Bill Barr Is Happy to Debase Himself for Donald Trump Again

Abaca Press/Sipa USA via AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Once again, there’s not much love lost between Bill Barr and the man he accused of betraying the Oval Office, Donald Trump. When the former attorney general confirmed this week that he would support the Republican presidential ticket in November, his former boss took the opportunity to mock Barr as “slow-moving” and “lazy.” 
“That’s classic Trump,” Barr chuckled on Friday when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked about the insults. “What’s the question?”
He went on to express frustration with that voters are faced with a rematch between Joe Biden and Trump. But given that choice, Barr explained that he would happily vote for Trump, who, he revealed in the same interview, routinely broached the idea of executing his rivals.
“But he’s mocking you,” Collins pressed.
“So? It’s not about me.”
The endorsement aligns with much of what Barr has already told us despite the occasional condemnation. As he said during a 2022 book tour, “I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party—it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.” Those remarks are almost exactly what he told CNN to claim that the “progressive movement and the Biden administration” were the biggest threats facing the United States today. 
For Barr, these remarks fit the story he keeps telling. That above all, he’s just a principled, just-doing-my-job law enforcement official stuck with tough choices. That, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth.