President Trump’s new attorney general nominee, William Barr, is a force to be reckoned with. Described by a Washington lawyer as a “staunch conservative Catholic,” Barr has a track record of cracking down on obscenity. Naturally, his appointment threatens the ever-growing porn industry, a reality that is being met with both celebration and fear.
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Barr served on the domestic policy staff for the Reagan administration from 1982 to 1983, and then as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. He left office 25 years ago, shortly before the explosion of online pornography. During his time in office, Bush Sr. praised Barr for virtually eliminating the distribution of porn-by-mail. His nomination by Trump has been a cause for great hope within the anti-obscenity community.
Why supporters are hopeful
Speaking to The Washington Examiner, Patrick Trueman, head of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said that cracking down on porn websites could be a fairly simple operation.
“They are a luscious target for prosecution,” he said. “If you take one down, it’s a profitable firm and you are going to get a lot of forfeiture of assets.”
Trueman, who served as chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from 1988 to 1993, noted that all Barr would have to do is “survey the industry, find the largest companies, and put them on a target list.”
Trueman told the Examiner that he presented the same plan to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to no avail. But he believes Barr will make the issue of widespread porn a priority.
“He didn’t take the easy route, which is just to prosecute child pornography,” he said of Barr’s former time in office. “I have been in his office one on one [in the ’90s] talking about the issue of obscenity, and I can say he was very sincere about it.”
Donna Rice Hughes, founder of the anti-porn group Enough is Enough, told the Examiner she has “high hopes” for Trump’s new pick. Like Trueman, Hughes also believes that taking on the porn industry won’t be difficult, as most Americans acknowledge the negative impact it has on society at large.
“Jurors look over and think, that’s the guy responsible for my husband walking out on me. Or that’s the one responsible for my 10 year old [viewing porn],” Hughes explained.
Enemies express concerns
In the wake of Barr’s nomination, prominent porn industry executives have expressed both concern and doubt over his ability and willingness to to shut down the multi-billion-dollar business. On the one hand, Barr’s past makes it clear that he means business. But on the other hand, some believe that given President Trump’s history of sexual promiscuity, any serious crackdown would be viewed as hypocritical.
Mike Stabile, spokesman for the pro-porn Free Speech Coalition, told the Examiner he believes the president is using Barr to save face with his conservative base.
“We’ve long worried that Trump’s anxiety about his porn connections would cause him to over-correct,” Stabile said. “After all, what better way to distract evangelicals and anti-porners from your relationship to porn and porn stars than to attack it?”
Stabile added, however, that if Trump’s administration does decide to tackle the issue of porn, “he’ll be the Larry Craig of porn,” referring to the disgraced Republican senator from Idaho who advocated public morality before he was arrested in 2007 for soliciting an undercover officer for sex in an airport bathroom.
Larry Flynt, publisher of the explicit Hustler magazine, told the Examiner that Barr “very well could be” a threat to his business.
“They can’t keep our streets clean, so they want to keep our minds pure by dictating our reading habits,” he said.
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And while some critics doubt the Trump administration’s ability to make a significant dent in a close to $100 billion industry, there is little doubt that Barr means business.
In a 1995 article, he condemned “secularists” for targeting “laws that reflect traditional moral norms,” decrying “the constant chipping away at laws designed to restrain sexual immorality [and] obscenity.”
The solution, he said, lies in legally enforcing “a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that… flows from God’s eternal law.”
Far from being a subjective, partisan view, Barr argued that these standards “are the rules that are best” for all people at all times.
“These are the rules that accord with the true nature of man. Therefore, adherence to them promotes what is good for man in the long run, both individually and in society. By the same token, deviation from these principles are moral laws have bad practical, real world consequences for man and society. We may not pay the price immediately, but we will eventually.”
Barr, who received a unanimous confirmation in 1991, is expected to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate sometime in early 2019.