Earlier today, Ed wrote about AG Barr’s interview with the Wall Street Journal in which Barr talked about the ongoing review of the origins of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. Barr also gave an interview today to Fox News’ Bill Hemmer. In the Fox interview, Barr was asked specifically about criticism from Democrats in Congress. Barr said it looked to him like Democrats wanted to undermine his credibility.

“You are being heavily criticized by Democrats, by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” Hemmer said. He added, “She believes you lied under oath. What do you think of that charge?”

“Well I think it’s a laughable charge and I think it’s largely being made to try and discredit me, partly because they may be concerned about the outcome of a review of what happened during the election,” Barr replied. Asked what that would mean, he continued, “It means they may be trying to undermine my credibility but obviously you can look at the face of  my testimony and see, on its face, that there’s nothing inaccurate about it.”

We’ve really come a long way from the time when every negative comment about Comey, or Sessions, or Mueller, or his investigators was taken as a prelude to the next Saturday Night Massacre. Suddenly the shoe is on the other foot with Democrats apparently trying to undercut the credibility of the Attorney General as he opens an investigation into behavior connected to the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Hemmer asked Barr directly if his four-page summary of the Mueller report was “spinning for the White House.” “No, I wasn’t. I think what they really are perhaps annoyed about is that they didn’t have an opportunity to spin and that the fundamental findings of the report were out there for everybody to see and they were not in a position to spin,” Barr said.

That’s exactly what all the whining about the three weeks Democrats would never get back was about. They had a clear loss on their hands with regard to collusion/conspiracy, which had been the backbone of the whole theory. They were hoping for time to pivot away from that toward obstruction to keep the party going and they didn’t get it. Now they seem a bit nervous about where things are going next as we await the IG report which, according to some, is going to be “devastating.” We’ll have to wait and see if that’s true but there’s no doubt the ground has been shifting beneath Democrats’ feet.

Earlier in this same clip, Barr talks a little about the investigation he has just launched into Crossfire Hurricane. He mostly says it’s still in the early stages and he doesn’t want to prejudge any evidence at this point, but he does say he’s interested in looking at the briefing of the president in January 2017 about the Steele dossier and how word of that briefing leaked so quickly to the media. That seems like a very significant question that deserves an answer. If it turns out that the leak came from Brennan or someone acting on his behalf, it would be quite a revealing discovery.

This clip is about 15 minutes long but I’ve cued it up to the section near the end where Barr suggests Democrats are looking to undermine his credibility.