Who is William Barr? He plays the bagpipes. Competitively. He can afford to have an eccentric hobby. The rest of his life is not eccentric.
He is a New Yorker. Not from Trump’s circle. His parents were academics. His father was in the English Department at Columbia, served as Head of the Dalton School and of the Hackley School. Too tough for Dalton, he left after disputes with trustees about disciplining students. Just right for Hackley. Most parents were pleased when he expelled a large number of students for their bad behavior.
Like his dad, who had been Jewish and converted to Catholicism, William Barr is a devoted Catholic. He first went to Corpus Christi School, then Horace Mann and Columbia (BA 71, MA 73). His law degree, earned while he was working for the CIA, was from George Washington. He worked for Reagan, then for GHW Bush — eventually as Deputy Attorney General. His advice, while serving as advisor to the president, authorized the invasion of Panama to arrest its president Manuel Noriega.
Like his dad, he is a law and order guy. He advocated more prisons, jailing more people – especially violent criminals.
Not so much a law an order guy for officials. Barr advocated pardons for those convicted related to the Iran-Contra deal, especially for Caspar Weinberger, the former Secretary of Defense.
Barr is Attorney General now. He is as sympathetic to Republican office holders as he ever was. Do you trust his summary of the Mueller report? Will you trust that you are getting all the information you should get when he “releases” the report? Watch for the pardons.