Huffington Post Illustration of Attorney General William P. Barr wearing a Make American Great Again (MAGA) hat summarizes Barr’s actions in defending President Donald Trump very well.
In a bizarre press conference, Barr acted more like a combination of a son defending daddy, MAGA supporter, defense attorney and Trump’s press secretary than US chief law enforcement officer.
Nobody should be fooled by Barr’s rosy characterization that Special Counsel Robert Mueller Report did not find much against President Donald Trump in the 2-year investigation.
But you have to give Barr credit for trying so hard to Baghdad Bob all of us.
Barr made it sound as if Trump and his campaign were a bunch of innocent babies who fell victim of Russian onslaught.
He said that even though Russians tried and tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign, the campaign held strong and did succumb to the overtures.
This is not True.
Mueller found Russian elements worked hard to elect Trump and vigorously campaigned against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton with cooperation from somr in the Trump campaign.
He further found Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort repeatedly shared polling data with a Russian operative and even discussed how the data could be used in messaging swing states.
The same Manafort also worked for a Kremlin-connected oligarch to install Russian friendly people in governments of their interest.
If that is not collusion, it is at least working together or helping or cooperating or conspiring. It is not innocent.
This revelation somewhat gives us an idea of why Manafort pitched to work for the Trump Campaign without pay.
Additionally, Trump’s first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty after he was caught making questionable contacts with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
It appears Russians got so comfortable with Trump people that they did not feel the need to send covert help anymore.
Evidence suggests the only reason Mueller did not assert Trump conspired with Russia to win, was the lack of evidence showing a formal agreement between the campaign and Russia.
This deficit, never-the-less, does not provide Barr with grounds to discount all the evidence of improper and unpatriotic actions taken by the Trump campaign as no big deal.
The president is sworn to uphold the constitution and model obedience of the laws.
Barr, 68, also claimed Special Counsel did not find evidence of obstruction of justice.
This is false.
Mueller did not explore this avenue because it would be a wasted effort as Department of Justice regulations prohibit indicting a sitting president.
But he did, in fact, find several examples where Trump directed his aides to take actions that can be construed as obstruction of justice.
Trump ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller but he refused, threatening to resign instead. Mueller also notes that Trump attempted to send a message to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to trash the Mueller investigation in public and diminish it to a review geared toward preventing future attacks.
This effort failed because his messenger and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski did not deliver the message.
You wouldn’t know this if you listened to Barr’s Mueller Report Spin presser.
The press conference was so pro-Trump, it was shocking he did not leap in the air and gone full Trump mode and declared the whole investigation a witch-hunt by a bunch of angry Democrats.
Defending Trump and sounding like a broken record, Barr repeated Trump’s favorite line, “no collusion” several times in a bizarre attempt to distract from a report to be released less than two hours later.
This was the closest any American AG will ever come to playing Baghdad Bob in defense of a US president.
Here is the full redacted Special Counsel Robert Mueller III report.