Attorney General Bill Barr took a clear swipe Tuesday at state restrictions on citizens during the coronavirus pandemic, indicating not only that people could sue over measures that go too far but that the Justice Department could end up siding with them against the states.
In an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program, Barr specified some of the legal issues raised by state orders – likening some to "house arrest" – and how they could lead the federal government to get involved.
“Our federal constitutional rights don’t go away in an emergency. They constrain what the government can do,” Barr said in the Tuesday interview. “And in a circumstance like this, they put on the government the burden to make sure that whatever burdens it’s putting on our constitutional liberties are strictly necessary to deal with the problem. They have to be targeted. They have to use less intrusive means if they are equally effective in dealing with the problem. And that’s the situation we’re in today. We’re moving into a period where we have to do a better job of targeting the measures we’re deploying to deal with this virus.”
The attorney general warned that while some state orders may still be necessary, others may go too far, given that states are seeing progress toward the goal of reducing the spread of the virus.