I Do Bite My Thumb, Sir

One of Trump's many weaknesses is that he can't resist walking into a spinning propeller.

So Joe spins it up for him.

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Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.

At his Pennsylvania rally, the former president gave exactly the narcissistic display his Democratic nemesis tried to provoke.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.

For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.

So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, “I don’t say his name, ever.”

Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.

David Frum: The justification for Biden’s speech

One of the purposes of Biden’s Philadelphia attack on Trump’s faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.

Yesterday, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump addressed a rally supposedly in support of Republican candidates in the state: Mehmet Oz for the Senate; the January 6 apologist Doug Mastriano for governor. This was not Trump’s first 2022 rally speech. He spoke in Arizona in July. But this one was different: so extreme, strident, and ugly—and so obviously provoked by Biden’s speech that this was what led local news: “Donald Trump Blasts Philadelphia, President Biden During Rally for Doug Mastriano, Dr. Oz in Wilkes-Barre.”

Yes, you read that right: Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the ex-president denounced the state’s largest city. “I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. [Biden’s] speech was hatred and anger,” Trump declared last night. “Last year, the city set an all-time murder record with 560 homicides, and it’s on track to shatter that record again in 2022. Numbers that nobody’s ever seen other than in some other Democrat-run cities.”

Trump spoke at length about the FBI search of his house for stolen government documents. He lashed out at the FBI, attacking the bureau and the Department of Justice as “vicious monsters.” He complained about the FBI searching his closets for stolen government documents, inadvertently reminding everyone that the FBI had actually found stolen government documents in his closet—and in his bathroom too. Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” He abused his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate as someone who “should be ashamed.” He claimed to have won the popular vote in the state of Pennsylvania, which, in fact, he lost by more than 80,000 votes.

The rally format allowed time for only brief remarks by the two candidates actually on the ballot, Oz and Mastriano. Its message was otherwise all Trump, Trump, Trump. A Republican vote is a Trump vote. A Republican vote is a vote to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election.

On and on it went, in a protracted display of narcissistic injury that was exactly the behavior that Biden’s Philadelphia speech had been designed to elicit.

Every day since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago has brought new proof that Trump still dominates the Republican Party. He has extracted support even from would-be rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—rituals of submission within a party hierarchy that respects only acts of domination.

Republican congressional leaders desperately but hopelessly tried to avert the risk that this next election would become yet another national referendum on Trump’s leadership. Despite Trump’s lying and boasting, politicians who can count to 50 and 218—the respective numbers needed for a majority in the Senate and House—have to reckon with the real-world costs of Trump’s defeats. But Biden understood their man’s psychology too well.

Biden came to Philadelphia to deliver a wound to Trump’s boundless yet fragile ego. Trump obliged with a monstrously self-involved meltdown 48 hours later. And now his party has nowhere to hide. Trump has overwritten his name on every Republican line of every ballot in 2022.

Biden dangled the bait. Trump took it—and put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.

Today's Politics Girl

Leigh McGowan - Politics Girl

Today's Turnaround

There's hypocrisy, and there's Republican hypocrisy, and then there's DumFux News.

The Recount:

Where Did All That Money Go, Rick?

Today's reminder never to put a Republican in charge of the money.

The party that always bragged about being pragmatic and clear-eyed and competent is now officially the party you can't trust to manage a middle school car wash.

But it's more than that.

It's possible that the main problem with GOP fundraising is that people are turning away from Republicans in general because the MAGA gang has become so toxic. I think there's an awakening of distrust of a party that's spent the last 35 years fucking things up on purpose in their attempt to tear down our democracy, while disguising that project with the standard Myth of Former Greatness.

The social stigma attached to being swindled makes fraud one the most under-reported crimes. People you've been conned are likely to be very quiet about it because it's embarrassing to admit you fell for some bullshit that an awful lot of your friends and family tried to warn you about.

