It’s Satisfying To Watch Former Trump Lackey Former Attorney General William Barr Trash Trump All Over The Media While Promoting His New Book, “One Damn Thing After Another”. His Transparency Comes Years After He Enabled Trump’s Violations Of The Constitution And His Authoritarian Abuse Of The Presidency. However Barr’s Recent Candor About Trump’s Unstable, Impulsive Temperment May Help The January 6th Committee’s Investigation Into Trump’s Role In The Insurrection And His Efforts To Overturn The 2020 Presidential Election.

Despite Barr’s unflattering and incriminating disclosures about Trump in his new book, Barr’s character and reputation remain irreparably destroyed. Despite his negative depiction of Trump, he says he would still vote for him. Why doesn’t he just wear a sign saying, ” I am a hypocrite, I support authoritarianism, and I am lucky, so far, not to have been indicted for colluding with Trump in violating the Constitution.”

Barr: I’ll Still Vote for the ‘Manic’ Man Trashing Me and My ‘Boring’ Book (The Daily Beast, March 2022). Is Barr just a sissy, scared of Trump’s bullying, or simply a corrupt politician we are lucky is out of office?

Barr took many actions during his time as attorney general that sparked talk of possible impeachment proceedings against him for abuse of power. Some of the most serious and blatant were cited in (CREW, July 28, 2022): These same actions caused four former presidents of the D.C Bar Association to write a letter suggesting he committed ethics violations in the execution of his office as attorney general ( Politico, July 28, 2020).

  • Corruptly subverted the Special Counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and of President Trump for obstruction of justice;
  • Interfered with the lawful functions of the Department of Justice by overturning the actions of career prosecutors in the cases of Roger Stone Jr. and Michael Flynn and by firing United States Attorney Geoffrey Berman;
  • Obstructed lawful investigations of the United States House of Representatives; and
  • Abused and exceeded the powers of the Attorney General to violate the First and Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens.

Barr has undergone excessive scrutiny and criticism by the legal community. His politicization of the DOJ by blatantly servicing the political ideology, rhetoric, and constitutional violations of Donald Trump while he was president. Barr’s holds the view that a U.S. president should have ” unchecked power”. This dangerous position contradicts the original intention of the founding fathers concept of a democracy having three co-equal branches of government. Barr’s supported every immoral, unconstitutional act committed by Trump was proof that despite his disapproval of the former presidents temperament, he was and continues to be in favor of a president having absolute power similar to that of a dictator.

It took Trump expecting him to falsely declare that a high level of fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election for Barr to act in accordance with the rule of law. The false claim of a stolen election proved to be the loyalty request that finally caused Barr to cease being the puppet for an out of control, anti-democracy president. In his memoir, Barr makes clear Trump is not his idea of how a U.S. president should conduct himself. However, he demonstrated an unethical tolerance for Trump’s abuses of power ( even those that violated the rule of law). Barr’s ideology which supports a president possessing absolute power emboldened Trump to consistently commit corrupt behaviors, such as these cited in an article by Donald Ayer in the Atlantic Magazine , June 30th, 2019 buy-in :

Trump was impeached twice by the House of representatives for behaviors that violated his oath of office. Despite his corrupt acts of obstructing justice in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and inciting an insurrection to block the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected president, Barr and a far-right Senate supported the continuation of Trump’s authoritarian reign. Barr declares in his memoir that Trump is “too divisive to win the 2024 presidential election” and “too angry and petty to have won the 2022 election” and “was morally responsible for inciting the Jan. 6th riots.” However, his admission that he would not prosecute him if he were still attorney general is proof that Barr views a president as being ” above the law.”

Accountability for Barr may still come. Actions against his law license by the D.C. Bar or other investigations into his abuse of the power of his office while serving as attorney general may still occur. What Barr disregarded in his role as AG was that his clients were the American people and the Constitution, not Donald Trump. His memoir will not change that history will view him as the most corrupt attorney general in U.S. history.

Constitutional legal scholar Lawrence Tribe’s description of Barr summarizes why the former AG is broadly discredited as a lawyer and why he is joining a long list of people whose careers and personal integrity have been permanently ruined in the service of Donald Trump.

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