Then on Wednesday, Barr’s press spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, upped the ante in the high-stakes effort to lend political support to Gen Flynn and to Trump’s partisan political interests. Kupec complained about an allegedly nefarious effort involving Joe Biden to “unmask” Flynn’s identity during the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

She said this to the Fox news correspondent Martha MacCallum: “Martha, what happened to candidate Trump and then President Trump was one of the greatest political injustices in American history and should never happen again.”

It is remarkable how quickly Flynn’s fate is put aside and the focus shifted to the president.

When has a justice department press person ever issued so nakedly political a statement?