Bill Barr just screwed Donald Trump over

When Attorney General Bill Barr started insisting over the weekend that the chemicals fired on protesters outside the White House weren’t actually chemicals, Palmer Report noted that he wasn’t aiming for believability; he was aiming for reasonable doubt. Barr has begun trying to lay the legal groundwork for the defense he’ll have to mount when he’s put on criminal trial after Trump loses the election.

Now Barr is taking things even further. He just went on Fox News and tried to justify the order to assault the protesters by claiming that they were so violent, the Secret Service ordered Donald Trump into the bunker for security reasons. Again, Barr is trying to justify the order he gave to have peaceful protesters illegally assaulted, by pretending they were violent. But wow did Barr just screw Trump over.

Donald Trump has spent days insisting that he only went to the bunker to inspect it, because he doesn’t want to have to admit that he hid from protesters in the bunker. Most people don’t really believe this to begin with, of course. But now Bill Barr is making it worse by flat out admitting that Trump did in fact go to the bunker because of the protesters. Barr is also admitting that Trump lied to the public about why he went to the bunker.

Why is Bill Barr doing this? Again, his words are straight out of a courtroom “reasonable doubt” argument. He’s laying out a legal defense, under the presumption that he’ll end up facing criminal charges for this after the election. Barr must simply be hoping that Donald Trump is too sheltered or clueless to even know that Barr is screwing him over on this one. But Barr is clearly watching out for himself here at Trump’s expense.