Did Bill Barr lie to reporters just a tiny? Was he less than perfectly honest about his role in wire-tapping Congressmen Schiff and Swalwell in a leak investigation? Would our saintly former attorney general stoop to telling fibs to protect his own reputation?
You bite your tongue for even thinking it!
Although ... well, let's compare.
Here's how the New York Times described Barr's role in the inquiry:
But William P. Barr revived languishing leak investigations after he became attorney general a year later. He moved a trusted prosecutor from New Jersey with little relevant experience to the main Justice Department to work on the Schiff-related case and about a half-dozen others, according to three people with knowledge of his work who did not want to be identified discussing federal investigations.
And here's what he told Politico after the story broke:
In a phone interview, Barr said he didn't recall getting briefed on the moves.
Uh huh.
NYT:
A CNN report in August 2019 about another leak investigation said prosecutors did not recommend to their superiors that they charge Mr. Comey over memos that he wrote and shared about his interactions with Mr. Trump, which were not ultimately found to contain classified information.
Mr. Barr was wary of how Mr. Trump would react, according to a person familiar with the situation. Indeed, Mr. Trump berated the attorney general, who defended the department, telling the president that there was no case against Mr. Comey to be made, the person said. But an investigation remained open into whether Mr. Comey had leaked other classified information about Russia.
And Politico:
Barr also said that while he was attorney general, he was "not aware of any congressman's records being sought in a leak case." He also said Trump never encouraged him to target the Democratic lawmakers in this case.
"He was not aware of who we were looking at in any of the cases," he said. "I never discussed the leak cases with Trump. He didn't really ask me any of the specifics."
UH HUH.
Look, sometimes two things can both be true. But sometimes someone is lying his pathetic ass off and crossing his fingers that the Inspector General will drag this thing out for three years before issuing a report, by which time we'll all have lost interest. Hell, maybe he hopes to draw a straight flush and Merrick Garland will throw a blanket of privilege over the whole thing, and no one will ever find out. Which is bloody cheeky for a guy who just threw career law enforcement officials under the bus by forcing disclosure of every piece of paper the DOJ had on Michael Flynn, despite the DOJ's own lawyers and the court agreeing that they were not discoverable.
As for the contention that Barr had NO IDEA whether Trump wanted the DOJ to tapp Schiff and Swalwell's wires, that's horseshit on its face.
"Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!" Trump tweeted on February 5, 2018.
And he was still at it two years later on February 22, 2020, snarking, "Just another Shifty Schiff leak. Isn't there a law about this stuff?"
The man spent his entire presidency howling about leakers and accusing everyone who ever worked for him of revealing classified information based on his own cracked theory that all his utterances were state secrets. Remember that time when the DOJ sued Melania's former BFF for writing a mean book about her? Are we supposed to believe that Bill Barr never discussed it with anyone at the White House, deciding to devote Department resources to such a pissant garbage claim all on his own? Really? (The suit has since been dropped by Merrick Garland, BTW.)
Barr is the one who parked New Jersey gang prosecutor Osmar Benvenuto over at the national security division so he could work on the leak investigations, and the Times says Benvenuto personally briefed Barr on his progress. Is Jowly Roy Cohn really going with the line that he dispatched this guy to do something , but he had no idea what it was and they never discussed it again?
COME THE FUCK ON, ASSHOLE! Your Wonkette was born on a Tuesday, but it wasn't last Tuesday.
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And they call lefties shrill.
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