I want to show you a couple clips from Bill Barr’s testimony today. You’ve heard the headlines but the full language is pretty key.

When Barr said he believed there was “spying” against the Trump campaign he explicitly compared that to spying on civil rights and anti-war activists during the 1960s. In other words, while saying he simply needs to ‘look into it’, he is quite consciously validating Trump’s claims of ‘Deep State’ spying going back two years. This is conscious, intentional and the grossest form of bad faith, pretending concerns about illegal surveillance of domestic dissidents while actually seeking punitive expeditions against people the President has targeted as enemies.

The fullness of Barr's language is important. He is suggesting that President Trump may have been the victim of "spying" analogous to that against civil rights and anti-war activists during the 1960s. pic.twitter.com/ZjfqitbKiD — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 10, 2019

Bill Barr says he doesn't know yet whether it will "become necessary to look over some former [senior FBI] officials' activities." But he's ready if he has to because he has "an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused." pic.twitter.com/9sr3MiWjk9 — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 10, 2019

This performance produced headlines everywhere having the Attorney General confirm “spying” against the Trump campaign. Reporters and anchors are quibbling that … well, yes there was some surveillance of people tied to the campaign so … well this could be called “spying” but …

This is silly. There was a court sanctioned counter-intelligence investigation. We have every reason to believe it was legal and proper. Indeed, it’s already been investigated by the DOJ Inspector General, an investigation that while broadly legitimate was clearly looking for facts helpful to the President. Whatever we learn from the Mueller report, it is abundantly clear there was a strong counter-intelligence rationale for the investigation.

You cannot rely on the mainstream press to state clearly that this is a conscious and deliberate effort by the Attorney General to validate a conspiracy theory which has no basis and to grease the skids for punitive action against the people who were involved in the investigation. There’s zero ambiguity here. There’s no question why he talked about “spying.” We’re in a very dangerous place.