Republicans have been railing against "the collective" forever, so why is anyone surprised to learn they're behaving in a totally self-serving manner?

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How a Record Cash Haul Vanished for Senate Republicans

The campaign arm of Senate Republicans had collected $181.5 million by the end of July — but spent 95 percent of it. A big investment in digital, and hyperaggressive tactics, have not paid off.

It was early 2021, and Senator Rick Scott wanted to go big. The new chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm had a mind to modernize the place. One of his first decisions was to overhaul how the group raised money online.

Mr. Scott installed a new digital team, spearheaded by Trump veterans, and greenlit an enormous wave of spending on digital ads, not to promote candidates but to discover more small contributors. Soon, the committee was smashing fund-raising records. By the summer of 2021, Mr. Scott was boasting about “historic investments in digital fund-raising that are already paying dividends.”

A year later, some of that braggadocio has vanished — along with most of the money.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has long been a critical part of the party apparatus, recruiting candidates, supporting them with political infrastructure, designing campaign strategy and buying television ads.

By the end of July, the committee had collected a record $181.5 million — but had already spent more than 95 percent of what it had brought in. The Republican group entered August with just $23.2 million on hand, less than half of what the Senate Democratic committee had ahead of the final intense phase of the midterm elections.

Now top Republicans are beginning to ask: Where did all the money go?

The answer, chiefly, is that Mr. Scott’s enormous gamble on finding new online donors has been a costly financial flop in 2022, according to a New York Times analysis of federal records and interviews with people briefed on the committee’s finances. Today, the N.R.S.C. is raising less than before Mr. Scott’s digital splurge.

Party leaders, including Senator Mitch McConnell, are fretting aloud that Republicans could squander their shot at retaking the Senate in 2022, with money one factor as some first-time candidates have struggled to gain traction. The N.R.S.C. was intended to be a party bulwark yet found itself recently canceling some TV ad reservations in key states.

The story of how the Senate G.O.P. committee went from breaking financial records to breaking television reservations, told through interviews with more than two dozen Republican officials, actually begins with the rising revenues Mr. Scott bragged about last year.

The committee had squeezed donors with hyperaggressive new tactics. And all the money coming in obscured just how much the committee was spending advertising for donors. Then inflation sapped online giving for Republicans nationwide. And the money that had rolled in came at an ethical price.

One fund-raising scheme used by the Senate committee, which has not previously been disclosed, involved sending an estimated millions of text messages that asked provocative questions — “Should Biden resign?” — followed by a request for cash: “Reply YES to donate.” Those who replied “YES” had their donation processed immediately, though the text did not reveal in advance where the money was going.

Privately, some Republicans complained the tactic was exploitative. WinRed, the party’s main donation-processing platform, recently stepped in and took the unusual step of blocking the committee from engaging in the practice, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The texts had been part of a concerted push that successfully juiced fund-raising, though it used methods that experts say will eventually exhaust even the most loyal givers.

One internal N.R.S.C. budget document from earlier this year, obtained by The Times, shows that $23.3 million was poured into investments to find new donors between June 2021 and January 2022. In that time, the contributors the organization found gave $6.1 million — a more than $17 million deficit.

Mr. Scott declined an interview request. His staff vigorously denied financial struggles, said some of the canceled television ads had been rebooked, and argued the digital spending would prove wise in time.

“We made the investment, we’re glad we did it, it will benefit the N.R.S.C. and the party as a whole for cycles to come,” said Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Mr. Scott and the committee.

Yet as Republican chances to retake the Senate have slipped, a full-blown case of finger-pointing has erupted across Washington, with Mr. Scott a prime target. His handling of the committee’s finances has become conflated with other critiques, especially a flawed field of Republicans who have found themselves outspent on television.

Mr. Scott’s please-all-sides decision to stay out of contested 2022 primaries has been second-guessed, including by Mr. McConnell. Mr. Scott’s detractors accuse him of transforming the N.R.S.C. into the “National Rick Scott Committee” — and a vehicle for his presidential ambitions.

