Bill Barr is incorrect about the raid at Mar-a-Lago for the same reason that Barr's critics were incorrect about his choice to investigate the false allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Both the attitude that Barr holds today and the belief that his opponents held when he was serving as Trump's attorney general are based on the assumption that leaks, spin, and false narratives are accurate. Barr's decision to examine the investigators who attacked Trump has since been validated by the facts, and until the details of the most recent attack on Trump are verified, nothing that the Biden administration or its allies in the press say should be recognized as factual.
Barr made an appearance on Fox News on both Friday and Tuesday to discuss the raid at Mar-a-Lago as well as the investigation of former President Donald Trump that is being conducted by the Department of Justice. During each of his appearances, Barr reiterated the narratives that have been propagated by the media cartel in Washington, D.C. ever since the first report emerged that the FBI had searched Trump's residence in Florida.
During his appearance on "America Reports" on Friday, Attorney General William Barr shared his thoughts on the matter with hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts. Barr stated that he personally believed that in order for the Department of Justice to handle situations to the current stage they likely have pretty good evidence.
While he called his statements "speculation" and said "it's hard to say" until we see the facts, Barr's findings come from the premise that the DOJ's public disclosures and media leaks represent the truth – and the complete truth.
However, Barr should be wary because of the leaks themselves. The team working for Special Counsel John Durham does not have any leaks. Barr's other men of trust handled investigations into the Clinton Foundation, the improper prosecution of Michael Flynn, and evidence of corruption in the Biden family originating in Ukraine, and they all made sure their staff kept those investigations secret. In contrast, earlier get-Trump conspiracies, including Crossfire Hurricane, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry, and impeachment efforts, all depended on media leaks to propagate falsehoods about the investigations.
The evidence also suggests that the "driver" of the inquiry was not the tons of sensitive information sitting in Mar-a-Lago, but rather President Trump: He was the man; the government only needed a crime to investigate.
As I explained shortly after the raid, the path that led to Mar-a-Lago started at the White House long before classified information was found in boxes that were sent back to the National Archives. This was the case even though the material was discovered after the raid. David Ferriero, the former head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), recalled watching the Trumps depart the White House and boarding off in the helicopter that day, and somebody carrying a white banker box, and saying to myself, 'What the hell's in that box?' Ferriero is now retired from his position at NARA. That launched a whole procedure of trying to find whether any files had not been handed over to the Archives, said Ferriero. That began a full process of figuring out whether any documents had not been handed over to the Archives.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) subsequently made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ) based not only on the presence of confidential documents but also on the possibility that Trump violated Section 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code because the former president decided to return a document that he had originally torn up. The interactions that NARA had with President Trump stand in stark contrast to how it handled former President Barack Obama's presidential files and how it handled Hillary Clinton's violations of federal law, both of which I have extensively detailed on this page, revealing the referral to be a political hit.
Barr has not only repeated some of the narratives seeded by the leakers, but he has also adopted the bogus narrative that tons of sensitive information sitting in Mar-a-Lago was the "driver" of the probe. Despite Barr's repeated assurances that the strength and clarity of the evidence will determine whether or not to bring charges, it is evident that he has bought into the leakers' account.
Barr mentioned at one time that the DOJ is more likely to pursue the former president if they plainly have the president move stuff around and hiding information in his desk and ordering staff to dissemble. They were misled on the voluntarily acts that they took. After that, they went and got a subpoena for the witness. According to what they believe, they were misled about that, Barr observed. The day before yesterday, Barr stated that there is evidence to suggest that they were fooled in an interview with Martha MacCallum of Fox News.
The evidence, on the other hand, is comprised of select papers released by the DOJ, including documents with extensive redactions, as well as leaks to the media. To put it another way, it was exactly what convinced approximately half of the population that Trump cooperated with Russia.
Although it is possible that President Trump misled the Department of Justice or that he disobeyed the grand jury subpoena, the entire incident at Mar-a-Lago follows the Russia-collusion-hoax playbook far too closely to lend any credibility to any of the accusations that have been leveled against the former president. And Barr is incorrect to believe them.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on The Federalist.
