WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr testified before Congress last spring that “it’s time for everybody to move on” from the special counsel investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s 2016 election interference.

Nearly a year later, however, it is clear that Mr. Barr has not moved on from the investigation at all. Rather, he increasingly appears to be chiseling away at it.

The attorney general’s handling of the results of the Russia inquiry came under fire when a federal judge questioned this week whether Mr. Barr had sought to create a “one-sided narrative” clearing Mr. Trump of misconduct. The judge said Mr. Barr displayed a “lack of candor” in remarks that helped shape the public view of the special counsel’s report before it was released in April.

In fact, Mr. Barr’s comments then were but the first in a series of actions in which he cast doubt not just on the findings of the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and some of the resulting prosecutions, but on its very premise. In the process, Mr. Barr demoralized some of the department’s rank and file and lent credence to Republican politicians who seek to elevate the Mueller investigation into an election-year political issue — including Mr. Trump.