The biggest, really the only truly significant part of this story is the one we still don’t have an answer to: what was so pressing, important and urgent that Barr did this clumsy, rush job to try to force Berman out? Election is only five months away. They knew there’d be...

2/ a storm. Apparently they thought it was worth it. Barr seems to have lied about Berman (claimed he’d resigned); he apparently lied to another US Attorney, Craig Carpentio, to wrapped him into the scheme; he appears to have lied again in claiming that Trump had fired Berman.

3/ It’s certainly Trump who was lying in that case when he said he wasn’t involved. But Barr would need a signed document. The fact that he didn’t produce it tells me it doesn’t exist. In any case, Barr broke a lot of glass to force this through. And now he seems at least ...

4/ to have created a situation even worse than the one they started with. Berman has been succeeded by his deputy Audrey Strauss who Berman and seemingly everyone else trusts to act ethical and lawfully. They’ve also massively increased the press scrutiny of anything tied ...

5/ to that office and Trump. There appear to be investigations tied to Turkey, to Rudy Giuliani, possibly banks with uncomfortable ties to Trump. They’re all strong possibilities but we don’t know which or if it’s any of those. I don’t know but here’s my speculation ...

6/ The most obvious question is what was the point? This was at best counterproductive and didn’t achieve the desired effect. But remember Trump insisted on firing James Comey. That lead directly to the appointment of a special prosecutor whose investigation dominated his ...

7/ presidency for two years. It didn’t accomplish anything. One could have predicted that. Many of his staffers did predict it. (Apparently Jared encouraged him and egged him on.) Trump clearly wanted Berman gone but didn’t want his fingers on his ouster. He even hung ...

8/ Barr out to dry after Barr claimed in writing that Trump had fried Berman. The fact that it didn’t accomplish anything doesn’t require a lot of explanation. I suspect Trump wanted him gone, told Barr to make it happen and that’s just what Barr did.