Now the game’s up. The report’s real author has spoken and he wasn’t pleased. What should happen to an attorney general who can’t be trusted to be completely truthful with the American people?
The letter we were all waiting for — at least all of us who’d been watching the proceedings with a slightly obsessive eye — landed explosively earlier tonight in the nation’s capital. The Washington Postreported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote to Attorney General Bill Barr in late March complaining that in his now-famous four-page summary memo Barr «did not fully capture the context, nature and substance» of Mueller’s work.
Oh, was that all, just the «context, nature, and substance»? In other words, pretty much the whole ball of wax. Which is exactly what I surmised, and said, at the time, with a couple of posts, Attorney General Bill Barr Has Made A Huge Miscalculation, and The Barr Cover-Up: Call It What It Is.
Why was I so sure? Because as a former VP of Corporate Communications for a Fortune 500 company, one thing I have pretty keen antennae for is spin. I know spin when I see it; I feel it in my corporate bones. My assessment from the get-go of Mr. Barr’s handiwork? Spin City, baby, as Dick Vitale of March Madness fame might put it. Technically legally accurate, sure, but designed to shape public perceptions by placing the president in absolutely the most favorable possible light, given the facts at hand. Spin City. Slick and legalistic but still spin.
As I said at the time, the fix was in. But now the game’s up. The report’s real author has spoken and he wasn’t pleased with what he read.
Interested parties across the country wasted no time weighing in.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal said of Barr to CNN, «In effect, he lied to the American people.»
Carl Bernstein, investigative reporter of Watergate fame, said to CNN, «The attorney general of the United States misrepresented the context of the most important investigation of the last 44 years.»
Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe posted on Twitter: «AG Barr seriously misled the U. S. Senate on April 10 when he said under oath that he ‘didn’t know’ whether Mueller agreed with his summary of what the Mueller report concluded. The truth? Mueller had written to Barr two weeks earlier saying he definitely didn’t agree. Perjury?»
Credibility and integrity
Not only perhaps perjury, but something that from a management and leadership perspective is just as important: credibility and integrity.
