Wow: AG Bill Barr has reportedly intervened directly in D.C. on arrests of protesters accused of rioting. He overruled the U.S. Attorney for D.C., who said ⁦ @DCPoliceDept⁩ provided no evidence to justify charges in most cases. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/us/politics/william-barr-justice-department.html

Clearly this tweet is getting lots of play among supporters of Barr. But it’s worth noting that the story notes that Barr overruled his own U.S. Attorney in D.C., who said the rioting arrests that were made largely couldn’t be sustained in court.

This is all notable because the history of prosecuting “rioting” charges in D.C. is, well, problematic. After hundreds of inauguration protesters were arrested and charged with rioting in 2017, almost all of the cases fell apart, were dismissed or ended in not-guilty verdicts.

And now we have a cases where one senior DOJ official is telling D.C. police he can’t charge the people they are arresting for rioting, because there’s little or no evidence. So Barr steps in, and suddenly we have some charges. But it’s only a handful of all those arrested.

And sure, you could say that Barr has every right to step into decisions made by his underlings. But it will raise questions about political motivations. The U.S. Attorney for D.C. is plenty law-and-order these days, after all.