Attorney General William Barr seems to have decided he needs to rein in his politicization of the Justice Department for a minute to resuscitate his reputation after dropping the criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Declaring that "History is written by the winner," Barr appeared set to go all out to undermine investigations against members of the Trump administration en route to helping Donald Trump win in November—and with his "Obamagate" ranting, Trump was making clear what he wanted next from Barr.
But Barr said Monday he didn’t expect that the prosecutor he appointed to roll back the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign would be investigating former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden. “As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Barr told reporters. “Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”
That’s likely to make Trump unhappy, though perhaps some of his advisers will be able to get through to him that Barr is doing as much as he can to pervert justice in Trump’s favor.
Barr also, hilariously-except-not, lamented the “increasing attempts to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon.”
”The legal tactic has been to gin up allegations of criminality by one’s political opponents based on the flimsiest of legal theories,” he said. “This is not a good development.” Much better, apparently, to drop a case against someone who’s admitted to a crime because he’s a political ally. Or to publicize a misleading summary of a nonpartisan investigation in an effort to protect your boss.
The fact that Barr is all of a sudden pulling back on his partisan witch hunts is just evidence of how far past the line he went in the Flynn case. Even he knows he’s in danger of losing his Very Serious Person status in the media and discrediting every future step he takes. But honestly? If Trump presses him hard enough, don’t be surprised if Barr decides that the information he had today was just missing something and, whoops, Obama and Biden are worth investigating after all.