Attorney General William Barr asked President Trump to stop his social media commentary on Thursday after the flap over the case involving Trump’s adviser Roger Stone.
Barr told ABC News in an interview scheduled to air on Thursday evening that he wants Trump to ‘stop tweeting’ and that the president’s comments make it ‘impossible’ to do his job as the head of federal law enforcement.
(NPR, February 13, 2020)
Back then, Barr insisted that he was not going to allow Trump to bully or influence him. Telling, though, he bemoaned that Trump’s public goading was undermining his authority, but demurred when asked what he planned to do about it.
Sure enough, this political hack masquerading as attorney general has since allowed Trump to do just that, namely bully or influence him to do this president’s bidding. Only that explains Barr prevailing upon DOJ prosecutors to give Stone a sweetheart deal at sentencing.
Even worse, that case is only one of the many ways he has used his position to serve Trump’s political interests. Most notably, he
- parroted Trump’s Big Lie about Democrats using mail-in ballots to rig the election; and
- defamed DOJ prosecutors as “preschoolers” and “headhunters” for prosecuting Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and national security adviser Michael Flynn on a battery of fraud, tax evasion, and perjury charges, respectively.
Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that Trump is not only at it again but upping the stakes.
President Donald Trump said in a televised interview that he has spoken to Attorney General Bill Barr about the high-stakes Durham probe and received assurances the government has ‘plenty’ of evidence to bring charges against his main political rivals. …
Trump also repeatedly blasted Hillary Clinton for her email scandal that was a feature of the 2016 campaign, and said former President Barack Obama and 2020 rival former Vice President Joe Biden should be charged with spying on his campaign.
‘Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we’ll just have to go, because I won’t forget it,’ Trump said.
(Daily Mail, October 8, 2020)
Clearly Barr has already compromised his professional reputation, irreparably. But, to preserve what little self-respect he might have left, he must resign tonight! In doing so, he will join former counselor Kellyanne Conway as the first rats to jump the sinking ship that is the Trump presidency.
Alternatively, Barr could secure a little redemption by staying on and serving as a de-facto overseer of the General Election that is already underway. This would have him deploying DOJ lawyers to ensure a free and fair election. That, instead of overseeing a nationwide effort to suppress the vote among minorities, which Trump is prevailing upon all Republican leaders to do to rig the presidential election in his favor.
Whatever the case, it will never cease to amaze me how sycophants like Barr fail to realize that no amount of loyalty and service to Trump will prevent him from throwing them under the bus — on a whim.
I mean, it’s as if they are blind to the open and notorious way he not only betrayed people like his former fixer Michael Cohen and his first attorney general Jeff Sessions, but then ridiculed them mercilessly to boot.
This is why it always says far more about the banana Republicans who serve and support Trump than about this wannabe dictator himself.
Incidentally, the Republicans called for Obama’s head just because Bill Clinton spent a few minutes chatting with Obama’s attorney general, Lorretta Lynch, on an airport tarmac. Yet those same Republicans see nothing wrong with Trump ordering his attorney general to prosecute his political opponents. I’d call them out for being hypocrites, but that would be tantamount these days to calling out thieves for being liars.
Meanwhile, the folly is that talking heads are all over TV feigning shock and outrage over Trump
- hiding his last negative test for Covid;
- flip-flopping over debates; and
- demeaning Kamala Harris as an unlikable communist monster.
And they are doing all that while ignoring the high-crime inherent in Trump threatening Barr to prosecute these high-profile Democrats. After all, there’s nothing new, or even newsworthy at this point, in any of the former, including Trump calling yet another Black woman racist and misogynistic names.
Which is why raging about those outrages, and not about Trump threatening AG Barr, is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees. But this is how demagogues become dictators … and democracies die – complete with democrats decrying their antics every step of the way.
Related commentaries:
William Barr… Kamala Harris… Michael Cohen… Jeff Sessions…
* This commentary was original published yesterday, Thursday, at 8:37 p.m.
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