Trump’s lawmaker is breaking all the rules

The new US attorney general, William Barr, is the latest high-profile appointment to flout legal and political conventions under the instructions of his president. Seasoned observers do not expect Barr’s stint in cabinet to end well

US president Donald Trump touring the border wall between the United States and Mexico in Calexico, California Pic: Getty

So far, the newly appointed attorney general William Barr has met, if not exceeded, US president Donald Trump’s expectations of what an attorney general should be. Barr may prove to be the single most consequential appointment to the Trump cabinet thus far.

And now he has gone several steps further. Barr, the Republican establishment lawyer who thwarted the investigation into the Iran-Contra affair when he was attorney general for George HW Bush, is ...