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I have four propositions with which many readers disagree. First, William Barr was an outstanding Attorney General of the United States in the first Trump administration. Second, if it weren’t for Barr, the Mueller investigation would still be going strong persecuting innocent citizens. We would be entertaining proposals to convert it into a permanent commission. Third, I agree entirely with Barr’s critique of President Trump’s endgame on January 6. I had my own say on that score in “A shameful day” while events were still unfolding.

Fourth, Barr’s memoir — One Damn Thing After Another — is the best memoir ever written by a former Attorney General. The competition on that front isn’t stiff. Widening the ambit, however, I would say it’s a memoir that, though not up to their standard, belongs in the company of classics by former cabinet members such as Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger. See Joseph Bessette’s excellent Claremont Review of Book review “Law Man.” Bessette speaks for me.

Lloyd Billingsley has previously faulted Barr and his memoir in the 2022 review he wrote for American Greatness. He followed up in a second American Greatness column. By the same token, he has now faulted Barr and his memoir in two Power Line posts, last year in “Cracking the Barr code” and again, most recently, “Thy Rod and thy staff” yesterday.

I get a different impression of Barr’s service from the memoir than the one that Lloyd conveys. Yesterday Lloyd drew on two sentences praising former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In chapter 10, especially at pages 237-255, Barr details the games the Mueller team played with the report of its Trump/Russia investigation. Working with Rosenstein on the issues Mueller sought unfairly to raise and leave open — maybe this accounts for Barr’s praise of Rosenstein — Barr brought the investigation to a conclusion favorable to Trump. It wasn’t easy and in my view it does not comport with Lloyd’s disparagement of Barr as an agent of the FBI, the deep state, and the never-Trump squads.

Lloyd also raised Barr’s treatment of the 2020 election. Lloyd writes that Barr failed to conduct a thorough investigation. Barr writes in the prologue at page 3:

In the weeks after the election, accusations of major fraud center on several claims: allegations that counting machines from the Dominion Voting Systems Corporation had been rigged; that video footage from Fulton County, Georgia, showed a box of bogus ballots being insinuated into the vote count while poll watchers were absent; that massive numbers of ballots for Joe Biden had been inexplicitly [sic] dumped in the early morning hours in Detroit and Milwaukee; that thousands of votes in Nevada had been cast by nonresidents; that more absentee ballots than had been requested were cast in Pennsylvania; and that a truck driver had delivered many thousands of filled-out ballots from Bethpage, Long Island, to Pennsylvania. I had asked all the Department of Justice (DOJ) office heads around the country, working with the FBI, to look into these and a number of similar claims. Some turned out to be patently frivolous; others just were not supported by available evidence.

I conclude that Barr acted responsibly while President Trump regurgitated the wild claims of Rudy Giuliani and others who spoke on Trump’s behalf after the 2020 election and before January 6. There was no there there.

Lloyd alleges that Barr limited John Durham’s mandate to investigate the Russia hoax. Barr writes at page 259 that he “asked Durham to focus initially on any relevant activities by the CIA, NSA, or friendly foreign intelligence services.” Again, he doesn’t sound like an agent of the deep state to me.

Lloyd faults Barr for making “it clear that neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden were in Durham’s crosshairs.” Lloyd comments: “Here’s an Attorney General who holds some people above the law.”

Fairly quoted, Barr’s memoir belies Lloyd’s accusation at pages 518-520. Barr placed no limits on Durham’s investigation. Barr writes that President Trump publicly alleged that Obama and Biden had “been caught” in this “crime” — “the greatest political crime in history” — “and were the ultimate quarry of Durham’s investigation.” All this while the investigation was in process.

Lloyd conveys the impression that Barr had placed Obama and Biden off limits in Durham’s investigation. However, that is not the case. Barr was responding to Trump’s allegation. He writes: “I could not permit the President to undermine Durham’s investigation and had to nip in the bud that it was directed at, or closing in on, Obama and Biden.”

At page 519 Barr quotes his press conference statement of May 18, 2020 in bold. In the press conference Barr renounced any politically inspired prosecution that would affect the 2020 election. He then explains (page 520):

I acknowledged that what happened to President Trump in 2016 was abhorrent and should not happen again. I said that the Durham investigation was trying to get to the bottom of what happened but “cannot be, and it will not be, a tit-for-tat exercise.” I pledged that Durham would adhere to the department’s standards and would not lower them just to get results….Most important, I made clear that neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden were in Durham’s crosshairs. “Whatever their involvement,” I said, “based on information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man.”

That is the context of the quote Lloyd cites.

Elsewhere in his memoir Barr recounts his job interview with President Trump (page 214):

The President went on to make a comment about Hillary Clinton that surprised me. He said that, despite chants of “Lock her up!” from some of his supporters, he had felt after the 2016 election that the e-mail matter should be dropped. Even if she were guilty, he said, for the election winner to seek prosecution of the loser would make the county look like a “banana republic.”

On this point and others Trump proved himself vastly superior to his opponents, including the winners of the 2020 election. I would add that in this context Barr’s account of his job interview with Trump and his decision to take the job despite reservations is particularly interesting. I thought Barr was one of the most most impressive appointees in the first Trump administration. I think Trump would be fortunate to recruit a man of Barr’s quality to serve as Attorney General this time around.

NOTE: I have transcribed the quotes from Barr’s memoir. I apologize in advance for any errors or typos in the transcription.