Barr doesn’t mind lying — but is bad at it
There was never any doubt that Attorney General William Barr would be more loyal to Donald Trump than to the American people. Trump would not have chosen him for the job if he were not.
But Trump required something else of the man heading “his” Justice Department. He would have to forfeit all semblances of honesty, dignity and selfrespect. And most important, he would have to be willing to lie.
His boss isn’t a man who values truthfulness. And, frankly, Trump isn’t even a politician who lies particularly well. So a “skillful liar” was never implied in the job description for attorney general. A “stupid liar” was.
Barr began entangling himself in a web of lies in March when he released his four-page summary of Robert Mueller’s report to Congress. He cherrypicked phrases from the 448-page document in an attempt to vindicate the president, even using Trump’s favorite line in concluding that there was “no collusion.”
Barr must have known, or at least he should have known, that he could not get away with such a shallow and dishonest interpretation of the special counsel’s two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He must have realized that most Americans would never buy his shady conclusions and that they would demand the truth.
Perhaps that never mattered to him at all. Maybe he knew that if he were to be called before Congress to explain his lies, Republicans would have his back just as fiercely as they have Trump’s. Maybe he realized that Republicans would never let Americans forget that there is a liar walking around much more dangerous than Trump — their nemesis, Hillary Clinton.
What Barr and his Republican cohorts never expected, though, is that Mueller would call him out on his lies. For a man who had been silent throughout his probe, writing a letter stating that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s investigation indeed seemed out of character for Mueller.
Clearly, Mueller was fed up with Barr’s lies. But pathological liars don’t worry about their lies circling back on them. They just keep lying to cover their lies.
During Barr’s first appearance before Congress in April, Sen. Chris Van Hollen asked the attorney general out right, “Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?”
Barr looked the Maryland Democrat in the eye and responded, “I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion.” That was a straight-out lie. He knew exactly how Mueller felt because Mueller had told him in the letter the month before.
On Wednesday, we learned something else about Barr. Not only is he a liar, but he’s an inept liar at that. He is exactly the kind of stupid liar Trump was looking for.
During hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr backed himself into a corner trying to defend the lies he had told about the Mueller report. You could see him pausing, looking around and trying to figure out how to tell another lie without putting himself in the criminal position of lying to Congress.
When Sen. Richard Blumenthal questioned him about Mueller’s letter, Barr blamed everything on the lying media — a tactic straight out of Trump’s playbook. He insisted that the special counsel had indicated in a phone conversation that he was not expressing displeasure with him; he was unhappy with the way the media were portraying the story.
Blumenthal reminded him that there was nothing in Mueller’s letter about the press and that Mueller’s complaint was all about Barr’s characterization of the report.
“The letter speaks for itself,” Barr responded, conceding to the senator.
The most telling example of his lack of lying prowess, though, was the exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The question was about whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice by instructing then-White House counsel Don McGahn to remove Mueller from the investigation under the pretense that he had conflicts of interest. Trump then told McGahn to write a letter saying that Trump had not asked him to do it.
Feinstein: “You still have a situation where the president essentially tries to change the lawyer’s account in order to prevent further criticism of himself.”
Barr: “Well, that’s not a crime.”
Feinstein: “So you can, in this situation, instruct someone to lie?”
Barr: “No, it has to be, well, to be obstruction of justice, the lie has to be tied to impairing the evidence in a particular proceeding. … And there is a distinction between saying to someone, ‘Go fire him, go fire Mueller’ and saying, ‘Have him removed based on conflict.’”
That makes no sense. Even Republicans knew that, but the best defense they could come up with was, “Remember Hillary Clinton’s emails.”
Some people might wonder why Barr would be willing to enter Trump’s fantasy world so late in the game and put his own career and legacy on the line. The answer is simple. Trump offered him a glass of Kool-Aid and he drank the whole pitcher.
Like most stupid liars, Barr seems to think that he is smarter than everyone else and that eventually, he will convince even his staunchest critics that what seems to be a lie is really the truth. Then again, maybe convincing others doesn’t matter to him at all.
The ultimate goal of Barr and the Republicans is to get Trump through this Russia mess undamaged enough to win a second term. The people who don’t believe their lies aren’t going to vote for him anyway. But he needs the unwavering support of those thirsty people who already have Kool-Aid cups in their hands.
The Republicans’ job, with Barr as the drum major, is to keep reminding their constituents that a lie is only a lie if you hate the person telling it.