Just Like His Boss, Attorney General William Barr Is Ratcheting Up the Conspiracy Theories

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

05 September 20

ust like his boss, Attorney General William Barr is ratcheting up the conspiracy theories and propaganda as the election nears. It was nearly impossible to keep up with every one of the false claims Barr made in an interview with CNN yesterday.

He claimed widespread mail-in voting is “very open to fraud and coercion,” despite decades of evidence showing it is safe and secure. He doubled down on the conspiracy theory that foreign entities will interfere with mail-in voting, and when pressed on his claim, admitted that he had no evidence to back it up and that he was “basing it on logic.” He also downplayed Russia’s well-documented and far-reaching efforts to help Trump in both the 2016 election and our current one, despite intelligence officials’ repeated warnings that Russia has already begun to meddle again.

In addition to those lies, Barr also made a series of baseless claims regarding the Black Lives Matter movement and the historic protests against racial injustice and police killings. He claimed the police shooting of Jacob Blake was justified because Blake was armed; there is no evidence that Blake was armed. He asserted that systemic racism in policing is “simply a false narrative,” despite multiple studies finding that Black Americans are far more likely to be shot by police than white Americans. And he even backed up Trump’s conspiracy theory that members of the anti-fascist movement travel around the country attending protests and stirring up violence, without offering a shred of evidence to support his claim.

One thing is clear: Bill Barr’s only job these days is to do Trump’s bidding and back him up no matter what. When we vote Trump out in November, we vote out William Barr, too. It’s a win-win.