The Barr DOJ Has Become a Private Law Firm for the President
This week’s stalemate over an intelligence whistleblower is just the latest example
William Barr’s official title is United States Attorney General.
His real job, however, is something quite different: operating a private law firm out of the Department of Justice with one client — the president of the United States.
The result is that to a degree unprecedented in modern American history, the Justice Department has become a partisan arm of the White House. Under Barr’s leadership, the DOJ is running interference for the president, rebuffing congressional efforts to conduct oversight of the executive branch, and, in recent days, blocking revelations that could implicate the president in criminal wrongdoing.
This story begins last spring with Barr’s four-page letter to Congress detailing the key conclusions of the Mueller Report. That letter largely exonerated Trump of criminal wrongdoing and so-called collusion with Russia.
But when the actual report was finally released six weeks later, it was disturbingly evident that Barr had misled the public, mischaracterized Mueller’s conclusion, and omitted key facts about Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice.
