Bill Barr runs and hides
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Attorney General Bill Barr is up to his neck in Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal. Yesterday, Acting DNI Joseph Maguire publicly testified that Barr’s DOJ advised him not to turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress, which is a real problem for Barr, since he knew he was one of the people accused of wrongdoing in the complaint. Now it turns out Barr is running and hiding.
Bill Barr is conveniently in Italy right now. No, really. He’s on “official travel. Come on, is the United States Attorney General urgently needed in Rome this week for some reason? We all know what’s going on here: Barr is so desperate to distance himself from the whistleblower scandal, he’s physically distancing himself from it.
Of course Bill Barr has done this before. Back when he was lying about what was in the Mueller report, he suddenly made up an excuse for why he needed to go hide out at a lodge in Alaska. The guy sure does like to be as far away from the action as possible when it’s all hitting the fan. There may be another factor here.
Earlier today, the House hit Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with a subpoena for Ukraine scandal documents, and it’s the kind of impeachment subpoena that comes with the threat of eventual obstruction of justice charges if he doesn’t immediately comply. Bill Barr knows he’s about to get subpoenaed too. How convenient, then, that he’s currently on the other side of the world?
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report