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I didn't say he was "swayed." He is Barr's deputy, he worked for Ken Starr, and he got a senior political appointment in the Trump Administration. I think he sincerely believes that Barr is basically a good guy and wants people to trust Barr, which is what he said. It's not shocker and doesn't require a conspiracy theory to believe that when the #2 guy at the DOJ says, hey, the DOJ is acting in good faith and everyone should trust the DOJ, he really believes it. It's like if Pence were to tell you to trust Trump. Maybe he believes it, but it's also his job, so why would you put any stock in it?
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Pence is a liar. He would lie to protect Trump. Rosenstein is not a liar and would not lie or shade things to protect Barr as he has no good reason to do so. If a person were as honorable as you've portrayed Rosenstein, and he thought Barr had even slightly misrepresented Mueller, he'd never say what Rosenstein said to WSJ.
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DOJ was never going to charge the President, because it has a pre-existing view that the President cannot be charged while in office, and no one was going to stick their neck out (and lose their job) to challenge that. The real issue is whether Congress gets to see Mueller's work, and how redacted it is.
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That's ducking the issue. Barr believes the President cannot be charged under unitary executive theory. Given that belief, regardless of DOJ policy, he should have stated that the President could not be charged based on unitary exec theory.
Congress will get to see Mueller's work. I agree a huge open issue is what gets redacted.
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If you think Barr is acting in good faith there, out of some commitment to neutral principles, you are incredibly naive and have not been paying attention. You say again that Barr would "face scrutiny." Seriously? I posted a link this morning explaining how Barr misled Congress three decades ago. He "faced scrutiny" there, too, for all the good he did. Barr is a partisan. You are so quick to attribute any criticism from the left to anti-Trump hysteria, and so prone to assume that someone like Barr is acting from some Solomonic place of deep wisdom. "He has no reason to mislead Congress"? WTF, girlfriend? He has a boss who just fired his predecessor for not going more to protect him from the Mueller investigation. He has every reason to mislead Congress.
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I am only as quick to argue exculpatory facts as you are to argue that Barr is guilty of misrepresentation. We're engaging in logically flawed arguments together or not, but there is no scenario under which, at this moment, knowing the facts we do, you can make a case against Barr that is valid while I cannot make a similarly valid case in his defense. Nor can you logically argue that Barr is culpable with any more validity than I can argue that most of the people who are accusing Barr of a "fix" or spin-doctoring are acting out of extreme Trump hatred. If you wish to invoke the rule that one may not suggest to know what's in another's head, it applies universally.
