Why Barr’s break with Trump could be a turning point

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Barr: No evidence of fraud that would change election outcome

Mollie Hemingway, Jonah Goldberg and Charles Lane give reaction on the 'Special Report' All-Star panel

The message was simple and stark: “Silence the Fake News Media.”

That’s the headline on a campaign fundraising letter sent out under the name of Donald Trump Jr.

The Democrats, you see, “are attempting to STEAL this election, and their friends in the Fake News media are complicit.”

I’m sure many Trump supporters believe this. The early narrative was that the networks, including Fox, had projected Joe Biden the winner because they wanted him to send Trump packing. And when the president launched his campaign to show the election had been stolen, the media made a very ripe target.

But much has happened since then. The key battleground states have completed their counting, and their governors, in some cases Republicans, have certified Biden’s wins.

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Campaign lawyers have filed more than 30 suits alleging various kinds of fraud and have yet to win a significant victory, with judges--some appointed by Republicans and in one case by Trump--at times dismissing the claims in scathing language.

And on Tuesday, a very high-profile Republican, Bill Barr, essentially agreed with what the media have been saying about the lack of widespread fraud.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” the attorney general told the AP.

To be sure, Barr said the Justice Department is continuing to investigate, that there have been isolated indications of fraud, but nothing “systemic.” He specifically knocked down the conspiracy floated by Sidney Powell, who was eased off the Trump legal team, that Dominion voting machines somehow siphoned votes from Trump to Biden.

So you don’t have to take it from the much-maligned media. This is Bill Barr, who is so experienced that he’s been AG twice. This is Bill Barr, who intervened in the Mike Flynn and Roger Stone cases to make things easier on the former Trump advisers. This is Bill Barr, who was accused of soft-pedaling the Bob Mueller findings before his report was made public. This is Bill Barr, who appointed the prosecutor examining the origins of the Russia probe as special counsel to make sure his investigation continues after Jan. 20.

If Barr is saying his department has uncovered no serious evidence of fraud, would that not persuade people who remain skeptical about the election? If various federal and state judges are saying it, if Trump’s fired head of cybersecurity is saying it, if the Republican governors of Georgia and Arizona are saying it, doesn’t all that suggest there’s not much there there? 

Can this all really be blamed on a media establishment that admittedly has been hostile to Donald Trump for the last four years?

Sure. Trump, in describing his unproven allegations of fraud to Maria Bartiromo, said “the media doesn’t even want to cover it...The media doesn’t even want to talk about it.” In fact these allegations and lawsuits have gotten plenty of attention, but Trump doesn’t like the conclusions. Some online conservatives are even insisting that the press somehow prove a negative. 

And Barr is suddenly becoming a target. The president’s campaign lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, said dismissively that there “hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation.”

Lou Dobbs said on Fox Business that Barr is siding with the Dems and the Deep State, that he “is either a liar or a fool or both. He may be perhaps compromised. He may be simply unprincipled. Or he may be personally distraught or ill.” Other than that, terrific guy.

As for the president--said by Axios to have “mused privately about replacing Barr”--there was this lack of a ringing endorsement. When Kayleigh McEnany was asked yesterday whether POTUS indeed has confidence in his attorney general, she said “the president, if he has any personnel announcements, you will be the first to know.”

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And the debate is moving in some strange directions. Flynn, fresh off his presidential pardon, shared a statement from the conservative We the People Convention, saying Trump must be ready “to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote.” And, invoking Lincoln during the Civil War, the group says the president must “silence the destructive media’s one-sided propaganda.”

Martial law. Suspend the Constitution. Silence the media. Re-vote. This from the former White House national security adviser.

I’ve said many times that Trump has every right to pursue litigation, challenge the election and, yes, denounce the media. It doesn’t matter whether he thinks he has a shot at overturning the results or is laying the groundwork for a four-year comeback campaign. 

But with Barr making his fateful break, Trump’s allies are dwindling as attention shifts to the raging pandemic and what the next president can do to control it.