of law, and he shamed the audience members who applauded the attorney general's attacks on congressional Democrats who oppose President Donald Trump.
"He's just a liar, and for people in that audience clapping at that, you're disgraceful, shameful," Scarborough said. "Federalist Society, when I was in law school it stood for something different, it stood for the Constitution, the rule of law. You people are applauding a president and his attorney general who are making the argument that Madisonian checks and balances do not apply because Donald Trump is the president."
"You are applauding an attorney general who is actually promoting an executive who is saying that Article II gives him unlimited power," he added. "When you handed me out flyers at the University of Florida College of Law, didn't say you were going all in for a tyrant, didn't say the purpose of this organization is to promote conservative values on the bench, but in the alternative, we may actually support autocrats in training who say (they) have unlimited power because of Article II. This is shocking."
Scarborough said the attorney general's motives were plainly partisan.
"I wonder, where was Barr, by the way, other than making hundreds of millions of dollars, where was Barr when Mitch McConnell said that his only job over the next four years after Obama was elected president, was to make him a one-term president?" he said. "Where was Barr? Does that mean the democrats can shred the Constitution? I don't understand."
The former GOP lawmaker said the attorney general's view of the Constitutional was dangerous to the rule of law.
"Bill Barr's Constitution is completely different," he said. "This does such violence to what we conservatives always hailed as Madisonian checks and balances, a limited executive -- limited executive power. This is outrageous."
