Early on Friday’s Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough accused Attorney General William Barr of attempting to “whitewash” findings in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, going so far as to claim that Barr had “trashed his reputation for Donald Trump.” All of the anchor’s assertions were based on anonymous second-hand accounts alleging that Barr’s summary of the Mueller report was misleading.
The discussion began with Scarborough reveling in “the fact that Donald Trump received absolutely no bounce from this William Barr attempt...to whitewash his client,” referring to the President’s approval rating. He then gleefully seized on the anonymous reporting: “And I actually think reading these stories show what many of us expected at the time, that the Trump team and right wingers on Twitter would overplay their hands. And they have overplayed their hands.”
On Thursday, even Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd warned his press colleagues that reporters were “playing two levels of telephone” with those stories.
Scarborough confidently proclaimed: “I mean, there’s evidence that’s going to be coming out from this Mueller report that again shows what we all know, that the Trump campaign, the Trump team, the Trump family were manipulated by members of either the Russian government or Russian intelligence and Barr’s sanitized version of that.”
Moments later, the host launched into a diatribe against Barr:
...the thing that is so disturbing about what William Barr is doing is, here’s yet another person who is trashing their reputation in the name of Donald Trump. Another person who – my God, where has he been the past couple years – will exit the White House sorry that he trashed his reputation for Donald Trump.
Liberal pundit and political analyst Mike Barnicle assured Scarborough and the rest of the panel that Democrats have told him that the Mueller report is more damaging for Trump: “Having spoken, this week, to several current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, I am told repeatedly that Barr’s three-page – his basically three-stage statement that he issued two weekends ago – seriously misleads people about the report itself.”
Scarborough declared that there was “no legal reason whatsoever” for Barr even put out the summary, whining: “The reason is that Donald Trump has been wanting a Roy Cohn....He’s wanted a Roy Cohn as an attorney general who put his personal interests ahead of the interests of the country. He has found that with...Barr.” The morning show host has repeatedly compared Barr to Joseph McCarthy attorney Roy Cohn.
Wrapping up the segment, Scarborough ironically complained that “Donald Trump has oversold the findings of the Mueller report before the Mueller report even comes out.” Failing to look in the mirror, he continued:
And I do think if this information comes out and it is as negative as it appears to be and it seems like Barr was covering up for the President or at least trying to whitewash some of the nastier facts, I think that does have an impact....this could have an impact on some voters who just say, “My gosh, this guy, his attorney general’s lying to us now.”
The media spent two years having “oversold the findings of the Mueller report before the Mueller report even comes out.” Scarborough proudly maintained that tradition on Friday while lacking any self-awareness.
Here is a full transcript of the April 5 discussion:
6:06 AM ET
(...)
JOE SCARBOROUGH: So, Willie, we’re going to be getting in a moment the fact that Donald Trump received absolutely no bounce from this William Barr attempt, sort of Roy Cohn attempt, to whitewash his client. He got no bump whatsoever. And I actually think reading these stories show what many of us expected at the time, that the Trump team and right wingers on Twitter would overplay their hands. And they have overplayed their hands. I mean, there’s evidence that’s going to be coming out from this Mueller report that again shows what we all know, that the Trump campaign, the Trump team, the Trump family were manipulated by members of either the Russian government or Russian intelligence and Barr’s sanitized version of that.
Again, in the long run, it does Trump no good, it sets expectations too high. And we can probably even expect those poll numbers to actually go down once we actually find out the truth about what’s in Mueller’s report.
WILLIE GEIST: It’s what we’ve been saying all along, release the report, release the report, release the report. Make the necessary redactions like you would any other document that has classified information or grand jury testimony, but release the report. And the Attorney General has agreed to do that.
What’s interesting about some of these stories, including the one from NBC News and The New York Times story from Michael Schmidt and his team yesterday, is that the people that the reporters heard from in inside the Special Counsel’s office, through other associates, did not dispute the claim of no collusion. They agreed that Bob Mueller could not find evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
But there is publicly available information, reporting that we’ve seen, we know about the meeting at Trump Tower between Don Jr. and Russians, we know about all these things that are out in the open that point to some kind of cooperation between these two entities. So we just need to see the report and all that’s in there. And I trust with the pressure that’s being put on, Attorney General Barr will do that.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, yeah, and by the way, it’s not just collusion – which by the way, everybody said before was not a crime – or a conspiracy, but it could be cooperation. It could be, more importantly, compromise. But you know, Mike, the thing that is so disturbing about what William Barr is doing is, here’s yet another person who is trashing their reputation in the name of Donald Trump. Another person who – my God, where has he been the past couple years – will exit the White House sorry that he trashed his reputation for Donald Trump.
(...)
SCARBOROUGH: It is such a joke for William Barr, the attorney general, to say, “We can’t allow this information go over to Congress because some of it is classified.” Hey, Mike, as you know and as I know, members of Congress, we looked at classified information every day. It’s not up for the Attorney General to decide what classified Nancy Pelosi is grown up enough to see! It’s not up to the Attorney General to decide whether the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee can handle classified information! It’s not up to him to decide whether Elijah Cummings on Government Reform and Oversight, oversight of the executive branch, can look at that classified information! They’ve looked at a lot more classified important information every day this week, as it pertains to foreign policy, as it pertains to national security. He needs to just give it up and let members of Congress see the entire report, like we did when Ken Starr released the entire report to Congress.
(...)
MIKE BARNICLE: Having spoken, this week, to several current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, I am told repeatedly that Barr’s three-page – his basically three-stage statement that he issued two weekends ago – seriously misleads people about the report itself. That within the report – again, I’m told – that Mueller has laid out sections of the report and brief praeses explaining sections of the report and what can be included and what can’t be – and what could be public, made public. He has not done that yet.
(...)
SCARBOROUGH: There’s no legal reason whatsoever. The reason is that Donald Trump has been wanting a Roy Cohn. He has stated it publicly. He’s wanted a Roy Cohn as an attorney general who put his personal interests ahead of the interests of the country. He has found that with Robert Barr [sic], because Susan Del Percio, you know there is – there are far more important standards than just legal standards. There is the standard of what is best for the public interest. There are standards that involve what the public has a right to know. If the President of the United States was compromised by Russia, it may not be a crime, but it impacts 320-330 million Americans. If Donald Trump and his campaign coordinated with Russia, it could be legal, it could be morally wrong, but more important than that, it could be dangerous.
We Americans, are you listening, Mr. Attorney General? Are you listening Mitch McConnell? We Americans have a right to know if our President was compromised in any way and we have a right to know the nature of the relationship between the government of Russia and oligarches outside of Russia and attorneys connected with the Russian government and our president. And just because it doesn’t reach a certain legal threshold does not mean for one moment that every single American has a right to see that report!
(...)
6:19 AM
SCARBOROUGH: One of the worst things you can do in politics is oversell. And Donald Trump has oversold the findings of the Mueller report before the Mueller report even comes out. And I do think if this information comes out and it is as negative as it appears to be and it seems like Barr was covering up for the President or at least trying to whitewash some of the nastier facts, I think that does have an impact, maybe not with a wide swath of Americans, because a wide swath of Americans do not care about this Russian investigation, but they do on the margins. And by the way, Donald Trump won Wisconsin on the margins, he almost won Minnesota on the margins, he won Michigan on the margins, he won Pennsylvania on the margins. Those margins have tightened up even more. So actually, this could have an impact on some voters who just say, “My gosh, this guy, his attorney general’s lying to us now.”
(...)
