On March 22, 1973, President Richard Nixon had his attorney general, John Mitchell, over to the White House for a wee chat. Nixon was concerned that, in various courtrooms and law offices around the District, the ratlines off his administration were getting crowded. He proposed that Mitchell might want to do something about that. This is what he said.

I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it'll save it—save the plan. That's the whole point.

46 years later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report into the Russian ratfcking of the 2016 presidential election, and into the attempts of the current administration* to obstruct the investigations into such matters, to Attorney General William Barr. Two days later, Barr released his now-infamous four-page summary that let the president off a number of hooks and that set a narrative—albeit a cheesy and half-true—for a crucial few days. Now, thanks to the Washington Post, we learn that Barr's little memo got crossways with the special counsel.

Days after Barr’s announcement, Mueller wrote the previously undisclosed private letter to the Justice Department, laying out his concerns in stark terms that shocked senior Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.

“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

Well, now. Barr failed to fully capture the context, and nature, and the substance of Mueller's investigation, and I've worked with the written word for some time now and I'm damned if, given Mueller's parameters, I can think of any part of the report that Barr did "fully capture." Did he describe the binders accurately? Was the font everything Barr had hoped for? Was the report double-spaced as per instructions from the Justice Department? These are all questions that do not matter.

Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they were taken aback by the tone of Mueller’s letter and that it came as a surprise to them that he had such concerns. Until they received the letter, they believed Mueller was in agreement with them on the process of reviewing the report and redacting certain types of information, a process that took several weeks. Barr has testified to Congress previously that Mueller declined the opportunity to review his four-page memo to lawmakers that distilled the essence of the special counsel’s findings.

Taken aback by the tone? The available evidence indicates that Mueller thinks that Ivanka walks Barr three times a day around the South Lawn. And the tone is what these people are worried about? It's time to give them something real to talk about.

It is time to start talking about heads on pikes—figuratively, of course. The House of Representatives has to put some people on spits and start turning them until they're a tasty golden brown. This has gone much too far enough. In terms of the worst attorneys general in history, Barr has zoomed past A. Mitchell Palmer, and now is closing in on Nixon's Mitchell, Richard Kleindienst, and Harry Daugherty, the crook who ran DOJ for Warren Harding—and that's only because Mitchell went to jail, Kleindienst copped a plea, and Daugherty eventually was indicted and beat the rap. Barr is coming up fast on the outside on all of them.

William Barr speaks about the release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report at the Department of Justice on April 18. Getty Images

One of the more egregious episodes of malfeasance in Barr's most recent stint as AG came on April 10, when Barr was appearing before another Senate committee and was asked by Senator Chris Van Hollen whether Mueller supported Barr's conclusion in his memo regarding Mueller's opinion on whether the president* obstructed justice. Barr said he didn't know. Now we know that Mueller had written to Barr more than a week earlier and informed him that he didn't support Barr's conclusion at all.

And on Wednesday, Barr is supposed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, with its Republican majority. He's supposed to appear before House Judiciary, with its Democratic majority, the next day, but he's balking because, he says, he doesn't want to be questioned by anyone except the committee members, which makes Barr much more of a coward than either Mitchell or, for that matter, Christine Blasey Ford, for whose examination before the SJC the Republicans flew in a separate lawyer.

My guess? He will stonewall the Senate and continue to duck the House, which should end with his being impeached and removed from office. But the most critical aspect of Tuesday night's events is that the White House and its various henchpeople are on their way to leaving the Congress no remedy except impeachment to get to the truth of this administration's corruption. What I am sure of is that no congressional Republican is going to take that leap. It's a eunuch choir over there, and everybody's still on key. But events are driving themselves now, and the tension within the institutions of government is destabilizing the whole damn thing.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook Page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io