The Bill Barr problem

| 11:00 pm EDT October 5, 2020
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Earlier today Palmer Report pointed out that the only people in the Trump regime who have admitted having coronavirus are those who were involuntarily outed (like Hope Hicks), and those whose absence would be conspicuous if they simply disappeared for fourteen days (Kayleigh McEnany). When it comes to the people in the Trump regime who aren’t regularly in the public eye to begin with, most of them are conveniently insisting they’ve tested negative.

It turns out we’re not the only ones who see the pattern. During his show tonight, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out that with Attorney General Bill Barr having recently gone into quarantine, we have no idea whether he has coronavirus or not. He claims he tested negative, but based on his track record there’s no reason to believe him. If he has coronavirus, and he’s not quite sick enough to land in the ER, he could simply hide until he recovers and then never tell us he had it.

Of course Bill Barr isn’t the only person who fits this description. For instance, if any of Donald Trump’s kids have coronavirus, will they ever admit it? Barr holds public office and the Trump kids don’t, so they have differing levels of privacy. But all of them have a duty to participate in contact tracing, if nothing else – and it’s clear they’re not going to do that either.