Is Bill Barr a bad man? by mattbai
History will record that, during the tumultuous period known as the Descent Into Trumpism, one William Barr came out of semi-retirement to return to the august job he held 25 years earlier, vowing to restore stability and to follow the facts wherever they might lead, and instead found himself lying to the public in defense of the president and fending off a contempt order from Congress on his way to an ignominious retirement.
No, to me, Barr’s strange odyssey — along with the tragic arcs of other well-bred lawyers who’ve served the president in senior roles, most notably Don McGahn and Rod Rosenstein, whose reputations will never fully recover — brings to mind the small cadre of liberal intellectuals to whom the late David Halberstam, in a book published nearly a half century ago, infamously attached the label “The Best and the Brightest.
To be clear, Trump’s presidency isn’t Vietnam. The consequence to this point is nowhere near as tragic as a war in which more than 50,000 American service members died, and the goals are nowhere near as lofty or as clear as saving the planet from slavery.I really don’t think the charcoal-suited, striped-tie-wearing establishment lawyers who’ve served this president with such shamelessness are huge personal fans of the Trump family syndicate.
I suppose Rosenstein, who was universally admired as a U.S. attorney under administrations of both parties, told himself that it was crucial to protect the rule of law at a moment of arch-partisanship — that the nation badly needed someone who had the acumen to serve both Trump and the cause of justice at the same time.