Don't buy Bill Barr's book

Attorney General William Barr describes an incident. He told a reporter on the record that there was no evidence of election fraud.

Trump called Barr into his office.

Trump asked Barr, "Did you say this?"

Barr: "Yes, I did, Mr. President. Because it's true, Mr. President."

Trump: "But you did not have to say that!," he barked. "You could have just said, 'No comment.'"

Moments later, Trump fired him.  

Don't buy Barr's book. You can get more than you need to know from reviews. Barr should have spoken out when it mattered, not now, as part of his book promotion. What Barr is doing is shameful.

Wall Street Journal Weekend edition

There was no evidence of election theft, Barr observes in a book chapter excerpted in the Wall Street Journal. There were multiple paper-ballot audits. Those validated the machine counts, he writes. There were no "counterfeit" ballots. Barr wrote that he surprised Trump by his detailed knowledge about the election when Trump peppered him with debunked accusations fed him by his "clown car" of election attorneys. The votes reflected a predictable pattern, Barr wrote. Trump lost middle income suburban voters.

Barr said he stood his ground against Trump. 

"Have you seen the thousands of Biden ballots dumped in the early morning in Detroit?" he asked. 

"We have looked into that also," I replied. "Detroit has over six hundred precincts, and unlike other places, all the ballots are transported to a separate processing center for counting It's not surprising that boxes of ballots would arrive through the night Detroit's votes usually come in late and this time the vote totals were comparable to previous elections I assured him :in Detroit, you actually did slightly better than in 2016, and Biden did slightly worse than Hillary Clinton'

The president seemed a bit taken aback that I seemed to know what I was talking about. 

On being fired, Barr left. The White House Counsel was alarmed, and told Trump that firing Barr was a legal and political disaster. Senior aides who witnessed the meeting stopped him from leaving the White House grounds. You weren't fired! Forget it! They got their stories straight. Barr would shortly resign so he could spend time with his family. 

Disloyal Barr. Childish Trump

Barr burned his bridges with Trump and the MAGA world. In statements to reporters Trump has said:

Former Attorney General Bill Barr wouldn’t know voter fraud if it was staring him in the face – and it was. 

He crumbled under the pressure, and bowed to the Radical Left—And that is not acceptable. Now he is groveling for the media, hoping to gain acceptance that he doesn’t deserve.

Trump is accurate. Barr appears to be looking for "acceptance" back in a post-Trump group of people now embarrassed by the MAGA bubble, especially its loudest, most quotable spokespeople, including Trump himself. He joins other former senior people who interacted with Trump: Cabinet officers, communication directors, military officers, ambassadors, White House and national security aides, and senior legislators. The no-longer-Trump group call Trump a "clown," a "moron," and dangerously unfit. 

Barr writes that Trump instigated the January 6 insurrection for the immoral purpose of retaining office after he lost the election. Barr observed this in real time, while Trump was in office and when he was impeached the second time. It would have been useful to have had his testimony. National Security Advisor John Bolton was silent during the 2019 Trump-Zelensky-Ukraine impeachment trial. No use spilling the good stuff for free under oath, when there was a book to sell. Like him, Barr waited until the damage was done. For 17 months Barr allowed Trump's ongoing claims about a stolen election to embed in the minds of GOP voters.  

We have normalized opposing the peaceful transfer of power in our republic. We have created a moral justification for Vice Presidents, or Congress, or crowds of "patriots" to nullify an election. Barr presents himself as the sane and responsible good-guy. His book makes the opposite case. He was in the room. He witnessed a crime taking place. He knew it was dishonest, immoral, and dangerous. Yet he waited until his book came out to share what he knew. It isn't heroic. 

Don't buy the book. Let poor book sales send a message into the marketplace of money and ideas. People who fail to do their duty should not get rich off it. Plus, they stay pariahs. Lose-lose.