Bill Barr gave Trump a free pass on crime, and a newly released memo only underlines that fact

It’s been more than three years since former Attorney General William Barr issued his infamous “summary” of the report created by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Barr’s four-page document was a highly slanted and heavily spun version of the actual report, downplaying the very serious nature of the evidence found against Donald Trump and members of his campaign connecting them to perjury, campaign finance violations, bank fraud, acting as undeclared agents of foreign governments, and obstruction—at a minimum.

The issue of obstruction applied specifically to Trump, who took actions that deliberately prevented Department of Justice investigators from obtaining accurate and complete information. However, the conclusion of Barr’s summary was a claim that he and other attorneys at the Justice Department, “after careful analysis,” could not find sufficient evidence to indict Trump for a crime. That conclusion was supposedly supported by a Justice Department memo on March 24, 2019, specifically on the matter of whether Trump obstructed justice.

In recent months, Barr has gotten something of a whitewash for his walking away before the bitter end after the 2020 election, and for providing testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, but this came after escapades in which Barr tried to encourage foreign intelligence services to perjure themselves in support of Trump’s conspiracy theories and launched John Durham as a special counsel on an endless effort to undercut the justice system. 

Now, the most egregious part of Barr’s conclusion is in the news again, as the release of new documents shows that the “careful analysis” was just another lie.