Barr is much maligned as a Rino. But when the Mueller Investigation left enough doubt out there about Trump’s actions…..Barr stepped forward and closed the door:
On March 24, 2019, Barr sent Congress a four-page letter detailing the report's conclusions. On March 27, Mueller privately wrote to Barr, stating that the March 24 Barr letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions" and that this led to "public confusion".[41] Barr declined Mueller's request to release the report's introduction and executive summaries ahead of the full report.[42] Also on March 24, Barr's letter stated that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteinconcluded that the evidence was "not sufficient to establish" that Trump had obstructed justice.[43][44] On May 1, Barr testified that he "didn't exonerate" Trump on obstruction as "that's not what the Justice Department does"[45] and that neither he nor Rosenstein had reviewed the underlying evidence in the report.[46] In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a president could be charged with crimes including obstruction of justice after the president left office.[47] In 2020, a Republican-appointed federal judge decided to personally review the report's redactions to see if they were legitimate. The judge said Barr's "misleading" statements about the report's findings led him to suspect that Barr had tried to establish a "one-sided narrative" favorable to Trump.[48][49]
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Barr was walking a tight rope seeing Justice was done, but also avoiding a disastrous series of resignations in the Justice Department, which could so easily have happened and paralyzed the system. So why has he been so villified by the nutter right?
Basically because he never ran with the narrative of election fraud.
In an article in today’s WSJ there are excerpts from his book, in which he explains his actions. That the rigged machine accusation never held up. And that the precincts where Trump claimed votes were rigged, showed strong support for the rest of the Republican ticket….hardly what you’d expect.
Bart’s conclusion, which I share, is Trump lost the election in upper middle class areas where he was surprisingly weak. He simply alienated too many people with irresponsible statements. And he is still doing it, witness Putin.
His presidency was a huge success and all he needed to do was be presidential. But the debates and the Covid briefings hurt him and the press never corrected the Russian collusion lie and legitimized his presidency, the biggest factor.
There is a sad interlude described by Barr which was so typically Trump. He basically fired Barr and then had him intercepted before he could leave and reinstated him. In public he was complimentary when Barr finally left. Trump is not a vindictive man, but one who was too petulant for his own good.
Barr emerges as a tough minded adult who served his country well. But while I understand why he’d be inclined to tell a ll, it’s still disappointing to see all this stuff out in the open. It diminishes him.