Why Did Bill Barr Agree to Leave Today?

Bill Kristol: “It could, obviously, be kind of random–a date picked last week to allow Barr to get things in order, an accommodation of Barr’s family schedule, etc. But it could also be that Barr very much wanted to get out before Dec. 24, and/or that Trump wanted him out by then.”

“One obvious possibility discussed in the White House: Trump has spoken about a bunch of pardons on Christmas Eve. Some of the names may have been too much for Barr — so they agreed on his departure on Dec. 23. (Or the pardons will be a few days later, but the principle holds — Barr wanted out, or Trump wanted him out, first.)”

“But it could be more than pardons. Yesterday Barr suggested there were several things he wouldn’t do that Trump wanted him to do as ranging from appointing special counsels for Hunter Biden or election fraud, to giving a legal OK for seizing voting machines or for various types of Insurrection Act-type moves by the president. Can one be confident Barr’s successor as AG, Jeffrey Rosen, will also say no?”

More: “I’m also reliably told senior military officials in the Pentagon are more, not less, alarmed than they were a few weeks ago when Mark Esper was fired. The new crew of Trump loyalists in the most senior civilian positions don’t seem there only to burnish their resumes, as one person put it. They’re trying to figure out, in coordination with people in the White House, ‘how to make things happen.'”