William Barr just screwed up and gave away something big

| 2:50 pm EDT May 1, 2019
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What’s the difference between a conversation and a “substantive” conversation? It’s a surreal distinction that Attorney General William Barr clumsily tried to draw during his hearings today, and the answer to that question could end up telling us a lot about just how many crimes Barr has helped Donald Trump to commit.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal asked William Barr what should have been an easily answerable yes or no question. When it comes to the fourteen ongoing federal criminal cases spun off from the Mueller investigation, twelve of which are still under wraps from the public, has Barr discussed any of these cases with the White House? But Barr took a long flustered pause before only being willing to say that he hadn’t had any “substantive conversations” with the White House about these cases. Oops.

This is a giveaway that William Barr has in fact discussed one or more of these ongoing cases with the Trump White House. He didn’t want to admit as much, because that would be an admission that he and the Trump regime are still conspiring to obstruct justice. On the other hand, Barr didn’t want to claim that the conversations hadn’t taken place at all, because that could get him nailed for perjury.

This suggests that, even with as brazen as Barr has been about breaking the law in general, he’s parsing things very carefully here because he expects it to come out that he did in fact discuss these criminal cases with the Donald Trump regime. At that point Barr will argue that they weren’t “substantive” conversations. Of course this is the same guy who just claimed that his four page summary of the Mueller report wasn’t a “summary.”