If you are bewildered by the weird antipathy with which Democrats and the media regard Attorney General William Barr, consider a passage from the Nobel Prize acceptance speech delivered by Polish dissident Czesław Miłosz in 1980: “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” Our government hasn’t yet devolved into the kind of totalitarian regime under which Poland groaned at that time, but there is a conspiracy of silence surrounding the skullduggery that led to the Russia collusion fraud, and Barr fired that metaphorical pistol on April 10, 2019.

Barr used the word “spying” during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee with regard to his plan to look into counterintelligence activities against the Trump campaign during the 2016 election cycle. When he first uttered that word, it clearly startled every Democrat on the committee. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) immediately inquired if he really believed spying had occurred. Barr said, “I think spying did occur, yes.” That bullet continues to ricochet around the Beltway to this day. Indeed, his use of the “s” word was belabored at considerable length by Jan Crawford during the CBS interview with Barr that aired Friday:

On using the word, I mean, do you understand, and I know that some of the, some former intelligence chiefs have said that the president has made that word somewhat pejorative, that there is spying, this is a witch hunt, this is a hoax, and so your use of that word makes it seem that you are being a loyalist.

Having endured that word salad with his characteristic patience, Barr ignored the odd suggestion that “being a loyalist” was somehow improper. He did, however, make it clear that he had no intention of heeding the none-too-subtle attempts to stop him from using the verboten term. “It’s a perfectly good English word; I will continue to use it.” This is why Barr is so scary to Washington insiders. He’s an honest man with more concern for the truth than his popularity inside the Beltway. This has clearly caused considerable trepidation in the Justice Department, the intelligence community, the Democratic Party, and the media.

And all four were deeply involved in creating, cultivating, and keeping the Russia collusion narrative “above the fold” for nearly three years. Thus, Barr’s obvious intention of getting to the bottom of what was essentially a thinly veiled coup attempt has inevitably caused the number of self-serving attacks on the AG to increase. A clearly frightened James Comey, for example, tweeted: “Bill Barr on CBS offers no facts. An AG should not be echoing conspiracy theories. He should gather facts and show them. That is what Justice is about.” Saint James is obviously terrified that he will do just that. It’s a valid fear as Barr told CBS:

I just think it has to be carefully looked at because the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign to me is unprecedented and it’s a serious red line that’s been crossed.… What was the process? Who had to approve it?

Comey’s allusion to “conspiracy theories” is particularly ironic now that we know the Russian collusion narrative he helped compose and leak to the media was the conspiracy theory that ate D.C. And the fired FBI director is by no means the only Washington insider having difficulty holding his water over AG Barr’s interest in the origins of the Russia Collusion scam. Former CIA director John Brennan has vehemently objected to President Trump’s decision to give Barr authority to “declassify, downgrade, or direct the declassification or downgrading of information or intelligence that relates to the Attorney General’s review”:

I see it as a very, very serious and outrageous move on the part of Mr. Trump, once again, trampling on the statutory authorities of the Director of National Intelligence and the heads of the independent intelligence agencies. And it’s unclear to me what Mr. Barr is actually going to do. Is he investigating a crime?

This is an interesting question coming from a former CIA director who almost certainly orchestrated the attempted entrapment of George Papadopoulos by foreign intelligence “assets” Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper, Alexander Downer, et al. The transcript of his closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee concerning these episodes reveals a series of bizarre encounters, including one in which he was given $10,000 in cash for no reason (which he never attempted to spend). Papadopoulos eventually spent 14 days in jail for misremembering some detail of these weird encounters during an interview with the FBI.

In addition to Comey and Brennan, various Democrats have questioned the Attorney General’s ability to objectively oversee an investigation into the origins of Russiagate. During a Sunday morning appearance on Face the Nation, for example, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) claimed, “Mr. Barr has very little credibility with me.… because he time and again is not acting as our attorney general, but as a personal advocate for Donald Trump.” This is a standard talking point peddled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and every other Democrat who doesn’t think well on his feet. Predictably, Sen. Warner offered no evidence to support his claim.

It goes without saying, of course, that the legacy media have denounced Barr for telling the truth. In his latest effusion for New York, Jonathan Chait informs his readers, “Barr has drunk deep from the Fox News worldview of Trumpian paranoia.” In response to the Attorney General’s common sense assertion during the CBS interview that it is unhealthy for our institutions to resist “a democratically elected president… by changing the norms,” Chait actually writes: “In fact, the opposition to Trump has been marked, on the whole, by its fastidious restraint.” This suggests that he should stay away from the bar before writing about Barr.

This kind of nonsense from the legacy media, combined with ridiculous claims by the Democrats that a man with William Barr’s record has no credibility and self-exculpatory balderdash from fabulists like John Brennan and James Comey, suggest that the real problem they have with the Attorney General is his blindingly obvious integrity. There are few things that scare the denizens of D.C. more than an honest man. The only thing they fear more is an honest man who doesn’t give a damn what they think of him. William Barr is their worst nightmare.