“The spending wouldn’t matter if the polling numbers looked better,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist and N.R.S.C. donor. “To the extent the red wave is receding, people look for someone to blame.”

The financial fortunes of the group alone will not sink Republican chances in November. A super PAC aligned with Mr. McConnell has more than $160 million in television reservations booked after Labor Day.

Mr. Hartline dismissed those questioning the group’s digital spending as “disgruntled former staff and vendors.” He said the $28 million invested had tripled its file of email addresses and phone numbers and added 160,000 donors.

“Our goal is to build the biggest G.O.P. digital file to help the party now and in the future,” he said. He declined to discuss the texting scheme.

Mr. Hartline said the Senate Democratic arm has more money because it had not yet spent significantly on television. Mr. Scott, he said, had strategically spent early, with nearly $30 million on ads aiding Republicans through July.

That sum, however, is actually less than the $37.4 million the G.O.P. committee reported in independent expenditures for candidates as of the same date two years ago.

A huge online outlay

For months last year, the National Republican Senatorial Committee was far and away the nation’s biggest online political advertiser, outspending every other party committee combined and pouring money into platforms like Google at levels almost unseen except in the fevered final days of 2020.

The sums were so breathtakingly large — peaking at more than $100,000 a day on Facebook and Google — that some concerned Democrats began to study the ads, fretting that somehow Republicans had unlocked a new sustainable way to raise money online.

They had not.

The Senate Republican bet had been this: By spending vast amounts early, the party could vacuum up contact information for millions of potential donors who could then give repeatedly over the coming months.

The internal budget document showed the shortcomings of the approach. The first month of outreach investment, June 2021, was projected to generate $3.2 million for the committee by November 2022. But the other $22 million in investments over the next seven months combined were projected to add up to a narrow net loss by Election Day.

Still, the document showed the digital department was asking for more: an additional $12 million in February and March. Mr. Hartline dismissed the document as a “potential draft budget.”

Not long after, the spending spigot was cut off. The committee went from being the biggest political spender on Facebook to being completely absent on it. No Facebook fund-raising ads ran from April to late August, company records show.

Digital fund-raising has dried up across the Republican spectrum in recent months, and the N.R.S.C. has been hard hit. Online donations to the committee plunged by 37 percent between the first and second quarters of this year. If not for $10 million in transfers from the Republican National Committee, the Senate arm would have spent more than it raised this cycle.

In the most recent six months that fund-raising data is available, the N.R.S.C. in 2022 has raised $15 million less than during the same six-month period in 2020.

The tight finances stand in contrast to the House Republican campaign arm, which entered August with $110 million — spending 57 percent of the money it had collected, compared with the Senate committee’s 95 percent.

In its pursuit of cash, the Senate committee has increasingly adopted a pro-Trump tone: Of the more than 1,500 emails sent this year, more than 900 have invoked Donald J. Trump in the sender line. Zero have mentioned Mr. McConnell anywhere, despite the fact that the committee’s ostensible goal is to make him majority leader.

In August, four Senate candidates, including J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee in Ohio, trekked to Nantucket, Mass., for an event that netted each an initial $25,000.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

The N.R.S.C.’s larger donor program has struggled at times, too. In August, four Senate candidates, including J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee in Ohio, trekked to Nantucket, Mass., for an event that netted each an initial $25,000, according to multiple officials, a paltry payout for the far-flung event.

Tensions are high. Mr. Vance recently snapped at Mr. Scott over a different issue with committee staff in a phone call, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.

Though the committee exists chiefly to help Republican Senate candidates, under Mr. Scott it has only occasionally leveraged its enlarged email list to fund-raise directly for them. And when it does, the fine print indicates the N.R.S.C. keeps 90 percent of the proceeds.

