Washington — Attorney General William Barr compared stay-at-home orders issued by governors to mitigate the spread of coronavirus to slavery, and dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as exploiting the deaths of Black people at the hands of police for political gain.

“Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, it’s the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said during a speech at Hillsdale College on Wednesday.

Dozens of states issued stay-at-home orders earlier this year to help stop the spread of the virus, which has since killed nearly 200,000 Americans. President Trump has also slammed stay-at-home orders, and urged states to reopen their economies as early as the spring.

Barr also slammed the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that activists used the instances of Black …continued .
[Source: CBS News]