Robert Mueller Made One Mistake: He Trusted Bill Barr
The report that the attorney general says clears Trump actually says that Trump lied, lied, and lied again—and pressured his subordinates to do the same.
Michael Daly
04.19.19 4:41 AM ET
Two days before the 50th anniversary of Robert Mueller being seriously wounded while leading his platoon against a numerically superior enemy in Vietnam, his latest service to the nation was released in the form of the Special Counsel’s Report.
In a morning press conference before the release, Attorney General William Barr seemed to give a friend of three decades his due after two years of lies and slander by our president.
“I would also like to thank Special Counsel Mueller for his service and the thoroughness of his investigation, particularly his work exposing the nature of Russia’s attempts to interfere in our electoral process,” Barr said.
A few breaths later, Barr committed one of the great public betrayals of our history.
The country’s most senior law enforcement officer actually sought to justify President Trump’s mendacious attacks against Mueller and the investigation he had been appointed to conduct.
“As the special counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,” Barr said.
In fact, the report acknowledges no such thing.
What the report does demonstrate is that Mueller conducted an exceedingly fair, determinedly thorough investigation.
Just as he had on the battlefield a half century ago, Mueller performed brilliantly.
His one mistake was to trust his supposed friend Barr.
To call Barr a human hedgehog would be unfair if the resemblance were confined to his appearance. But he also shares a hedgehog’s unique “self-anointing,” a behavior that involves licking an object whose smell the creature finds attractive until it works up a froth that it then rubs on itself.
Barr must have worked up considerable froth in the presence of the president. He smelled like pure Trump on March 24, when he offered a four-page document that was was supposed to be an honest appraisal of the evidence Mueller so carefully gathered under such trying circumstances.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-made-one-mistake-he-trusted-bill-barr?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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