‘Reply YES to donate’

The unsolicited text messages seeking contributions to the Senate Republican committee began buzzing phones in mid-2021 — often without identifying whom they were coming from.

“This is URGENT!” read one such flurry of messages. “Do YOU support Trump?”

Then came the key line: “Reply YES to donate $25.”

Those who wrote back “YES” automatically had a $25 donation to the National Republican Senatorial Committee charged to their credit cards, though the initial message said nothing about the destination and there were no links to click to find out. The committee used a tool that paired donors’ phone numbers with credit-card information saved on WinRed.

The Times documented the practice through interviews with people who had received such texts and made donations, Republican officials familiar with the tactic and a review of thousands of messages flagged by the spam-blocking app RoboKiller.

RoboKiller used the volume of texts marked as spam to estimate that tens of millions of “reply YES to donate” messages were sent from an 855 phone number that has been used by the Senate Republican committee.

Giulia Porter, a spokeswoman for RoboKiller, described the practice as predatory because it used donors’ saved credit card information to send money without telling them where it was going. “It does speak to how quickly the tactics have evolved technologically,” she said.

It is not clear how many people donated in response to the texts. But demands for N.R.S.C. refunds, a key metric of donor dissatisfaction, have soared, with the amount returned to donors quadrupling, from less than $2 million in 2020 to more than $8 million now.

The Senate Republican refund rate equals 6.6 percent of direct individual donations this cycle; the Senate Democratic committee’s rate is 1.67 percent.

WinRed declined to comment on stopping the Senate committee from using the tactic. The committee is still using the “reply YES to donate” function in texts, but it is now disclosing itself as the sender of the messages.

All told, the Senate committee has poured more than $26 million into expenses marked as texting-related since 2021, part of a digital budget that ballooned so quickly that Republicans, even inside the committee, are talking about a financial autopsy to examine whether there have been potential conflicts of interest.

Gary Coby, Mr. Trump’s longtime digital director, is an adviser to the committee and widely seen as the main behind-the-scenes influence on the N.R.S.C.’s current digital operations. Two of his companies, Direct Persuasion, a digital agency, and Opn Sesame, a texting firm, have been paid by the Senate committee more than $4.6 million combined. Two others that he has promoted, DirectSnd and Red Spark Strategy, have received another $9.2 million.

The N.R.S.C.’s digital director, Daria Grastara, worked for Mr. Coby during the Trump 2020 campaign. She was a director for Direct Persuasion, according to her LinkedIn page. While at the Senate committee, Ms. Grastara has maintained financial ties to at least one firm that has been paid committee funds and informed the N.R.S.C. of the arrangement, according to a person briefed on the situation.

Mr. Hartline called Ms. Grastara a “fantastic employee” but declined to discuss any specifics, adding only, “She has been open and transparent with all parties involved since the beginning of the cycle.” Ms. Grastara, who attended Direct Persuasion’s Miami Beach retreat this year, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Coby referred questions to the N.R.S.C., which declined to discuss his financial relationships.

In a broad statement, Mr. Hartline said Mr. Scott had “instituted the toughest conflict of interest policy at the N.R.S.C. for our staff and vendors to clean up issues from the past.”

Scott versus McConnell

Mr. Scott has taken to saying that money could be the party’s greatest impediment to taking control of the 50-50 Senate in November, and he has been acting to make up financial ground.

Committee staff beyond the finance department have been asked to devote an hour per week to calling donors for cash. “Everyone plays a role in fund-raising,” Mr. Hartline said.

Under campaign finance law, a portion of the committee’s funds are supposed to be walled off for legal expenses, and are not to be used for campaigning. Yet in July, the committee’s biggest expense — a $1 million media buy, apparently for Colorado and Washington ads — came from those restricted legal funds, according to federal records.

“We will always find the most effective, efficient and creative way to get our message out and stretch every dollar, in accordance with the law,” Mr. Hartline said about the expenditure. “If the Democrats don’t like that, tough.”

