What They're Saying About Barr's Press Conference: What Checks? What Balances?! — Commentary Hot Off the Press

It's a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he's the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 18, 2019

This is astonishing. He’s Trump’s defense attorney.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) April 18, 2019

Michael J. Stern:

The attorney general's transparent efforts to protect President Donald Trump have done enormous damage to the department.

Chris Wallace on Fox: "The Attorney General seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the Attorney General, talking about his motives, his emotions... Really, as I say, making a case for the president."

— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) April 18, 2019

Zack Beauchamp:

Barr spun everything in Trump’s favor — and literally walked offstage when he was called on it.

Interfering with an investigation because you are frustrated is the very definition of corrupt motives

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 18, 2019

Josh Marshall: 

Rush transcript of key part of Barr's remarks, essentially justifying Trump's behavior because he thought the investigation wasn't fair.

David Kurtz:

Count 'em: 4 times — in Attorney General William Barr's prepared remarks, he emphasized that there was “no collusion” four separate times.

Barr literally told the world he didn’t charge Trump with obstruction because he didn’t believe Trump wanted to behave illegally. Think about that. He committed crimes, but didn’t want to?

— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) April 18, 2019

Ben Mathis-Lilley:

Barr just made a fairly lengthy argument that anything Trump might have done to obstruct Mueller's investigation was OK because he knew that he hadn't committed any "collusion."

Trump used our agencies that we pay for to cover up crimes he, his family, associates committed. If we don’t speak out now Trump will be using these same agencies to silence us, go after opposition. Today Again showed us we are no longer a Democracy and are an Authoritarian state

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) April 18, 2019