Former Attorney General Bill Barr covered a fair amount of ground yesterday during a Fox News interview, but of particular interest were his concerns about a possible second term for Donald Trump. As Barr explained, if the former president returns to the White House, Americans can expect to see the weaponization of federal law enforcement.
“It’s funny, Republicans are complaining about weaponization of [the Justice Department], and I think it’s a fair thing to pursue, but Trump’s made it clear he wants to weaponize the Department of Justice.”
When Fox host Neil Cavuto asked the former attorney general whether he believes Trump would spend a possible second term weaponizing federal law enforcement, Barr responded, “That would be my concern — among many.”
The problem is not with the Republican lawyer’s assessment. The former president has, of course, left little doubt that if he’s returned to power, he has every intention of seeking retribution against his perceived foes. To that end, it’s a near certainty that Trump would seek political control over the Justice Department.
Indeed, it’s a core element of the power-consolidation initiative called “Project 2025.”
But stepping back, every time Barr raises public concerns about his former boss, I’m reminded of the disconnect between the message and the messenger. The former attorney general told a national television audience yesterday that Trump “wants to weaponize the Department of Justice.”
What Barr neglected to mention is that Trump already tried to weaponize the Department of Justice — and much of those efforts unfolded during Barr’s tenure.
To be sure, some of Trump’s relevant incidents predated Barr’s return to the attorney general’s office. In Trump’s first year in the White House, for example, he publicly pleaded with the Justice Department to go after his foes. A year later, the then-president told the White House counsel that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
But as Barr no doubt knows, ahead of Election Day 2020, Trump also called for Clinton’s incarceration and lobbied the then-attorney general to go after then-former Vice President Joe Biden for reasons unknown.
The New York Times reported last year that Trump and his team “tried to turn the nation’s law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power” to carry out the Republican’s wishes. A Washington Post analysis published soon after highlighted the many instances in which Trump leaned on the Justice Department to follow his whims. To be sure, some of these steps came before and after Barr’s tenure, but the former attorney general isn’t in a position to pretend he was out of the loop. On the contrary, Barr earned a reputation as a relentless partisan and a willing partner to Trump as the White House sought to politicize federal law enforcement. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the former attorney general created a federal law enforcement crisis at the Justice Department with his political antics, which is why literally thousands of former Justice Department and FBI officials — from Democratic and Republican administrations — called for his resignation in May 2020. Barr’s record, in other words, will continue to chase after him like cans tied to a bumper — and his recent candor doesn’t cut the strings. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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