Bill Barr, conspicuously absent from public view for weeks, on Monday walked into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s office. Minutes after the U.S. Attorney General departed, the Kentucky Republican went to the Senate floor and delivered a vicious and defiant address in support of President Donald Trump’s spurious and dangerous claims of election fraud.

McConnell did not refer to Biden as the President-elect.

Barr refused to talk to reporters, even refusing to answer questions about the alleged fraud that Trump has maintained exists but has refused to provide any real evidence of.

Bill Barr is here. Leaving the Capitol after a meeting w ⁦@senatemajldr⁩ pic.twitter.com/MHFZ3CPB3X

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 9, 2020

Leaving Mitch McConnell’s office, Attorney General Bill Barr ignored questions, including when I asked him if he’s seen any evidence of voter fraud.

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 9, 2020

Washington Post National Political Reporter Robert Costa reports that “McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, stands firmly with President Trump as the president fights his legal battles. Rails against ‘far left mobs,’ minutes after meeting with AG Barr at the Capitol. Wants ‘no lectures’ from Democrats.”

MITCH MCCONNELL: “Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options…no lectures about how [he] should…accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent 4 years refusing to accept…the last election.” pic.twitter.com/rZWGovF5OE

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) November 9, 2020

But McConnell may not be refusing to acknowledge President-elect Biden’s Electoral College and popular vote win to appease Trump. Rather, he may be doing it to save his own job as Majority Leader. Costa reports McConnell needs to keep the base united, energized, and “stoked”:

Based on my convos with Rs over wknd, most everything McConnell does from here on isn’t about January 20th (inauguration day & working with Biden) but January 5th (the Georgia run-off elections). To win the latter, Rs believe the base must be stoked, esp in a fast-changing state.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 9, 2020

Others see a more sinister threat — given Barr’s actions in support of Trump, the latter seems more likely.

Here’s election law expert Rick Hasen raising concerns:

So did Barr tell McConnell to publicly leave the door open for Trump legal challenges?

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) November 9, 2020

There remain concerns, at least among rank and file Democrats, that Trump and team still plan to steal the election.

The entire Buffalo Police Department Emergency Response Team — a total of 57 officers — has resigned from the team in support of the two officers who pushed 75-year-old Martin Gugino to the ground, seriously injuring him.

They are still employed, but no longer on ERT.

According to Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president John Evans, the cops who pushed Gugino down were just following orders.

“Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” Evans, said in a statement.

This is a developing story. Check WIVB4 for updates.

At the close of his Wednesday evening show, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell played clips from the 2012 Republican Party convention where everyone from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and others celebrated Mitt Romney. After Romney refused to vote for acquit President Donald Trump, he’s become a pariah.

Former Republican Rick Wilson explained that this was the example of the way that Trump has become a parasite that isn’t just leaching it away, “it ate the Republican Party from the inside out. And the shell that still remains, everything has to be years here, it has to be reset because it’s all about Donald now.”

He explained that there are now two groups of Republican senators: the “coward caucus” who privately rails against Trump and hate him. Then there are the “Trumpers” who think they can parlay Trump’s support into their own presidency someday.

O’Donnell noted that if the GOP collapses after Trump, it could mean Romney rises from the ashes.

“Well, if it collapses after Trump — they’ve lost 650 seats across the country since Donald Trump took office at various levels of government,” said Wilson. “So the collapse is underway, and you know, I think there will be principled Republicans at the end of the day, there won’t be a lot. I joke sometimes you could sit us around a Waffle House table. But people today watched Mitt Romney display political courage.”

Wilson said that Romney and Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) displayed huge political courage. Jones is up for reelection after winning Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat when Trump appointed him to the Justice Department. Trump then fired Sessions and spent the better part of a year attacking him. Now Sessions is trying to get his seat back.

“It’s so dangerous to the Trump people that instead of taking their victory lap today, what have they done? The line-up on that other network tonight was basically about ‘they hate Mitt Romney,’” Wilson continued. “It was the screaming fest about ‘Romney, the traitor,’ and all this. It really tells you what happens when these Republicans hear a message like that. They feel pain. It’s their souls trying to re-enter their bodies. But it’s this physical sense of anxiety they get from someone opposing Trump.”

Watch the full commentary below: