Donald Trump is a notorious liar, and he expects complete loyalty from his staff. If you want to get ahead in his administration, therefore, you have to be able to keep your public statements consistent with his lies. For most people, that means being a liar, as well; for the more gifted, particularly those who are concerned about their reputation, it just means resorting to spin.
William Barr, whose job supposedly is to be the nation’s attorney, is an accomplished spinner. Nothing he said in his letter, or at his pre-release press conference, was an outright lie. Everything he said and did, however, was intended to portray the president as a completely innocent man who, at worst, periodically lashed out at his tormentors in a way that any reasonably empathetic person could understand. As I predicted weeks ago, that is decidedly not what Mueller found, and the issues in his report aren’t going away anytime soon.