The crime party, folks. https://t.co/LknTMA5rWT
— SK Media???? (@SpaghettiKozak) April 27, 2024
… He’d never have outlived his part in the Iran-Contra GOP insurgency, much less his second AG stint under TFG. Bill Barr’s lifelong career has been using ‘the Law’ to hide bodies, not all of them metaphorical, for the Republican Party. He’s not gonna give up that gig at this late stage, at least while he sees the glimmer of a chance that he and his fellows will get to rewrite whatever history exists after a second Trump stint in the Oval Office.
William Barr endorsed Donald Trump but didn’t use his name, saying, ‘I will vote the Republican ticket.’ Trump demands total submission and wrote a Truth Social post mocking Barr — who failed to produce evidence of election fraud — as fat. https://t.co/UcYvSqa5jy
— Intelligencer (@intelligencer) April 25, 2024
Jon Chait, at NYMag — “Donald Trump Snatches Final Shred of William Barr’s Dignity“:
Barr’s place in the Trump firmament is peculiar and unique in a way that challenges the expectations of both men. The universe of Trump officials is broadly sorted by its levels of complicity. At the high end of the scale are those officials who went to work for Trump to limit the damage he could do to the country (James Mattis, John Kelly) and who became despised deep-state traitors. At the bottom end are those who enlisted willingly in his most criminal and authoritarian schemes (Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon) and who left as MAGA heroes.
Barr defies the scale. He enthusiastically supported Trump’s efforts to pervert the Justice Department into a tool of personal abuse (which Barr justified on the basis of his constitutional theory that presidents should properly exert direct control over the operations of the entire bureaucracy, including law enforcement). Barr bought Trump’s idea that he was the victim of a vast deep-state plot and threw himself into the task of rewriting the department into a machine to protect the president and investigate his enemies. His sole request was that Trump allow him to maintain the appearance of propriety by abstaining from public demands that Barr prosecute certain targets and let go certain allies.
Trump, characteristically, refused to grant Barr this fig leaf. Barr, characteristically, gave Trump what he wanted anyway…
Barr’s whole strategy since leaving the administration has been to reframe his service as a strategic effort to advance conservative-movement principles. Barr called Trump unfit and incompetent and pushed Republicans to choose a more effective nominee. His grounds for opposing Trump always pointed toward an eventual reconciliation, though. He opposed his former boss not on the grounds of being an authoritarian but on the grounds of being too ineffective…
He really is ghastly, and not much different from the evangelicals who think Trump is somehow God's instrument. https://t.co/7lJDzgsr6E
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 27, 2024
Repub Venality Open Thread: If Bill Barr Were Capable of Shame…Post + Comments (49)