Prior to politics, Mr. Scott led a major for-profit hospital chain. He was forced out in the late 1990s and the company went on to pay $1.7 billion in federal civil and criminal penalties for health care fraud.

He has clashed with Mr. McConnell, who recently lamented Senate “candidate quality” in 2022. Mr. Scott shot back that “trash-talking our Republican candidates” was “an amazing act of cowardice.”

Mr. Scott also rolled out his own “Rescue America” agenda despite Mr. McConnell’s desire to keep the policy focus on Democrats. Mr. Scott’s initial openness to taxing more Americans and letting Social Security expire has been used repeatedly by President Biden to bludgeon Republicans.

Mr. Scott’s sharp elbows have earned him enemies. His family vacation on a yacht outside Italy, for instance, promptly leaked.

Just after Labor Day, Mr. Scott has another trip planned. It is not to a key Senate battleground. He is headed to Iowa, helping a House candidate in the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar.

Today's Tweet

I changed my mind...Gimme this one...🐶🐾🍪😅 pic.twitter.com/G1ZD4nhb7g

— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) September 4, 2022

History Redux

Why do we study History?

Tim Wise, at UC Santa Barbara 5 years ago.

Poodling

I guess they're saying they missed the speech?

Or maybe - as is too often the case with the WaPo editorial board - they just chose to miss the whole point.

Allow me a moment to translate:

"Yes yes, someone has spiked all the tires, and we can't get where we're going unless we change them out, and I suppose Mr Biden is getting it done, but does he have to get so sweaty and dirty? And maybe if he had just asked a bit more politely, those scalawag vandals would be on their way to the police right now to confess their atrocious behavior. Tut tut goodness gracious sakes alive. Are there any more of those delightful crab puffs? Cook does those so divinely..."

Stoopid fuckin' Press Poodles.

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Opinion
Democracy is in danger. Biden should invoke patriotism, not partisanship, to make that point.

It is a depressing reflection of the dangerous political situation in which the nation finds itself that President Biden felt compelled to deliver a prime-time address decrying political violence and election denialism and calling on Americans “to unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy.” Indeed, democracy is under assault in the United States. Rallying to its defense is an urgent task, and it does the nation no service to pretend that this is a problem of bipartisan dimensions. The leader of one party peddled the false belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, incited his adherents to storm the Capitol, and continues to stir anger and unrest. As Mr. Biden put it in Philadelphia on Thursday night, “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.”

The difficult, perhaps insurmountable, challenge that Mr. Biden confronted — just eight weeks before midterm elections that will determine the future course of his presidency — was how to convey the message of defending democracy in a way that summons patriotism rather than partisanship. Here, as much as we agree with the president about the urgency of the issue, is where he fell short, too often sounding more like a Democrat than a democrat. You don’t persuade people by scolding or demeaning them, but that’s how the president’s speech landed for many conservatives of goodwill.

Mr. Biden was wrong to conflate upholding the rule of law with his own partisan agenda, which he called “the work of democracy.” You can be for democracy but against the president’s policy proposals to use government to lower prescription-drug prices and combat climate change. “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love,” Mr. Biden proclaimed. But many conservatives — not just “MAGA forces” — agree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. It was disappointing that Mr. Biden chose to omit that the infrastructure, gun-control and burn-pits legislation he praised had passed with Republican votes. Pointing this out would actually have strengthened his effort to draw a contrast between “MAGA Republicans” and “mainstream Republicans.”

Moreover, Mr. Biden’s clarion call for democracy would carry more credibility if he were willing to call out his own party for its cynical effort to elevate some of the same “MAGA Republicans” he now warns will destroy democracy if they prevail in the general election. During the primaries, Democrats spent tens of millions helping dangerous election deniers defeat better-funded “mainstream Republicans,” including in Pennsylvania, where Mr. Biden, not coincidentally, chose to speak.

