William Barr should resign
Attorney General William Barr has responded to the extensive evidence that President Trump obstructed a Justice Department investigation with a campaign of continued obstructionism. His servile defense of Trump has done a grave disservice to his office and the public he is supposed to represent.
The delayed release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report confirmed that Barr’s March summary misled Congress and the public as to its conclusions. Underscoring the point, Mueller himself objected to Barr in a newly revealed letter, and the attorney general went on to dissemble about that, too.
Three days after Barr issued his four-page summary of the special counsel’s 448-page report, Mueller wrote to the attorney general that he had failed to “fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions.” Mueller also repeatedly urged Barr to release the report’s summaries, which were designed to be made public without extensive redactions.
Barr’s answer to these revelations has been slippery in the extreme. He has denied that his letter was a summary, persisted in misconstruing the report, and suggested under oath that he was unaware of Mueller’s complaints.
Before his nomination, Barr famously wrote an unsolicited 19-page memo — sometimes called his job application — criticizing the then-unfinished Mueller probe and asserting that a president cannot obstruct justice. His service has been sadly faithful to the indication that he would represent Trump rather than the American people.
“We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon,” Barr insisted before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. But it’s Barr who embodies the politicization of law enforcement.
At times in his testimony, the attorney general seemed to dismiss Mueller, the special counsel and longtime FBI director, as an undistinguished subordinate, calling his letter “snitty.” But Barr’s position is all he has over Mueller, who has conducted himself with the integrity his reputation suggested. Barr, by contrast, has proved himself unfit for the office he holds.