Here comes Bill Barr’s turn in the hot seat
Attorney General Bill Barr has found himself in a fair amount of hot water over the past two weeks over his order to have government personnel assault peaceful protesters outside the White House. But Donald Trump keeps creating new scandals for himself that have taken some of the heat off Barr. Now that may be about to change.
We all saw Bill Barr corruptly interfere with the Department of Justice criminal case against Roger Stone, in an attempt at getting Stone’s prison sentence reduced. That resulted in multiple DOJ personnel involved with the case resigning in protest. Now it turns out two of them are apparently about to publicly testify about what Barr did.
The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Aaron Zelinsky and John Elias to testify next Wednesday. The New York Times says they’re both looking to testify and will honor the subpoenas. This is important, because while the Trump regime will try to block them from testifying, just as it’s done with everyone else who’s been called to testify, Trump has only really succeeded in blocking the testimony of people who didn’t want to testify to begin with. Zelinsky and Elias say they want to testify, which means they probably will.
This means it’s finally Bill Barr’s turn in the hot seat. He refused to show up and testify himself last week, but now two of his own former top people are going to publicly testify against him instead. Donald Trump hates it when one of his underlings becomes scandalized to the point of being a distraction for him. We’ll see if the House can play up Barr’s scandals to the point that Trump grows annoyed with having Barr around. There’s some sense that Trump needs Barr, but Trump has gotten rid of other people he’s needed, out of pure frustration.
