William Barr comes out swinging, punches himself in the face, falls down
So much for whatever Donald Trump’s handpicked Attorney General William Barr thought he was trying to accomplish with his press conference this morning. Perhaps Barr thought he could get the media to do his bidding for him today. After all, most major media outlets initially went along with his “summary” of the Mueller report. But this time, to its immense credit, the media had zero interest in taking Barr at his word – and the whole thing quickly blew up in his face.
Barr may have accomplished one goal this morning, in the sense that he managed to go on television and convince Donald Trump that the Mueller report was somehow good for him. Sure enough, Trump tweeted “No obstruction, no collusion… Game Over.” But in the hour-plus since the redacted Mueller report was released, Trump hasn’t tweeted anything else about it – and with good reason.
The Mueller report is so profoundly ugly for Donald Trump, particularly on obstruction of justice, but also on collusion, the only prevailing headlines coming out of this day are focused on precisely that. Barr’s press conference didn’t even make a dent, unless you count the sidebar coverage about how dishonest Barr was during his press conference.
We don’t know precisely what House Democrats will do with this treasure trove of damning evidence against Donald Trump; as a first step they’re calling for Robert Mueller to publicly testify about his report, and he’ll surely oblige. But if House Democrats want to impeach William Barr for obstruction of justice, Barr just served himself up on a silver platter this morning. Barr was only performing for Trump’s benefit – but unfortunately for Barr, everyone else was watching too.
