Barr: Sorry, no pre-election indictments
Never before has any American president—not even Richard Nixon—so brazenly used the tools of government against his political enemies, said David Sanger in The New York Times. Badly trailing in the polls, Trump publicly demanded last week that Attorney General William Barr indict former President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for allegedly launching the FBI’s investigation into links between his campaign and Russia in 2016. Trump called it “the greatest political crime in the history of our country,” and said that Barr has “got all the information he needs” to bring indictments right now. He even tweeted that Biden “shouldn’t be allowed to run,” and called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to release more of Hillary Clinton’s old State Department emails. The only comparison for this kind of authoritarian behavior is to “leaders with names like Putin, Xi, and Erdogan.”
Barr isn’t going to comply with Trump’s demand, said Anne Gearan in The Washington Post. Last week, the attorney general informed top Republicans that he didn’t intend to release the results of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the Russia investigation until after the election. Trump, upon learning the news, called it “a disgrace.” Durham has a bipartisan reputation as “straight arrow,” said Andrew McCarthy in NationalReview.com, and isn’t going to indict anyone “as a political campaign stunt.” Obama administration officials engaged in some misconduct in launching the Russia investigation, but it will be difficult to prove these actions were crimes. And
Barr is keenly aware that ex–FBI Director James Comey earned everlasting scorn for announcing he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the election.
Trump’s “Russiagate” theory rests on an absurd premise, said Max Boot in The Washington Post. Why would Obama, Clinton, and the “deep state” create a Russia investigation to tarnish Trump— but reveal the inquiry’s existence only after the election? Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found flaws in the FBI investigation but “zero evidence” of partisan bias, and concluded it was launched on valid evidence of Trump campaign contacts with Russians. Barr is reportedly “frustrated” that Trump keeps admitting Durham’s probe is political, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com, but he’s been reduced to “merely grumbling off the record.” Barr knows “his soul is too far in debt to quit now.”