Barr’s Master Class In Disinformation: ‘Controlling The Narrative’s The Thing’*

Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash

This week’s bombshell report in The New York Times, How Barr’s Quest to Find Flaws in the Russia Inquiry Unraveled, reminds us, yet again, of the destruction William P. Barr wrought on the rule of law by politicizing the Trump Department of Justice and, from the DOJ’s highest roost, weaponizing it against truthtellers and facts unpleasant to Trump and his millions of disciples. That the false narrative ultimately unspooled is no surprise. But the damage was already done. Controlling the narrative that fed and reinforced Trump’s distortions and his following’s confirmation bias was the thing.

The Times article reveals more detail about what we already knew was Barr’s vast disinformation campaign.

In an interview with conservative outlet Townhall.com shortly before the last presidential election, then Attorney General Barr described himself in projected, albeit thinly veiled, code. Reading the following, one could easily mistake Barr himself for the object he derides:

“They’re a collection of liars and they know exactly what they’re doing,” asserting that the press’s lying to the American public for partisan reasons was “destructive to our Republic.”

“The press . . . has dropped any pretense of professional objectivity and are political…