Bill Barr just threw Donald Trump all the way under the bus
When the January 6th Committee aired a brief snippet of Bill Barr’s recorded testimony during Thursday night’s first public hearing, it made clear that Barr had decided to throw Donald Trump under the bus in order to protect himself. During today’s hearing, much more of Barr’s recorded testimony aired, and it turns out Barr threw Trump all the way under the bus.
Bill Barr testified that Donald Trump absolutely knew from the start that he had lost the 2020 election. Barr methodically picked apart the various election conspiracy claims that other Trump allies had been floating. In so doing, Barr made clear that Trump could not reasonably have believed that the election was being “stolen” from him.
This matters greatly, because when Trump inevitably ends up on criminal trial for this, he’ll make the reasonable doubt argument that the pressure he illegally applied to various public officials was merely because he was desperate to prove that he’d won. But this argument goes out the window, thanks to Bill Barr.
Of course this means that Bill Barr will end up being subpoenaed to testify at Donald Trump’s inevitable criminal trial(s), which in turn means that Barr will be one of the people who helps put Trump in prison. Barr deserves no credit for this, as he’s only belatedly coming clean about Trump’s crimes because he doesn’t want to go down for obstruction or contempt himself. But Barr’s testimony is nonetheless a devastating blow for Trump, who is already out of counterarguments – and we’re only one third of the way through the public hearings.
