Trump's attorney general sends a letter from No Man's Land

William P. Barr's memoir — out Tuesday — spans seven decades but is inevitably dominated by his two years as attorney general under former President Donald Trump. His account of those years will be read hungrily by Trump's fiercest defenders and harshest detractors. It is unlikely to satisfy either.

It is just as unlikely to win over Barr's own critics, including those who were angered by the way he left his job with the Trump administration (late in 2020) and those appalled by the way he got it in the first place (nominated late in 2018).

Barr has, in essence, written a letter from No Man's Land.

Barr alternates between castigating and exonerating, between sounding sympathetic and exasperated. He catalogs Trump's offenses yet casts him as the latest victim of dishonest media and "the radical Left."

Barr reports that at the end of Trump's term, the president had "lost his grip" and become "manic and unreasonable" and "off the rails," heeding the advice