Salon: Bill Barr’s amazing spin machine: Trump’s AG is barely even pretending

“Attorney general” may be William Barr’s technical title, but after Thursday morning’s press conference on the Mueller report and its underlying questions — whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with a Russian criminal conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election — it’s clearer than ever why Barr was hired. His talents as a spinmeister are impressive.

Barr held his press conference hours before there was even a public version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was not published until just after 11 a.m. Eastern time. This was a masterstroke, ensuring that Barr’s narrative — which was unsurprisingly flattering to his boss, the president of the United States —  filled the informational void left by a report no one had read yet. …

“Despite the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ spin from the Attorney General, we cannot overlook the fact that the investigation has already led to 199 criminal charges, 37 indictments or guilty pleas, and 5 prison sentences,” Karen Hobert Flynn, the president of Common Cause, noted in a press release after Barr’s press conference.