We offer these critiques of the president because we agree with him about the stakes involved. Mr. Trump announced during a radio interview just hours before Mr. Biden’s speech that, if he becomes president again, he will issue full pardons and a government apology to the Jan. 6 rioters. Mr. Trump also revealed that he met with Jan. 6 defendants in his office this week and that he is “financially supporting” some insurrectionists. “What they’ve done to these people is disgraceful,” Mr. Trump said. What’s truly disgraceful, and what formed the backdrop for Mr. Biden’s speech, is this: Mr. Trump’s continuing contempt for the rule of law; the complicit silence of the supposed leaders of his party, such as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy; and the real threat that Mr. Trump could again be his party’s nominee in 2024.

Today's Trae

Trae Crowder - The Liberal Redneck - on Joe Biden's speech last night

Ukraine

From the Ukrainian Ministry Of Defense:

Even if we say the Ukrainians have inflated the numbers by 200%, it would still mean the Russians have lost more than a full division of warfighters - in a little over 6 months. A little over 6 months into a "special military operation" that was supposed be wrapped up in a few days.

Слава Україні

🌎🌏🌍❤️🇺🇦

Time To Bail (?)

The stars are beginning to align.

I think the GOP has decided Trump has served his purpose. Now it's time to declare him "enemy" so they can regroup, assess their gains and costs, consolidate their positions, and plan the next move in their ongoing project to tear down our traditions of democratic self-government in order to replace it all with a corporate plutocracy.

Mr Barr has re-entered the chat.

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Trump’s attorney general says no ‘legitimate reason’ for former president to have classified documents

In his sharpest critique of his former boss, former attorney general William P. Barr said there is no reason classified documents should have been inside Donald Trump’s personal residence in Florida after he was no longer president.

“No, I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they could be taken out of government, away from the government, if they are classified,” Barr said in an interview with Fox News which aired Friday. Barr’s comment comes after federal officials entered Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and home last month with a court-issued warrant to retrieve classified documents, a move Trump said was improper and politically motivated.

“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr said Friday, “but it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”

Barr also dismissed the explanation advanced by Trump and his allies that the former president had declassified entire batches of the documents.

“If in fact he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them, and said ‘I hereby declassify everything in here,’ that would be such an abuse and show such recklessness that it’s almost worst than taking the documents,” Barr said.

“What people are missing,” Barr told Fox News, is that documents, regardless of whether they were classified, “still belong to the government and go to the archives.” The other documents that were seized, like news clippings, were, Barr said, “seizable under the warrant because they show the conditions under which the classified information was being held.”

Barr also said the government had gone to extraordinary lengths to work cooperatively with Trump’s team before entering his Florida home.

“They jawboned for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken,” he said, referring to false assertions made by Trump’s lawyers that all necessary material had been handed over. Then the government “went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel, and the record, the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around.”

“And so,” Barr asked rhetorically, “how long do they wait?”

Though Barr also said “it is clearly foolish what happened, and inexplicable,” he added that it was not clear whether the actions should be criminally prosecuted, considering, among other things, the documents were ultimately recovered.

The latest court filing Friday showed that Trump intermingled classified and unclassified materials in boxes at his Florida residence and had dozens of empty folders that bore a “classification” marking, according to an inventory list that described in more detail what FBI agents recovered when they searched Mar-a-Lago last month.

Barr’s comments on Fox News — one of the outlets Trump is known to watch closely — represents an escalation of Barr’s condemnation of his former boss’s behavior. Barr faced a backlash from Trump after telling him there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. That created a deep rift between the nation’s top law enforcement officer and the president and ultimately led Barr to abruptly leave the administration. Since then, Trump and his allies have attacked Barr for not doing more to overturn the election results.

Later, Barr gave damning testimony to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who tried to stop the certification of the presidential election. Barr testified that Trump was “detached from reality” and obsessed with fantastical notions of voter fraud.