I mentioned in my Salon piece this morning that Rudy has said that he is continuing the Biden crusade because he believes it will “vindicate” the president. Considering the events of this week, I believe that William Barr is fully on board with that which may explain why he’s given Rudy his own US Attorney to work with to continue the smear whether Biden is the nominee or not:
Since his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial, President Donald Trump has privately encouraged his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to keep investigating the Biden family and Ukraine, and to keep updating him and his administration, including the Justice Department, on his findings, according to two people familiar with their discussions.
Reached for this story on Monday evening, Giuliani repeatedly declined to comment on specifics, but did say that his relationship with the president remained intact and that he’d just “talked to him twice today.” Asked what those conversations regarded, the Trump attorney replied, “no comment.”
“In my conversations with the president, he has, on more occasion than one, said that he wants to get to the bottom of the Ukraine issue in a very similar way that he’s talked about investigating the ‘Russia hoax,’” said another source close to Trump.
“I think he feels like the chains are off now,” said one senior administration official. “It’s like things have taken a turn. The gloves are off. And everything that used to be hush hush is now just… out in the open.”
Trump has a deep need to claim that he was right all along and that’s going to take some investigations and prosecutions. His only political agenda beyond getting re-elected and showing the rest of the world who’s boss is reversing every one of Barack Obama’s accomplishments. I think he feels branding Joe Biden and his son as corrupt is part of that mission.
But it won’t be enough unless he can truly make them pay. I have no doubt that he will, before long, take credit for Biden’s collapse in the polls. He won’t be able to help himself. But it won’t be enough. He needs to bring down the full force of the US government on Biden’s head to truly prove his dominance.