Thread by @eliehonig

This is an outrageous abuse of power by William Barr, and a dangerous extension of his ongoing effort to distort truth and DOJ policy to save Trump's hide.

Thread:

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1325952561363423232

1) Barr has been trying to prop up President Trump's "massive fraud" narrative for months now, utterly without success, embarrassing himself and DOJ.

Shortly after Trump started raging about mail-in ballots, Barr started echoing the rhetoric right back.

2) Barr claimed to NPR in June there are “so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed. I think it would be very bad.” He also raised “the possibility of counterfeiting.” When pressed on whether he had evidence to support this claim, he responded, “No, it’s obvious.”

3) In NPR’s own post-mortem of the Barr interview, one expert put it like this: “He was talking about very specific things and they were nuts.” Another NPR recap quoted election law experts who derided Barr’s theories as “preposterous” and “false.”

4) Before Congress in July, Barr raised the specter of massive fraud. He was asked, “But, in fact, you have no evidence that foreign countries can successfully sway our elections with counterfeit ballots, do you?” “No I don’t,” Barr conceded, “But I have common sense.”

5) In August, Barr told @wolfblitzer about a case "we indicted" involving "1,700 ballots." Turned, out "we" wasn't DOJ but TX state prosecutors, one of whom stated "That’s not what happened at all." Another: "We couldn’t find [fraud] except that little tiny case” of one ballot.

6) DOJ issued a public correction after Barr's misstatements, blaming a low-level staffer.

7) All of this was after President Trump formed a “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” which eventually closed shop after making no findings of fraud whatsoever.

8) DOJ has not indicted a significant mail voting fraud case during Barr's nearly two-year tenure. DOJ's own stats don't even contain a line item for election fraud cases (but the stats do include line items for obscure categories of cases involving 3 or 4 indictments per year).

9) When Blitzer asked Barr how many voter fraud cases DOJ had indicted, Barr said “several I know of.” When Blitzer asked for specifics, Barr said, “Well, I don't know. I don't know how many we have. I know there are a number of investigations right now.”

10) So Barr followed his claim of “several” indictments -- Blitzer specified “indictments” -- by admitting that (1) he didn’t know how many and (2) he was actually talking about investigations, not actual criminal charges.

11) DOJ then violated longstanding DOJ policy when it announced an *investigation* of (purportedly) 9 Trump ballots that had been found in PA. Turned out, it wasn't 9 ballots, and there was no wrongdoing. DOJ charged nobody and issued another correction.

12) DOJ's own policy generally prohibits public comment on pending investigations (broken by Barr, repeatedly) and generally forbids involvement in election and voting cases until after the election is done and finalized (shattered by Barr, today).

13) Barr has been trying for months to conjure evidence of voter fraud. He has utterly failed, and he has lied about it, demeaning himself and DOJ. Barr's newest move is utterly lawless and dangerous. But it will fail. It won't change the election, and history will revile him.