The end of Bill Barr
I keep getting asked how this ends between Donald Trump and Bill Barr. At this point the more important question may be whether it makes a difference how it ends. The two of them seem to be locked in a mutual catch-22 that neither one of them will emerge from in good shape, no matter how it goes down.
My guess is Trump wants to fire Barr for admitting that Trump lost the election, but Trump needs Barr’s help writing the family pardons first. Barr knows this and is dragging out the pardons. Trump knows Barr is dragging it out, and is trying to decide if he cares more about waiting to get Barr’s help, or getting to feel the rage of firing Barr now.
Each time Trump has fired a henchman for drawing the line, he’s picked a more willing replacement, who has nearly always turned out to be a far more incompetent henchman. Trump has to ask if he wants to spend his final days in office with a total idiot Acting Attorney General who can’t tie his shoelaces.
One consistent pattern from Trump: he’ll keep angrily leaking to the media how he wants to fire someone, but he tepidly takes months to finally pull the trigger, or he never does it at all. At this point Trump, more tepid and indecisive than ever, doesn’t have months left. He may still be trying to decide whether to fire Barr when his term is over.
I’m not sure it matters that much what Trump decides to do. Either Trump finishes out with Barr, who has become a largely unwilling henchman, or he replaces Barr with a loyalist idiot who is an unable henchman. There’s no scenario where Trump fires Barr and then magically gains the power to pull off new things. It’s never worked out for Trump that way, and it’s certainly to going to work out that way now that he’s lost the election and has less leverage than ever.
Either way, Bill Barr has to go to prison for the several counts of felony obstruction of justice he’s committed. He drew the line a little at the end? Fine, he can tell it to the jury during the sentencing phase of his criminal trial. Lock him up.
