Bill Barr just argued himself out of a job

Remember when President Trump demanded “loyalty” from Mr. Comey? If Mr. Barr is confirmed as attorney general, it looks as though the president will get what he wanted. “He alone is the Executive branch,” Mr. Barr wrote of the president. The attorney general and the Justice Department lawyers “who exercise prosecutorial discretion on his behalf” are “merely ‘his hand.’” These bizarre statements are not those of a lawyer but of a courtier.

The memo, which Mr. Barr shared with the White House as well as the Justice Department, shows that Mr. Barr has already made up his mind about the investigation and wanted to make sure that President Trump knew it. But now the Senate — which will soon vote on Mr. Barr’s confirmation — knows it, too. If the senators want the next attorney general to do the president’s bidding, then Mr. Barr’s memo makes the case that he is their man. But if the senators are looking for the country’s chief law enforcement officer to wait for the facts before rendering his judgment, then Mr. Barr just may have argued himself out of a job.