Right-wing media is unsurprisingly turning on Barr now:
Reminds me of this joke:
A trump lover and his buddy are driving home from a trump rally when they are killed in an accident.
They find themselves at the Pearly Gates. Jesus walks up and says “hey guys, St. Peter’s off today, so I’m filling in. A couple angels are reviewing your lives to see if you’re worthy to enter or not. In the meantime, got any questions? As the son of God, I can answer anything you want to know”.
One of the trump lovers asks “so how exactly did the Socialist Democrats rig the election?”.
Jesus says “the election wasn’t rigged. It was the most closely watched, most secure election in American history, with absolutely no hint of any significant fraud whatsoever. Your guy got a lot of votes, but Biden got more votes, and he won the electoral college in a valid, clear-cut victory. It’s as simple as that. End of story”.
The trump lover turns to his buddy and says “I had no idea the Deep State went THIS deep!”
The Special Counsel rules require that the appointment be someone who is not currently part of the DOJ. Obviously that excludes John Durham as a valid choice. However, it could still be somewhat problematic for Biden to fire him because optics.
I hope Biden says, screw optics, you’re outta here. It’s customary for new presidents to fire many of/all the US attorneys appointed by the previous administration, because they are often political appointments, so that wouldn’t be unusual. But the right would howl he was only doing it to scotch a “valid” investigation.
They’re going to howl anyway. May as well give them a whipping.
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Ooohh, I see Xavier Becerra is under consideration as the new AG. That would be a terrific pick, though Senate Republicans would probably never approve him.
I’m not surprised. But going back, I also was not surprised that before the election, Barr engaged in reprehensible actions in order to get Trump reelected. He is smart enough to know that based on the utter lack of evidence of any fraud, he has nothing to gain anymore from Trump. Hence at least being smart enough to do something where he can regain a modicum of respect, or something, if you don’t like that particular word.
Also keep in mind that he chose his words carefully: he didn’t say there was no fraud, only that there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome of the election. He left himself some room to weasel around with.
Barr did his best for Trump. He doubled down on his bet with this administration, and despite Trump’s private rage, those closest to Trump know that Barr enabled Trump in ways few others could.
But that being said, this is yet another cautionary tale about the blowback of illiberal democracy and political cults like MAGA. I would hope that conservatives would start taking a look at the pattern here: there is no reward for partial loyalty, not even 90% loyalty. You have to be 100% loyal to an authoritarian regime, or you’re out. In the end, conservatives will be devoured by their right wing rage just like everyone else. They’ll just be the last to see it.
Seems like a sensible thing to have said anyway. It is absurdly unlikely that in such a large event, there wasn’t some small amount of interference from attempted fraud. It may well be that there was a great deal of fraud, but still not enough fraud to tip the outcome in favour of the Donald
When they show evidence of said possible fraud then it should be taken seriously. But when it just conjecture, conspiracy theories and out right whining from cry babies who are upset that their guy lost and decide its best to take such nonsense to court it needs to be called out and dismissed. This nonsense that there must have been some level of fraud is just bullshit, they need to put up or shut up until they have facts to back up their claims.