It’s no surprise that Donald Trump is at odds with his former Attorney General Bill Barr — he’s called him a “gutless pig” and a “coward.” But Barr is not passively taking Trump’s puerile name-calling. Instead, he’s appearing on talk shows and writing articles to explain why Trump’s hoarding of documents was disgraceful.

On Sunday, Barr appeared on Sunday’s Face the Nation with Robert Costa. They discussed the 37 criminal counts from special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment, and Barr minced no words. Trump, he explained, puts his own ego ahead of everything else, including the nation. Rather like a child, actually:

He’s like a nine-year-old, defiant nine-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego, but our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this. 

Or perhaps it’s as C.J. Ciaramella wrote in Reason about Trump’s childish need to keep his precious boxes:

“My boxes” has always been the simplest, most durable explanation for Trump’s behavior. He took the boxes because he likes boxes of stuff, and he refused to give them back for the same reason. He has a toddler’s conception of property and a similar developmental level of excitement for show-and-tell.

Tenor.com. 

But should Trump go to prison should he be convicted? Barr says no. “I don’t like the idea of a former president serving time,” he told Costa.

Barr Criticizes Trump at The Free Press

On Monday, Bill Barr followed his appearance on Face the Nation with an article at Bari Weiss’s Substack The Free Press. Calling it “The Truth About the Trump Indictment,” Barr introduced his article with this:

This time the president is not a victim of a witch hunt. The situation is entirely of his own making. 

While acknowledging that Trump has indeed been the victim of the “Russiagate” allegations, and most recently the charges brought by Alvin Bragg in New York, Barr says the documents indictment is entirely different:

For the sake of the country, our party, and a basic respect for the truth, it is time that Republicans come to grips with the hard truths about President Trump’s conduct and its implications. Chief among them: Trump’s indictment is not the result of unfair government persecution. This is a situation entirely of his own making. The effort to present Trump as a victim in the Mar-a-Lago document affair is cynical political propaganda.

First of all, writes Barr, this has nothing to do with the Presidential Records Act:

Some have tried to frame this affair as a simple custody dispute over documents. Trump’s apologists have conjured up bizarre arguments that the Presidential Records Act, a statute meant to prohibit former presidents from removing official documents from the White House, should be interpreted as giving Trump carte blanche to remove whatever he wants, even if it is unquestionably an official document. 

It’s the obstruction, stupid!

These justifications are not only farcical, they are beside the point. They ignore the central reason the former president was indicted: his calculated and deceitful obstruction of a grand jury subpoena. 

In fact, Trump engaged in deliberate deception to to obstruct the grand jury’s inquiry. He told his lawyer (“Trump Attorney 1”) that he would allow him to conduct a complete search of all boxes that might hold pertinent documents. But then he deceived the lawyer by having a large number of boxes moved to another location — without the lawyer’s knowledge. Thus, the attorney filed a false statement with the court saying he had completed a complete search.

There is no way to justify this.

Yeah, But What About Hillary?

Bill Barr writes that yes, there is a double standard between Trump and Hillary Clinton regarding documents. She got off scot-free for equally outrageous behavior.

But, says Barr, this is a dodge.

But if Trump engaged in the kind of brazen criminal conduct alleged, then applying the law in his case is not unfair to him. The injustice lies in not having applied it seven years ago to Hillary. You don’t rectify that omission by giving future violators a free pass …

In short, giving a pass to Trump might cause more harm to the rule of law than honestly applying the law to him. The rule of law won’t be restored by further degrading the rule of law. As Andrew McCarthy pithily observed: “The fix for a two-tiered justice system is not equal injustice under the law.”

In short, you don’t excuse bad behavior by pointing out other bad behavior — eventually this would collapse our legal system.

Trump Faces Off With Bret Baier

On Monday night, Fox News aired the first part of an interview that anchor Bret Baier held with Donald Trump. Unlike his interview with Sean Hannity, Trump didn’t receive any softballs from Baier. In fact, Baier pressed the former president with questions as to why he held onto the documents. He also pushed back against Trump’s defiance.

Baier: Why not just hand them over? Trump: Because I had boxes, I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things pic.twitter.com/PwW85wlTzH

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

Trump protested that he couldn’t hand over the boxes because he had to go through them first. Because, I guess, former presidents typically keep golf shirts stored with nuclear documents.

Except, as Bill Barr pointed out, the DOJ gave Trump a full year to get the affairs in order. He did not.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley tweeted in a thread that Donald Trump also handed special counsel Jack Smith a gift:

Bret Baier conducted an extraordinary interview with Donald Trump who discussed the criminal allegations in detail. Statements of this kind are generally admissible at trial…

…Trump was saying that the boxes contained “golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes…” Baier interjected “Iranian war plans” and Trump objected “not that I know of.” So he is denying what he stated on the audiotape. …

…Baier then reading back the audiotape transcript. Trump said that there was “not a document per se.” So he is arguing that he was referring to newspaper articles etc — not an actual document…

….Even if this was not going to be the defense of Trump’s team, it now is. Trump is arguing that there never was a document and that he was referencing coverage on the Iran attack.

Trump also went into conspiracy mode, as Turley noted:

…Trump just alleged that “they may be stuffing it” — suggesting that the FBI could be planting evidence because he does not know what they took…

No wonder the guy is unable to keep his attorneys. He can’t keep his mouth shut. Just like he couldn’t keep “the best people” in his administration — who now don’t support his candidacy.

This is just PAINFUL.

Bret Baier absolutely DESTROYS Trump on his terrible hires and his insults after they left. If you like Trump, DO NOT WATCH THIS, it is too painful. pic.twitter.com/2XiYxpGNJI

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) June 19, 2023

Three-hundred-and-thirty million people in this country, and we might again be choosing between Joe Biden or Donald Trump for president. One is an octogenarian who clearly is demonstrating cognitive decline. The other is a pathological narcissist who takes no responsibility for any of his actions, and instead blames others when things go haywire. And, I might add, is also pushing 80 himself — Trump will be 78 at the time of the 2024 elections. How much worse will his mental state get? If we can ask the age question about Joe Biden, we should also ask it of Donald Trump.

As Charles Cooke at National Review asked in the wake of Trump’s indictment: Aren’t you all tired of this crap? 

Featured image: Photo compilation by Brand X Studio/used by permission.