US elections: William Barr was the worst attorney general in years

Analysis

America’s worst attorney general in generations takes off his hat

William Barr turned the Justice Department into Donald Trump’s personal law firm, thereby betraying his office.

Saliva is an ugly word. But what else should William Barr be called? In his farewell letter to the president, the outgoing attorney general wrote phrases such as: “He has restored the military power of the United States. By making a historic Middle East peace deal, he accomplished something that no one thought possible. “Or:” His record can be classified as historic, because he has accomplished all of this in the face of endless resistance that he cannot appease.

Barr’s slimy sentences are all the more disgusting given that they are targeted by Donald Trump and word has spread that this very Trump has ousted the Attorney General from office. Several reasons were responsible for Barr’s firing, or resignation, it is unclear:

• The president was enraged that Barr did not open an investigation into Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, before the election, despite knowing it.
• Nor have the results of an investigation that Barr appointed Special Envoy John Durham against former top FBI executives James Comey and Andrew McCabe for more than a year been released. That also infuriated Trump.
• The barrel was eventually broken in an interview in which Barr claimed that he had not discovered any irregularities in the elections.

After this interview at the latest, it was clear to all Washington insiders that Barr, like his predecessor Jeff Sessions, would have to go. That has happened now. Not surprisingly, the president was also involved in the slander theater. Trump did not write a letter. But on Twitter he let Barr and the public know: “Our relationship was very good, he did an excellent job.”

Barr more than earned this unfortunate tweet. Although he was elected Minister of Justice as a servant of the people, he always saw himself as the president’s personal lawyer.

He made it clear more or less the first day of his tenure. It didn’t just produce a misleading version of Special Investigator Robert Mueller’s report. He also betrayed a friendship of many years. The Muellers and the Barrs had been good friends.

Contrary to tradition, Barr freed Trump’s political friends from legal difficulties. He has called for the case against former security adviser Michael Flynn to be dropped and Roger Stone’s sentence reduced. Both have now been pardoned by the president.

To get the president to take a cheap PR photo in front of a church, Barr had peaceful protesters evacuate the area in front of the White House. And it led to a host of attorneys who weren’t staunchly behind Trump from the Justice Department.

Barr is a man of convictions. The devout Catholic had a mission against leftists and progressives. “They want to abuse the power of the state to reshape society according to an abstract ideal of a perfect person (…) Any means is acceptable to them (…) regardless of the consequences and harmful implications for the whole system”, he once explained in speaking with the Federal Society, an influential conservative bar association.

With this crude logic, Barr managed to reinterpret Trump’s mafia machinations into a holy war against socialists and progressives. It gives him license for his atrocities.

Trump’s crude attempt to stage a coup was apparently no longer in line with Barr’s Christian beliefs. Or he simply wanted to avoid the fate of another predecessor. At the time, John Mitchell wanted to protect the back of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal as Attorney General. He was sentenced to several years in prison.

He’ll hardly get that far with Barr. But he is sure of the scorn of his legal colleagues. Neal Katyal, a former United States Attorney General, stated on MSNBC television: “This Attorney General (Barr) has chased justice in the face. (…) He will go down in history as the worst justice minister of our generation. That fits, because he served under the worst president of our generation, under Donald Trump. “