Noah Feldman, Columnist

William Barr Is Echoing Trump on Stay-at-Home Orders

The attorney general seems to want to ramp up pressure on governors to end public-health measures.

April 29, 2020 at 10:29 AM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

The Constitution isn’t cancelled. Nor is it a vaccine.
Photographer: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

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Attorney General William Barr has issued a memo threatening to sue states if they infringe on people’s freedoms during the coronavirus pandemic — and encouraging U.S. attorneys to look for cases to bring against the states.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what in the world does Bill Barr think he’s doing? As the memo itself acknowledges, restrictions on movement are necessary public health measures legitimately carried out by states.