Doing his best Dick Cheney impersonation, Attorney General William Barr pretended on Wednesday that the Justice Department defending Donald Trump against a personal defamation lawsuit was just another ho-hum run of the mill governmental pursuit.
"This has become somewhat routine to the extent that the certification process has been delegated to an attorney in the tort section of the civil division of the Justice Department," Barr said during a press conference defending the move.
The Westfall Act, the law Barr invoked to justify the Justice Department acting as Trump's personal lawyer, gives federal employees immunity from lawsuits arising in response to acts performed in the course of their official duties. In other words, if you get sued for something you did on the job as a federal official, the Justice Department can properly represent you.
But in this case, as CNN analyst Elie Honig noted: "The president got accused of rape, he called the accuser a liar, and he's getting sued for defamation, and Bill Barr and Donald Trump are saying, just another day at the office of the presidency."
Or more accurately, just another day at the office of Trump's bogus presidency.
What really happened is, Trump lost in New York State court and was about to undergo a discovery process that would include him providing a DNA sample and giving a deposition in the case.
"Realizing that there was no valid basis to appeal that decision in the New York courts," explained Robbie Kalpan, the attorney who brought the lawsuit on behalf of journalist E. Jean Carroll, "Trump enlisted the U.S. Department of Justice to replace his private lawyers and argue that when he lied about sexually assaulting our client, explaining that 'she wasn't my type,' he was acting in his official capacity as President of the United States."
Kaplan called the assertion "shocking," even in today's political environment.
"It offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen," she added. "Trump's effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out."
“Without precedent” is now "routine" at Barr's Justice Department, and he can even say it without the crooked slanting mouth that Dick Cheney always donned during his biggest lies. Barr just plain lies through his teeth with a straight face. Impressively corrupt.