Bill Barr suddenly discovers the rule of law

Former Attorney General William Barr shrugged and harrumphed his way through an extraordinary interview on CNN Wednesday night in which he left every impression that he considers Donald Trump guilty as charged for engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow the republic. Trump's defenses didn't much impress Barr.

"The Department of Justice is not acting to weaponize the department by proceeding against the president for a conspiracy to subvert the electoral process," Barr told CNN's Kaitlan Collins. For good measure, Barr added that a defense claim that Trump was merely an innocent numskull listening to bad legal advice was unlikely to be attempted outside the four corners of cable television. Such a claim might require Trump, a notoriously prolific and undisciplined liar, to testify under oath — something his lawyers would avoid at all cost. "I doubt he remembers all the different versions of events he has given over the last few years," Barr said.

It's good to see the former attorney general offering one-and-a-half cheers for the rule of law. But there was an awkward moment in the interview that lingers as a reminder of Barr's own tenure in office. Asked whether he thought special counsel Jack Smith's indictment was a "strong case," Barr agreed that it was. Then he ambled through some whataboutism over Hunter Biden, whose well-investigated misdeeds don't include an attempt to overthrow the republic, and the "slippery slope" of criminalizing political differences, which, in this case, can only mean the good-spirited debate about whether the U.S. should remain a democratic republic or become a dictatorship under a cult of personality.

Would Barr himself have brought the indictment against Trump? Collins asked. "I may have exercised discretion and not gone forward with the case," Barr said.

"Discretion" is a complicated word. It can imply discernment, restraint and sober judgment, for example. It's also a wonderful euphemism for covering up wrongdoing. And William Barr is a discreet man.

This week's federal indictment charges Trump with conspiring, in late 2020 and January 2021, to reverse the results of the 2020 election. It cites six unnamed (but identifiable) co-conspirators. You could make a case that William Barr is honorary co-conspirator No. 7.

It's worth recalling that there were no honest doubts about the 2020 election outcome. The broadcast networks and The Associated Press confirmed Joe Biden's victory on Nov. 7 after conducting the normal analysis. Trump's claims of fraud, for which he never produced a shred of evidence, suffered a further blow on Nov. 10 when The New York Times published the results of interviews with top election officials in all 50 states. Every state reported that the election had produced no significant irregularities or fraud. Two days later, on Nov. 12, the executive committee of the Trump administration's own Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council declared the 2020 election "the most secure in American history." And, of course, Trump's evidence-free and frequently deranged claims were expeditiously chucked from every court in which they were filed.

It was all over but the lying and criming.

The lying and criming, of course, were extensive and relentless. Yet where was the nation's top law enforcement officer when conspiracy was afoot and the republic under siege? With unprecedented crimes unfolding blocks from his office, Barr proved to be a curiously lackadaisical lawman.

Throughout November 2020, Trump ginned up MAGA attacks on the integrity of the vote and worked with "crackpot lawyers," as former vice president Mike Pence called them, and seedy congressional allies — "just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen" to subvert the election results. The attorney general watched silently for four weeks as American democracy came under sustained assault.

Barr had engaged in his own reckless falsehoods before the election, echoing Trump's lies claiming mail ballots were a conduit for massive fraud. "There's no more secret vote with mail-in vote," Barr told a conservative columnist in September 2020. "So now we're back in the business of selling and buying votes. Capricious distribution of ballots means [ballot] harvesting, undue influence, outright coercion, paying off a postman, here's a few hundred dollars, give me some of your ballots."

As post-election analyses proved, Barr's claims had no basis in reality.

On Dec. 1, after a month of lies had spewed from the White House, Fox News and a corruptucopia of MAGA mouthpieces, Barr finally spoke. His method was remarkable.

In April 2019, when Barr was eager to deliver a message to the public about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation into both the Trump campaign's collusion with the Russian government and Trump's obstruction of Mueller's investigation, Barr called a news conference.

Mueller and his investigators had maintained a scrupulous silence about their work. Barr had not yet delivered Mueller's report to Congress, nor had he published a redacted version for the public to read. Barr wanted to have the first word on the investigation and shape public perception of Mueller's long and dense report.

Standing at a podium, Barr delivered the statement that would frame the still-secret report. "Put another way," Barr said, before using words that appear nowhere in Mueller's 444-page report, "the special counsel found no collusion by any Americans" with Russian agents in their efforts to weaken Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and support Trump.

Barr called no such news conference when he finally roused himself to confirm the status of the 2020 election. He appeared before no cameras. He invited a lone print journalist to report his words. "To date," Barr told the AP reporter, "we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."

In his subsequent testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, Barr managed to avoid all the hedging. Trump's fraud claims, he told the committee, were "completely bullshit," "absolute rubbish," "bogus," "complete nonsense." The former attorney general had decided to revise and extend his remarks after the coup failed.

Barr's own coup de grâce came in late December 2020. With Trump's attempt to overthrow the government gathering steam, the nation's top law enforcement officer left his post a month early.

"I appreciate the opportunity to update you this afternoon on the Department's review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued," Barr wrote in his letter to Trump dated Dec. 14, 2020, in which he announced his imminent departure. "At a time when the country is so deeply divided, it is incumbent on all levels of government, and all agencies acting within their purview, to do all we can to assure the integrity of elections and promote public confidence in their outcome."

That is all Barr wrote about the subject of election fraud, leaving the clear impression that the issue was still being "pursued" with no clear resolution. He then attacked Trump's opponents for "relentless, implacable resistance." He even cited the "frenzied and baseless accusations of collusion with Russia," the very counterattack that Barr had originated to neuter Mueller's findings. He slathered Trump with praise and stated how honored he was to serve in the most corrupt administration in American history and a president who, at that very moment, was engaged in a sordid effort to end the American experiment.

In his CNN interview, Barr said he wouldn't rule out supporting Donald Trump for president in 2024. He would, he said, "have to wait to see what happens."