Bill Barr’s exit strategy

Follow Us Get the newsletter Bill Barr Quit. What Finally Spooked Him? — Noah Feldman Attorney General William Barr has resigned with a little more than a month left in President Donald Trump's administration. This seems to suggest that Barr thinks what happens in the next five weeks could irretrievably tarnish his legacy. If so, that's pretty stunning, considering how much Barr has already diminished his reputation and that of the Justice Department with his pro-Trump shenanigans. What's the January surprise Barr wants no part of? One possibility is that Barr wants to create bureaucratic distance between himself and the president so that he can say he resigned rather than serving out his term. Another option is that Barr realizes that Trump plans to continue challenging the election outcome. Barr has been willing to tolerate Trump's arguments thus far, even if he himself has refused to say that Justice has evidence of meaningful fraud. Yet the prospect of increasingly wild claims of conspiracy and an inauguration without Trump in attendance might perhaps be enough for Barr to prefer to be out of town — and out of the administration — for the next few weeks. Read the whole thing. Trump Strutted Like a Player, But Also Got Played — Timothy L. O'Brien Why Haven't Trump's Judges Saved Him? — Jonathan Bernstein What If Covid-19 Measures Killed Flu Season? — Justin Fox After the Pandemic, a Pile of IOUs — Niall Ferguson Irrational Exuberance Hits the Oil Market — Julian Lee Has China Mastered Weather Modification? — Adam Minter China Just Showed How Much the World Needs It — Daniel Moss Russia's New Guerilla Media Are Going After Putin — Leonid Bershidsky Go Ahead and Spend Your Children's Inheritance — Teresa Ghilarducci What's New? Figuring out what to believe is harder than ever in the age of Covid-19. Bloomberg Opinion's Faye Flam is here to help us distinguish scientific ideas from chatter, speculation, hype and noise with her new podcast, Follow the Science. You can find it on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion published this week based on web readership.   Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022