Not Your Average Stooge

In the last two days, the news has been dominated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller once again and also by Attorney General William Barr. Late Tuesday night, the media began reporting that Mueller had been deeply unhappy with the letter Barr released to the public shortly after the Special Counsel had submitted his long-awaited report (details here).

Then yesterday, Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on the matter (details here and here). Needless to say, in his testimony Barr revealed himself once again to be dishonest and a subjective hack, the worst sort of traits for an attorney general and the likely reason Donald Trump selected him.

For instance, in his testimony before Congress yesterday, Barr admitted he hadn't even looked at the underlying evidence accompanying the Mueller Report before he made his conclusions (details here). That admission completely destroys any pretense that Barr is acting objectively in this matter.

As legal analyst and journalist Andrew Cohen commented in a piece he wrote yesterday (link here), Barr doesn't even bother pretending any longer that he's an honest broker for the Justice Departnent and the American people. He's simply acting like Trump's defense attorney whilst collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck in doing so.

This caused Republican strategist Rick Wilson to write a withering piece for The Daily Beast (link here) about how Barr is now a direct threat to the American justice system itself. Barr "is a weapon crafted to protect and serve Trump, using the protective coloration of a dull bureaucrat to carry out Dear Leader’s slow-motion subversion of the Republic."

The House Leadership needs to shut down Barr now. He's refusing to testify before them even though he will be subpoenaed. House Democrats must not blink in the face of this slow-motion coup. Barr needs to be curbed before it's too late.