Hey Bill Barr, save it for the jury
There’s no sure sign that a political gambit has gone wrong than when the participants in it are already trying to shift the blame to each other. Donald Trump’s stunt of gassing peaceful protesters, for the sake of a photo op outside a church that hadn’t invited him, has gone terribly wrong for him and everyone involved.
We’ve already seen Trump’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper make the incredible argument that he didn’t even know he was going to be in the church photo, and that Trump had told him they were going to a bathroom instead. But Esper merely has to worry about appearances.
Back when the Trump regime thought the stunt was going to play well, Attorney General Bill Barr publicly took credit for ordering the attack on the protesters. He even went outside the White House and surveyed the crowd before giving the order. Now that the stunt is widely being seen as a criminal assault on the protesters, Barr has to worry that it’ll result in yet another felony charge against him once Trump is gone, to go along with the obstruction of justice counts he’ll already face.
So now Bill Barr has gone on Face The Nation today, trying to argue technicalities about which specific chemical substance he had the troops fire at the protesters. It’s not the kind of argument that’s going to win over the public. Instead it sounds more like a reasonable doubt argument that defendant might make to a jury. We suppose Barr is already practicing his trial defense, as it’s starting to look more and more like he’s going to need it.
