William Barr, who got his job as attorney general because Donald Trump was looking for someone who would construe the law in the president’s favor, has lived up to Trump’s expectations.
Barr has acted as much like a defense attorney for the president as an impartial enforcer of the law.
Robert Mueller’s full report on his Russian investigation, even after being redacted by Barr, shows that the attorney general, when he released his initial four-page synopsis of the report, applied his own spin to some of the independent counsel’s findings.
One of the most egregious examples was Barr saying that a major reason he decided the president could not have obstructed justice is because Mueller determined there was no underlying crime to cover up. Barr made no mention, however, of other motivations that Mueller said the president could have had for trying to impede the investigation, including Trump thinking that he or those in his camp might have committed a crime.
That omission demonstrates that Barr can’t be trusted to tell it straight.
