Editorial Board
Barr’s Deflections Point to a Larger Failure
Nearly two years of meticulous investigation has been reduced to another gross political circus.
Let me be perfectly unclear.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Slowly, carefully, relentlessly, Attorney General William Barr parried questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. It amounted to a bravura defense of his boss — and an unintended indictment of American politics.
Barr was testifying about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Confronted with a litany of corrupt acts by President Donald Trump and his associates, Barr dissembled, deflected, and dwelled on legalisms, all to muddle what the probe had really turned up.