After months and years of carrying water for the Trump cause, it seems that Attorney General Bill Barr finally got fed up with all the chicanery when Trump started up his false -- or delusional -- charges of fraud in the 2020 election.
“If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it," Barr told Jonathan Karl, an ABC reporter, for a book that was excerpted in yesterday's Atlantic magazine. "But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”
While Trump was pressuring Barr to launch investigations, Mitch McConnell pressured Barr in the other direction, reportedly telling him in mid-November that the lies were working against the Republican candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff election, scheduled for January 5.
McConnell didn't want to make himself the target of Trump's rage by saying out loud that Biden had won. He thought Trump might retaliate by damaging Republicans' campaigns in Georgia. (Both Barr and McConnell verified this account, Karl says.)
Later, McConnell said, “Bill, I look around, and you are the only person who can do it.”
Barr did his own informal look-see into the balloting in Michigan, which went for Biden, even though Trump did better than he had against Clinton in 2016. Barr also checked into voting machines, concluding that if there was a discrepancy, a hand count would show it -- and there hadn't been any such reports.
Perhaps it was the prospect of continuing to feed the runaway ego of an unprincipled and increasingly unhinged chief executive that put Barr back on the straight and narrow.
Barr spilled the beans on December 1 in a lunch meeting with a few other DOJ officials and one lucky Associated Press reporter. Barr said, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
A few hours later, Barr was taking an earful from the President. Trump asked "How the f*** could you do this to me? Why did you say it?"
“Because it’s true,” Barr answered.
The president, livid, responded, “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump," and launched into a tirade about all Barr's perceived mistakes.
A few weeks later, Barr turned in his letter of resignation. His last day was December 23rd.
Is it possible that Trump could believe the lies he was telling about election fraud?
Could Barr have extricated himself any faster once he decided he'd reached his limit with Trump's demands?
Do you believe that Barr was "the only one who could do it?" as McConnell said?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/william-barrs-trump-administration-attorney-general/619298/?fbclid=IwAR1eM7WVcHtY3CYSq0xNtXpbuvFozfkOxW0VW3hCgYe1jPVvA4nVyDiA9YA
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