The term “right-wing conspiracy theorist” has typically been used in connection with Infowars’ Alex Jones, author Jerome Corsi and contributors to Breitbart News rather than establishment Republicans. But these days, the term is coming up more and more in connection with Attorney General William Barr — who is now investigating the Russia investigation. And journalist Paul Waldman, in an October 28 article for the American Prospect, argues that by promoting the theory that it was Ukraine rather than Russia that interfered in the 2016 presidential election, Barr is acting as a full-fledged conspiracy theorist and helping corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice in the process.

“The current attorney general of the United States is jetting around the world in pursuit of preposterous conspiracy theories meant to absolve Russia of blame for its attack on the 2016 election, an attack whose purpose was to help Donald Trump get elected president,” Waldman explains. “At the same time, William Barr is overseeing an investigation whose purpose now appears to be to discredit the counterintelligence investigation into that Russian meddling. If you want to know what a thoroughly corrupted Department of Justice looks like, this is it.”

In his report, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller made it abundantly clear that the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin aggressively interfered in the United States’ presidential election in 2016. But some conspiracy theorists insist that the Russian government was innocent of any wrongdoing.

“Attorney General Barr is using the full resources of his office — not to mention his own personal time — to pursue an absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory that bubbled up from the depths of the right-wing fever swamp,” Waldman asserts. “It says that despite copious evidence, the consensus of American intelligence agencies, and the extensive documentation contained in the indictments brought down by Robert Mueller, Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election at all.”

Waldman continues, “In fact, the theory goes, the whole thing was a false flag operation in which the Obama Administration recruited the help of Ukrainians to make it appear that Russia was the guilty party, and Vladimir Putin is the innocent victim of a slander. And also, there was a server at Democratic National Committee headquarters that would prove Putin’s innocence, but it was spirited away and now may be sitting somewhere in Ukraine.”

House Democrats decided to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump after a whistleblower’s complaint alerted them to a July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — who Trump tried to pressure into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

“It’s no surprise that when Trump was putting the screws to the president of Ukraine,” Waldman observes, “he instructed the Ukrainian to talk to two people about bonkers DNC server theory and digging up dirt on Joe Biden: Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr.”

Waldman concludes his article on an ominous note, predicting that in 2020, Barr will launch some type of investigation of the Democratic presidential nominee.

“Barr will turn his attention to the Democratic nominee for president,” Waldman predicts. “If there isn’t a Justice Department investigation of that nominee, whoever it is, announced sometime in the summer or fall of 2020 — with as much publicity as possible so as to maximize the political damage — it will be an absolute shock. If you don’t think Barr would do that, all you have to look at is what he’s doing now.”

Image: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead