This is an update to my earlier post, which you can find here.
Really, Democrats need to launch impeachment proceedings against Bill Barr. NOW.
DOJ announced tonight that it would intervene in Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Trump, which would move a private legal matter from New York state to federal court — and not coincidentally, transfer the legal costs from Trump to the rest of us, American taxpayers. Suffice it to say, this is highly, highly unusual. Full disclosure — I’m not a lawyer (I only got as far as the LSAT many moons ago) but last I checked, the Department of Justice is not supposed to serve as a reservoir of attorneys for the defense of Donald Trump from his assortment of legal liabilities.
Again, the fact that the Senate would not convict is irrelevant. Apart from being the right and just thing to do — Bill Barr has clearly abused his office, massively and repeatedly — it would serve to politically damage Barr and his enablers before any bogus “October surprise” that Barr might be plotting, and would highlight a variety of issues and abuses, including this one related to Jean Carroll’s lawsuit, which haven’t received the amount of sunlight that they richly deserve.
In the event of a hoped-for Trump loss in November, we know that #MoscowMitch would nonetheless ram a Supreme Court nomination through the Senate on January 19 if given the opportunity, political niceties, norms, and respect for the election outcome be damned. It’s long past time for elected Democrats to fight just as hard for our priorities.