Not even Bill Barr, the worst Attorney General in modern history, is willing to completely sell his soul and go down in history as one of the great American villains by indicting Joe Biden weeks before the election. At least, not yet anyway. Donald Trump is not amused in the least.
President Trump berated his own cabinet officers on Thursday for not prosecuting or implicating his political enemies, lashing out even as he announced that he hoped to return to the campaign trail on Saturday just nine days after he tested positive for the coronavirus.
In his first extended public comments since learning he had the virus last week, Mr. Trump went on the offensive not only against his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but the Democratic running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, whom he called “a monster” and a “communist.” He balked at participating in his debate next Thursday with Mr. Biden if held remotely as the organizers decided to do out of health concerns.
But Mr. Trump secured a statement from the White House physician clearing him to return to public activities on Saturday and then promptly said he would try to hold a campaign rally in Florida that day, two days earlier than the doctor had originally said was needed to determine whether he was truly out of danger. The president again dismissed the virus, saying, “when you catch it, you get better,” ignoring the more than 212,000 people in the United States who did not get better and died from it.
In his statement on Thursday night, the physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, reported that Mr. Trump “has responded extremely well to treatment” and that by Saturday, “I fully expect the president’s return to public engagement.” Dr. Conley, who has previously acknowledged providing the public with a rosy view of the president’s condition to satisfy his patient, contradicted his own timeline offered upon Mr. Trump’s release from the hospital, when he said doctors wanted to “get through to Monday.”
The president has not been seen in person since returning to the White House this Monday, but he sought to reassert himself on the public stage with a pair of telephone interviews with Fox News and Fox Business as well as a video and a series of Twitter messages. Even for him, they were scattershot performances, ones that advisers said reflected increasing frustration over his political fortunes only 26 days before an election with surveys that show him trailing Mr. Biden by double digits.
The president castigated his own team, declaring that Attorney General William P. Barr would go down in history “as a very sad, sad situation” if he did not indict Democrats like Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama. He complained that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not released Hillary Clinton’s emails, saying, “I’m not happy about him for that reason.” And he targeted Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director. “He’s been disappointing,” Mr. Trump said.
As Mad King Donald grows increasingly desperate in what looks more and more like the final days of his blighted reign, and the GOP looks to go down with him in a number of downticket disasters, Barr has even more bad news for his master (at least if WIN THE MORNING 2.0 is to be believed.)
Attorney General Bill Barr has begun telling top Republicans that the Justice Department’s sweeping review into the origins of the Russia investigation will not be released before the election, a senior White House official and a congressional aide briefed on the conversations tell Axios.
Why it matters: Republicans had long hoped the report, led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, would be a bombshell containing revelations about what they allege were serious abuses by the Obama administration and intelligence community probing for connections between President Trump and Russia.
“This is the nightmare scenario. Essentially, the year and a half of arguably the number one issue for the Republican base is virtually meaningless if this doesn't happen before the election," a GOP congressional aide told Axios.
Barr has made clear that they should not expect any further indictments or a comprehensive report before Nov. 3, our sources say.
The Justice Department declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
I mean the whole point of a sham indictment of your political enemies is to indict them before the election, so that you can arrest them and then declare victory, yes? Republicans facing the American voting public want Barr to at least deliver something of an October Surprise that will shift the election in their favor.
Trump's allies have long asserted that Durham's investigation will result in the arrests of top Obama administration officials. So far, Durham's probe has resulted in one criminal case: a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email used to help obtain a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
A former DOJ official told Axios that Durham "has a reputation for being thorough, but also somewhat slow, in part because of the big tasks he's undertaken." The official pointed to Durham's Obama-era investigation into the CIA's use of torture, one that took years for him to complete. "It comes with the territory of a sprawling investigation that every stone you turn over needs to be fully scrutinized," the former official said.
What's next: Top Republicans are planning to pressure Barr to get ahead of Durham and temper expectations for the timing of the report's release, as well declassify whatever remaining documents there are connected to the probe.
"Bill Barr should follow the instructions of the president to declassify and release all the documents the FBI are sitting on. There's no good reason for him to withhold this information," a senior White House official said.
Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe approved the release of a large binder full of documents to the DOJ to assist their review of the Durham probe.
There's still a very high chance that there will be "leaks" in the days leading up to the election, ask Hillary Clinton how implying an FBI investigation of a Democratic frontrunner two weeks before election day turns out. Barr doesn't need to indict Joe Biden in order to damage his campaign and swing the election in Trump's favor.
But Biden is so far ahead right now (FiveThirtyEight's national polling average has Biden cracking the double-digit ceiling with a 10.1% lead) that anything short of actually perp walking Joe into federal custody won't give Trump a second term. Maybe Barr has decided that it's not worth going down as, you know, an infamous American bastard in history along with the likes of Benedict Arnold, John Wilkes Booth, and, well, Donald Trump.
We'll see. Still plenty of time to break democracy on the way out.
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