Blame.
The amazing thing about this morning’s Barr presser is how gratuitous it was, which coincidentally was also the amazing thing about him saying a few weeks ago that he’s seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud. He made the latter comment to the Associated Press in an interview he didn’t need to give. And he threw cold water on Trump’s idea about seizing state voting machines or naming Sidney Powell special counsel in charge of election irregularities this morning during a press conference he didn’t need to hold. And then, when he was asked about the SolarWinds mega-hack, instead of simply no-commenting by referring reporters to the Director of National Intelligence, he popped another Trump balloon by saying the evidence seems to point to Russia. I have a theory about why he’s turned antagonistic to Trump lately and it’s not the standard “he’s trying to rehab his reputation before reentering private life” theory either. Watch, then read on. AG William Barr said the massive cyber-attack on the U.S. government « certainly appears » to have been carried out by Russia after Trump suggested China may have been responsible https://t.co/HbogDDHw0h pic.twitter.com/2Ox6ZZ9zU7 Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) December 21,2020 I think it’s this simple: Barr resents it when Trump makes the DOJ look like a joke. Barr himself is willing to make the DOJ look like a joke on the president’s behalf, like when he moved to lighten the sentences of Trump cronies Roger Stone and Mike Flynn. But I suspect he was ticked off to hear Trump muse on TV last month that the Justice Department might have had a role in the alleged grand conspiracy to steal the election from him. And he was probably ticked off even more this weekend to learn that Powell, of all people, might be given Justice Department authority at Trump’s behest to pursue her kooky theories about election fraud. “I’m willing to embarrass myself at times to carry out parts of your agenda. But don’t you embarrass my agency.” That’s Barr’s tacit deal with Trump, I think. And Trump broke the deal, more than once. With respect to the mega-hack, we’re having a national case of deja vu. As in 2017, a foreign power has hacked Americans in a spectacular way and literally everyone in the know inside the government agrees that it was Russia except for one very important person. Here’s Mike Pompeo pointing the finger: QUESTION: From my pedestrian point of view, and that’s all it is, I agree with you 100 percent that they need to be on that list. Now, this attack, I guess our government is still sorting it out and so forth. Reports are coming out this is a massive attack on our computer systems and our software systems, correct? SECRETARY POMPEO: That’s right.
