After losing a legal battle at the Supreme Court and news of Attorney General William Barr working for months to keep a probe into Hunter Biden secret, Trump publicly blasted the AG on Saturday. Will Barr be fired?
Summary
With the revelation of a long-running investigation into Hunter Biden staying secret until after the election and DOJ conclusions about election fraud not occurring at a scale that would impact the results, President Trump publicly criticized Attorney General Bill Barr.
- Trump’s attitude toward Barr has shifted abruptly and dramatically according to The Hill, which reported Barr was usually in the President’s good graces.
- On Twitter, Trump vented toward a number of Republican figures including Barr, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, as well as the Supreme Court for refusing to hear Texas’ lawsuit against battleground states whose election results have been contested by the Trump campaign.
- The President vowed to fight on despite the Supreme Court’s decision likely ending Trump’s opportunities for legal challenges.
- Axios posited the theory that the revelation of efforts to keep the Hunter Biden investigation quiet came from Barr himself as a way to protect his reputation for post-Trump administration legal work. The publication also speculated on a list of current administration officials who will likely be axed before January 20th.
- After criticizing Barr in the morning, the President spent the afternoon at the Army-Navy game in West Point, New York where he was received enthusiastically by a crowd of midshipmen and cadets.
- According to CNN, President Trump floated the idea of firing Barr on Friday after news of Barr’s work to hide the Hunter Biden investigation, part of a pattern of what CNN’s Maeve Reston calls “self-sabotage” as the United States is on the verge of a scientific and technological marvel (the roll-out of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine).
- The New York Times compared Trump’s criticism of Barr as similar to his treatment of his first Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who faced pressure and ridicule from Trump after recusing himself from the Russian election interference investigation.
- An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun praised Barr for standing up to a barrage of criticism and vitriol from all sides, making unpopular decisions, and taking on the ossification of the Justice Department as a political weapon.
- Joel Pollak of Breitbart defended Barr from criticism, saying he did the right thing by refusing to be “Trump’s wingman”, a nod to Eric Holder’s insistence his job as Attorney General was to be Obama’s “wingman.”
- The New York Post recounted Trump’s Sunday morning interview with Fox News, quoting Trump as saying Barr “had an obligation to set the record straight” regarding Hunter Biden, a notion on which Fox host Brian Kilmeade pushed back.
- In separate reporting the Post also said the Hunter Biden probe is far larger than originally though, as Biden’s business with at least two dozen are part of the investigation.
- In breaking the news of Barr keeping the Hunter Biden investigation shielded from public view, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Barr was under immense pressure from Trump and Congressional Republicans to appoint a special prosecutor to prevent the incoming Biden administration from sweeping it under the rug.
- National Review’s Jim Geraghty chastised the many journalists and opinion writers who spent months criticizing Barr as a “partisan hack” and suggested they owe Barr an apology.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2020
