All morning I’ve been hearing from people who are either senior government officials, telecom analysts or former DOJ, and they’re all baffled by Bill Barr’s speech yesterday on 5G.
As a refresher, yesterday Barr publicly criticized a plan promoted by Larry Kudlow, advocated for the federal takeover of foreign companies and injected DOJ into policy matters routinely handled by technical agencies like FCC and NTIA. justice.gov/opa/speech/att…
One official at a federal agency told me they were surprised and caught off-guard by Barr's remarks. Craig Moffett, an industry analyst, told me it was "bizarre" and left him "speechless": 
Democratic FCC Commissioners @JRosenworcel and @GeoffreyStarks told me Barr's speech is another example of an administration in disarray.
"In this administration, the right hand is not always talking to the left," Rosenworcel told me.
"In this administration, the right hand is not always talking to the left," Rosenworcel told me.
Barr’s criticism of Kudlow’s plan is that trying to replace Huawei hardware with an open-source software platform built by US tech and telecom companies is “pie in the sky.” Nevermind that Kudlow, @AjitPaiFCC and members of Congress seem to be in favor of it.
“To have the attorney general come out with 5G software as 'pie in the sky' is staggering to me,” @GeoffreyStarks told me.
Barr also diverges from the rest of the USG in other ways. He proposes opening up certain bands of radio airwaves despite opposition by the Defense Department: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
And it also conflicts with the spirit of a bipartisan letter sent by the Senate Intel, Homeland Security, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees warning that a “fractured approach” to 5G policy won’t help: warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/…
Numerous officials described to me how weird it was to see Barr — a former general counsel for Verizon — stray out of law enforcement and into policymaking.
“A breathtaking lack of coordination across this administration,” @GeoffreyStarks said.
DOJ declined to comment.
“A breathtaking lack of coordination across this administration,” @GeoffreyStarks said.
DOJ declined to comment.
Oh yeah, and also Vice President Pence seems to have given Barr a slap on the wrist:
