William Barr is the only appropriate attorney general for the Trump age. One cannot have the single most-corrupt president in history without an equally corrupt attorney general. William Barr is very much up to the task.

Forget momentarily that certain members of the cabinet are not supposed to engage in politics at all. Traditionally, the secretary of Defense, State, Treasury, and especially the attorney general, remained a bit above politics as these were the people that actually did the nation’s business. It isn’t just unseemly, it is also counter-productive. But the attorney general and the Justice Department were supposed to be even more removed. The Justice Department is the nation’s prosecutor and that meant that it could be investigating and prosecuting anyone at any point.

The tradition was strong enough such that even a Trumper like Jeff Sessions knew to recuse himself under the DOJ rules from the Russian investigation. But Barr was willing to break all those rules.

Thus it should be no surprise that Barr was doing Trump’s dirty political work when he visited with Rupert Murdoch in New York City in October of 2019 according to an article in The Guardian reviewing a book by CNN’s Brian Stelter. There was a ton of speculation at the time about what Barr might have been doing and it could’ve been anything. It turns out, it was to deliver a message. Shut up Andrew Napolitano, the former NY judge who had labeled Trump’s behavior with Ukraine “both criminal and impeachable behavior”.

According to the Guardian:

Citing an unnamed source, Stelter writes that Trump “was so incensed by the judge’s TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person … about ‘muzzling the judge’. [Trump] wanted the nation’s top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitano’s legal analysis had been.”

“Atrocious” in Trump-world means “disloyal,” because Trump’s behavior was clearly impeachable and clearly worse than anything Mueller had uncovered. It worked:

Though Barr’s words to Murdoch “carried a lot of weight”, Stelter writes, “no one was explicitly told to take Napolitano off the air”. Instead, Stelter reports, Napolitano found digital resources allocated elsewhere, saw a slot on a daytime show disappear, and was not included in coverage of the impeachment process.

Maria Bartiromo wouldn’t schedule Napolitano because he would upset her too much every time he talked about Trump. Fox News justified it pulling Napolitano back with circular reasoning, saying that Napolitano killed their ratings. Apparently the audience at Fox determines what it wants to see and hear every day.

Oh, and perhaps Barr himself volunteered to go visit Murdoch since Napolitano had some harsh criticisms of Barr at the time, too:

He has also had harsh words for Barr, for example calling his conduct in the case of Trump ally Roger Stone “Stalinistic”; blasting his handling of the Mueller report to Trump’s advantage; and hitting him for “insulting” Congress.

Sounds like William Barr. Barr is the type of guy who would go to the principal to try to get the teacher to shut-up about doing one’s homework.  The fact that Barr himself went on Trump’s behalf to lobby against coverage in the media about impeachment is, in and of itself, an impeachable offense for Barr. But that’s exactly what one expects from the most corrupt attorney general in history.

He is a hack. Barr is a Trump hack, doing hack like things – always.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom