Why William Barr is the greatest threat to America—and also utterly ridiculous

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Friday October 25, 2019 · 6:31 AM PDT

2019/10/25 · 06:31

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 11: U.S. President Donald Trump makes a statement on the census with Attorney General William Barr in the Rose Garden of the White House on July 11, 2019 in Washington, DC. PresidentÂ Trump, who had previously pushed to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, announced that he would direct the Commerce Department to collect that data in other ways. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Here is a rundown of a few of the things that have occupied William Barr’s time over just the last three months.

Barr went to Rome in effort to solicit testimony that a Maltese professor was actually a U.S. deep-cover agent put in place before Donald Trump even became a candidate in order to “trap” his campaign into clamoring for Russian assistance. Then he did it again.
Barr attempted to block the whistleblower complaint the sparked the impeachment inquiry against Trump from ever reaching the public, and delayed knowledge of the complaint from reaching Congress for weeks. To do this, Barr overrode the judgement of the Trump-appointed general counsel of the CIA and the Trump-appointed inspector general of the intelligence community.
Barr leaned on Australian officials in an effort to get them to attack U.S. intelligence operatives and told Trump to contact Australia and solicit information aimed at discrediting special counsel Robert Mueller. As with his Italian trip, the conspiracy theory Barr attempted to support with this move would both indict U.S. officials and exonerate Vladimir Putin.
Barr joined a private lawsuit to protect Trump’s tax information, directly placing the government in the position of elevating Trump’s commands over the clear letter of the law.
Barr attempted to land an indictment against former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe on charges of misleading investigators.

The results of those actions? The Italian prime minister told Barr to leave them out of it; Australian officials refused to take any part in this fantasy; the lawsuit to protect Trump’s taxes failed in court; and Barr couldn’t manage to achieve a single indictment against McCabe. Also, that whistleblower complaint? It got out.

But while Barr’s batting average may look to be in the low-nothings, he doesn’t have to put one between the lines every time. He doesn’t have to be right at all. After all, what Donald Trump requested of Ukraine wasn’t actual investigations into anything; it was just the announcement of investigations. And even if Barr hasn’t convinced anyone else to play along with Trump’s favorite conspiracy theories, he’s perfectly adequate at suppressing information and distorting findings.

Trump isn’t after facts. He doesn’t require convictions. The announcement that the DOJ is conducting a criminal investigation focused on James Comey, or Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama … that’s more than enough for Trump. And Barr is exactly the Roy Cohn-Joseph McCarthy hybrid who will give it to him.

Why William Barr is the greatest threat to America—and also utterly ridiculous

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