William Barr:Bad Advice wrapped up in Bad Luck

Am never that crystalballish but on this one, I may have well predicted that Trump’s reelection was jinxed just for having William Barr in his team. This is not a conspiratorial or a harbinger of doom as such, it just occurred to me that the man gives bad advice that sets a sitting president on the wrong path. And here are the examples.

Barr proximity to power as AG began with Bush the 41st, after his appointment in 1991. Previously, he had worked in the Reagan administration. Barr didn’t just give bad advice to the then President Bush but he paved way for the damnation of millions of people in American prisons. Barr, an advocate for mass incarceration, gave policy recommendations that later became readouts for the controversial 1994 Crime Bill that came to be associated with Joe Biden, a policy he now says he regrets. Not for Bill Barr, a man dearth of empathy and compromise. The man doesn’t even think his policies or the crime bill did any harm at all. Even with all evidence of the negative consequences of mass incarceration especially on the African American community.

Fast forward, 2020, Barr presided over the worst of repressions of freedoms ever seen in the modern US, if there is anything like that. After the death of George Floyd, most of us saw alot of protests break out in the US cities. There was one protest that came very close to the White House, and now the infamous Trump prop with an upside down Bible. It was Barr who came first and he kept peeping through the White House fencing near Lafayette Park. It’s like he feared the protesters but he had this high-minded level of security because he was in the White House and not on the other side of the fence.

When he came in first, as I watched the live event, I said to myself ' this one is up to no good’. But I didn’t think of him to be a law breaker. But all along from start to finish, he was directing the events before the tear- gassing of protestors and he was by Trump’s side when he went to have the photo-op. Barr is the kind that poses as a defender of the law while his very nature is oppressive and lawless. A man with no regrets whatsoever. Again, Barr didn’t see repression of black people as systemic but he was quick to reassert his beliefs that the Justice Dept was not racially biased against them. Not to mention how he’s broken the rule of law to advance Trump’s lawlessness.

On his way out, Barr’s hand is still digging out whatever brought him to his current office in the first place. The Russia Investigation and Trump 2016 campaign involvement with bad actors. Barr frowned at the thought that a president in office could be investigated, so he is now digging for the origins of this investigation by leaving behind a special prosecutor. Oh, he gets to appoint his own special prosecutor to counter previous Robert Mueller’s work that he tried to edit to draw a different conclusion and cause confusion.

Barr’s internal biases makes him the worst pick to legitimize the 2020 election. His pretences as law-abiding obviously do not match with his actions meant to please the president. To breathe a sigh of relief that the DOJ have not found any evidence of election is fraud- which doesn’t exist in reality, is premature. Barr could still pull a late night move, and no one should trust his word.

William Barr is the one ‘thing’ that President Trump and President Bush the 41st had in common.They both will have served as one term presidents. If Trump is planning a successful 2024 comeback, he better not bring Barr along, he is a bad adviser wrapped up in bad luck.