Bill Barr is up to something
During his time as Attorney General, Bill Barr has shown he only cares about two things. First, he cares about doing Donald Trump’s corrupt bidding. Second, Barr occasionally shows that he cares about covering his own backside, for when this all inevitably goes south and Barr ends up on criminal trial in the post-Trump era.
So even though Bill Barr has announced today that he’s worried about the well being of prisoners during the coronavirus crisis, no serious person believes him. Barr is surely focused on one of two things here, and neither of them is above board.
The first possibility is that Bill Barr is looking to use the coronavirus crisis to try to spring Donald Trump’s pal Paul Manafort from prison. Of course Barr would have to let a whole lot of federal prisoners go in order to cover his tracks. And realistically, Manafort would likely end up under house arrest anyway, so would there be much of a point? It’s worth noting that Trump’s other pals like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone haven’t started their prison sentences yet, and the courts will likely delay that until after the pandemic subsides.
The second possibility is that Bill Barr is simply worried about the liability he could end up facing if the coronavirus ends up spreading through federal prisons. Barr couldn’t care less about the well being of anyone in prison, of course. But perhaps he just doesn’t to end up facing years of legal action over his failure to protect prisoners against the cruel and unusual punishment of keeping them locked up in a way that exposes them all to a deadly virus.
