Bill Barr Trashes His Own IG Report Because It Won’t Back Up Trump’s 2016 Conspiracy Theories

According to a new report published in The Washington Post late Monday, Attorney General William Barr is ready to smear his own DOJ’s inspector general report that found the FBI had sufficient evidence to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the 2016 campaign.

The Post reports, “Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.”

In other words, Barr appears ready to do to the highly anticipated IG report what he did to the Mueller report – smear it to Trump’s benefit.

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The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horo­witz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the prelude to a major fissure within federal law enforcement on the controversial question of investigating a presidential campaign.

Barr has not been swayed by Horowitz’s rationale for concluding that the FBI had sufficient basis to open an investigation on July 31, 2016, these people said.

Barr’s public defenses of President Trump, including his assertion that intelligence agents spied on the Trump campaign, have led Democrats to accuse him of acting like the president’s personal attorney and eroding the independence of the Justice Department. But Trump and his Republican allies have cheered Barr’s skepticism of the Russia investigation.

Bill Barr has been a stain on the Department of Justice

As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said on Monday night, Bill Barr is “earning his place in history” by deciding to use his position at the DOJ to defend Donald Trump instead of the rule of law.

The DOJ has gone so far off the deep end under Bill Barr’s failed leadership that the department is now trashing its own inspector general report to please Donald Trump.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.