In a column for the Daily Beast, longtime political observer Michael Tomasky warns that Attorney General Bill Barr will continue to act as Donald Trump's personal lawyer and will undercut Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report that is expected to show no "Deep State" conspiracy against the president.
Calling Barr a "menace to society," Tomasky said that the attorney general and other Trump supporters will use a three-prong strategy to destroy the report while at the same time cherry-picking anything they can find in it that supports the president.
"Assuming the leaks are accurate and the report is not going to drop any nuclear bombs on the deep state, it’ll be the second reality-based setback for the president and his lickspittles after last week’s reports that John Durham, the prosecutor Bill Barr sent traipsing around the world to find evidence of an anti-Trump conspiracy, is turning up goose eggs," Tomasky wrote.
The columnist then suggested what Barr will do after the report is released.
"They’ll dump on Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Well-known deep-stater, etc etc," Tomasky predicted. "Don’t buy it. Last week, the Center for American Progress put out an eye-opening report about Horowitz. Turns out that during the Obama administration, Horowitz issued two reports on Fast & Furious, the 'scandal' that was supposed to lead to Obummer’s impeachment, while during the Trump years Horowitz has not launched a single investigation into any allegations of corruption within the Department of Justice."
More immediately, supporters of the president will grab on to any tidbit they can find to support their anti-White House conspiracy theories and will run with that to Trump-friendly conservative media to amplify it.
"They’ll try to characterize the findings as bombshells anyway," Tomasky suggests. "I obviously don’t know as I write what the findings will be, but it sounds as if they’re likely to be violations of procedure of the type that probably happen a lot of the time, because we live in an imperfect world where investigations are conducted by imperfect people with imperfect information making the best judgments they can. People can make mistakes and still not be guilty of advancing a conspiracy against the president."
More importantly, and using a well-known Donald Trump tactic, the columnist predicts flat-out lying about the Horowitz report.
"They’ll just lie. They’ll dismiss the report as propaganda and keep on saying the same things they’ve been saying. Trump will certainly do that. And as long as he does it, his apologists will do it too," he wrote.
With that, Tomasky stated that Democrats have their work cut out for them and suggested a new line of counterattack -- specifically aimed at Barr.
"This man is a clear and present danger. Even worse, in a way, than Trump himself, because Barr has daily decision-making power over how what forms of “justice” will be pursued in this country," he wrote. "I’ve written, as have others, that every sign is that Barr is going to use the Justice Department to launch show trials next year against people like Peter Strzok and more generally use the department to re-elect Trump. Why wouldn’t he? When you believe godless Democrats are hellbent on destroying the country, everything is permitted to re-elect Trump."
"Democrats have to stop this man. When the House Judiciary Committee finishes with Trump, it better turn its attention to Barr. If he succeeds, we’re cooked," he concluded.
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