Former Attorney General William Barr might have earned Donald Trump’s trust and admiration for his probe into the origins of the Russian collusion hoax. Mr. Barr was not satisfied with some of the answers given to him to justify the controversial counterintelligence investigation that dominated the coverage of the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s presidency. Barr’s investigation outlasted the Trump administration, having to appoint a special counsel, former US Attorney John Durham, to protect the inquiry from the incoming Biden administration.
Yet, he’s also shredded the Democratic smears hurled against him, which centered on him being Trump’s puppet at the Department of Justice. To the contrary, he supported the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago and said that there was ample evidence to indict Trump. Now, he’s penned a letter urging the GOP to find a new leader, warning that the former president is going to “burn down the whole house” (via The Hill):
Former Attorney General William Barr on Monday called for a new leader of the Republican Party, warning in a blistering rebuke that former President Trump “will burn the whole house down.”
“Unless the rest of the party goes along with him, he will burn the whole house down by leading ‘his people’ out of the GOP,” Barr said in a scathing op-ed published in the New York Post on Monday.
“Trump’s willingness to destroy the party if he does not get his way is not based on principle, but on his own supreme narcissism,” he added. “His egoism makes him unable to think of a political party as anything but an extension of himself — a cult of personality.”
Barr’s comments follow the 2022 midterm elections, where Republicans were expected to see a “red wave” in the House, taking control of the chamber by a wide margin. Some polls before the midterms also showed that Republicans had a good chance of capturing the Senate.
It's not the first time we’ve heard these words. Barr has faced fire from both sides and got the wheels moving on getting to the bottom of the Russian collusion fiasco that’s damaged the institutional credibility of the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies. To be fair, the man has earned the right to say whatever he wants. We’ve also heard worse over the years, so let’s not go nuclear here. Trump is running for president again—I’m sure many more attacks will be drawn against him down the road. In the meantime, enjoy some turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and bourbon—all of which are now 30 percent more on average, thanks to the Biden recession.