Why Trump’s Legal Reckoning Took Its Time, Courtesy of Bill Barr

Hours before Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, the former president, in a burst of social media fury, questioned the timing of what he labeled a “totally discredited lawsuit.” His post was a mix of outrage and disbelief—claiming, without evidence, that the proceedings were part of an “Election Interference!” scheme.

Let’s unpack that, shall we? The charges at hand date back to 2016 and 2017—well outside any election cycle in question. So, what took so long for these allegations to land in court? The answer leads us straight to Bill Barr, Trump’s once-trusted Attorney General, and a series of moves that kept the courtroom doors closed for years.

Rewind to the 2016 election. Anxiety was high within the Trump camp about potential fallout from Trump’s alleged intimate dealings with porn star Stormy Daniels. The solution? A shell company created by Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, to keep Daniels quiet. This clandestine arrangement led to falsified business records and incremental payments to Cohen, which, though they eventually put Cohen behind bars, curiously spared “Individual 1″—Trump himself.

While the Southern District of New York’s prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman (a Republican, by Trump’s own appointment), initially moved against Cohen, a greater game was afoot. According to Berman’s accounts, once he secured Cohen’s guilty plea, the Justice Department began an under-the-radar campaign to neuter the investigation, signaling a troubling intervention from Washington that reached into the very heart of Manhattan’s judicial processes.

Enter Bill Barr, who, upon becoming Attorney General, not only halted the ongoing investigations but audaciously suggested reversing Cohen’s convictions—essentially rewriting the legal narrative to protect Trump. Instructions were handed down to cease all investigative efforts until further notice, placing immense pressure on Berman’s team to pull punches and omit any references that might unfavorably paint the former president.

The manipulation didn’t stop there. Under Barr’s directives, the Justice Department veered into political territory, probing Democrats without cause and misrepresenting Berman’s status to the public, all culminating in Trump firing Berman when he resisted these overreaches.

Why, then, is Trump only facing trial now? The delay was a calculated effect of a Justice Department compromised by loyalty to Trump rather than to justice itself. This intervention allowed time to pass, evidence to age, and the narrative to be spun by Trump’s allies.