Donald Trump is going to hate what Bill Barr just did to him
For quite some time now, Attorney General Bill Barr has been trying to fake his way into making Donald Trump think that serious action is being taken. Barr pretended he was indicting Andrew McCabe when he wasn’t. Barr made a lot of noise about meddling in the Roger Stone sentencing but it went nowhere.
But then Bill Barr’s hand was forced with the Michael Flynn case. Donald Trump has become obsessed with the idiotic idea that framing President Obama and Joe Biden for Michael Flynn’s crimes is somehow magically going to get Trump reelected. Accordingly, Barr had to pull the plug on the criminal case against Flynn. Not only did Barr give himself additional criminal exposure in the process, it doesn’t appear the judge is even going to let Flynn off the hook.
Now Trump keeps publicly playing up the notion of having the DOJ bring phony criminal charges against Obama and Biden. We don’t know if Trump really wants to bring charges, or if he merely wants to create the illusion that Obama and Biden are in danger of being charged. Either way, Bill Barr just blew up the entire scheme.
Barr was asked about investigating and charging Obama and Biden during a press conference today, and according to the Washington Post, Barr said he has no intention of doing so. This is not the answer Trump was looking for, because it pokes a major hole in the notion that Obama and Biden should be prosecuted, which is a notion that Trump is centering his reelection effort around. At the least, Trump would have wanted Barr to dodge the question and leave the door open.
So what’s Bill Barr doing? It seems pretty clear that he’s trying to shield himself from further criminal liability. He’s already on the legal hook for obstruction of justice when he lied about the Mueller report, and when he tried to bury the Flynn case. Barr is clearly worried that if Donald Trump loses the election, Barr will go to prison. Barr must think that bringing phony cases against Obama and Biden would be the final nail in his own legal coffin.
That said, Bill Barr is in a no-win situation. Barr needs Donald Trump to pardon him on his way out the door in order to avoid prison altogether. That means Barr has to keep Trump happy. Yet Barr just blew a hole in Trump’s core reelection strategy, and that’s not going to make Trump happy. Some folks think of Barr as an evil wizard who does things by magic wand. In reality he’s a corrupt bumbler who’s been backed into a corner by his own ineptness and the craven lunacy of his boss.
