The phony attack on William Barr

The critics cannot be giving us their real reasons for faulting Mr. Barr. If they were, they would have demanded that Mr. Rosenstein—who wrote the memo Mr. Trump used to justify Mr. Comey’s dismissal—recuse himself because of his personal involvement. They would have opposed my successor as attorney general, Eric Holder, after his 2009 confirmation hearing, when—not knowing any of the underlying classified facts—he confidently pronounced that interrogation techniques the Central Intelligence Agency had used constituted torture. Or at least they would have insisted that he recuse himself from any further consideration of prosecuting the CIA interrogators. Instead, on taking office, Mr. Holder reopened those investigations, only to close them quietly many months later.

In any event, the memo is no basis to demand that Mr. Barr, when confirmed, recuse himself from his duty to supervise Mr. Mueller’s investigation. Again, its arguments are based solely on publicly available information, and it addresses only one possible legal theory. If on taking office Mr. Barr becomes aware of publicly undisclosed facts or of different bases for Mr. Mueller’s inquiry, he will consider them. When and if Mr. Barr must make any decision that relates to the subject of the memo, he will have the benefit of alternative viewpoints.