A few days after Attorney General William Barr did an interview on ABC News that many in the mainstream media and the general public interpreted as a rare pushback against President Trump for meddling in Roger Stone’s ongoing criminal case, a Trump super surrogate Laura Ingraham of Fox News says the media and the public totally misinterpreted AG Barr’s remarks.
According to FoxNews’ Laura Ingraham, AG Barr did not rebuke Trump at the interview. He was simply reassuring the President, “don’t worry I got this”.
Laura Ingraham specifically said, “The media sees this sexy story of Trump versus Barr but they miss the fact that Barr was basically telling Trump ‘don’t worry, I got this.'”
In other words, according to Laura Ingraham, AG Barr did the interview not because he was troubled by Trump meddling in DOJ affairs, but rather because Trump was doing so publicly–a troubling state of affairs indeed.
It also bears pointing out that FoxNews’ Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity are so close to Trump and his administration that pronouncements by the two can be reasonably interpreted to be the actual positions of the Trump administration. In other words if Laura Ingraham says AG Barr was reassuring Trump that he “got this” regarding Roger Stone, then one can reasonably infer that given Ingraham’s closeness to Trump, this was indeed what AG Barr was doing.
Following Trump’s overt meddling in Roger Stone’s ongoing criminal case, there have been loud calls for AG Barr to resign in an effort to restore the independence of the Department of Justice. Laura Ingraham’s comments, which essentially spilled the beans on AG Barr, ought to be the final nail on the coffin.
There is no question at this juncture that as long as Barr remains the U.S. Attorney General, the public will always perceive the Department of Justice as playing to President Trump’s political whims–going after his perceived enemies and doing favors for his cronies like Roger Stone.
Bottom line folks, the independence of the Justice Department is of paramount importance and must be guarded at all costs. Where, as here, AG Barr has proven that he cannot keep political pressure from Trump away from DOJ affairs, the simple solution is for him to resign.
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