A few weeks ago, I recommended that you read “Unthinkable” by Congressman Jamie Raskin, his powerful new book on a double tragedy: the loss of his son to suicide and the near loss of our democracy on January 6. 

Here’s another must read: “Shackleton” by Ranulph Fiennes, the positively gripping account of the explorer’s three expeditions to Antarctica: almost as good as slushing across the ice yourself, and especially relevant with the discovery of Shackleton’s sunken ship, Endurance.   

But today (March 15) I hasten to add one book you must ignore: “One Damn Thing After Another,” the pathetic apologia released this week by Trump Attorney General William Barr. 

Don’t pick it up. Don’t buy it. Don’t read it. And, above all, don’t believe it.

Betting on our having the collective memory of a gnat, Barr devotes almost 600 pages to painting himself as the one man in the Trump administration who dared stand up to Donald Trump and single-handedly save our democracy. 

Baloney! Unfortunately for him, we remember all too well: that in the passel of toadies around Donald Trump, Bill Barr was one of the biggest toadies of all.   

OK, give him credit for this. On Dec. 1, 2020, Attorney General Barr told The Associated Press that the Justice Department had investigated allegations of widespread voter fraud and “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

Of course, that totally contradicted everything Trump was saying at the time. And, by the way, is still saying.   

Trump went nuclear. He summoned Barr to the White House, where, as Barr told NBC’s Lester Holt, “I told him that all this stuff was bullshit about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was.” 

At which point, Barr offered, and Trump accepted, his resignation. Barr actually resigned as AG two weeks later.   

For that one good deed: Bravo, Bill Barr. But let’s not go overboard in praise. For two reasons. 

One, all Barr really did was accept the results of a popular election Joe Biden had won by more than 7 million votes! Which was hardly an act of great courage. 

Two, one good deed does not come close to erasing the tons of damage Barr did in his two-year tenure as attorney general, when he turned the Justice Department into Trump’s personal law firm.   

Barr only got the job in the first place because, as a former attorney general, he wrote and released an unsolicited memo attacking the Robert Mueller investigation as “manufactured,” “phony” and “bogus.” 

Any probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, he argued, was part of “mendacious and fraudulent attempts to invalidate the legitimate election of an American president.”   

Then, once Jeff Sessions was tossed out and he was sworn in, Barr proceeded to undermine the Mueller investigation any way he could. 

First, by refusing to release the full Mueller report. Instead, he wrote a four-page letter to Congress which deliberately misrepresented the report by asserting it “did not draw a conclusion one way or the other” on obstruction of justice. Not true. In fact, Mueller’s report says: “Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”   

In the months following, Barr repeatedly acted to scuttle Mueller’s work and suck up to Donald Trump. 

When federal prosecutors recommended a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for Trump consigliere Roger Stone, Barr personally intervened to cut it in half. Even after Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn admitted lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, 

Barr intervened to dismiss all charges against him. 

Then, having effectively scuttled any investigation of Trump, he appointed prosecutor John Durham to investigate the FBI, which Barr accused of “abuse of power.”

 Former DOJ officials have told me it will take years to restore the department’s reputation for independent, politics-free enforcement of the law.   

The biggest question about Barr’s desperate attempt to rebuild his own reputation is: Why wait till he had a book to sell? 

Had Barr only spoken out in December 2020, he could have helped expose and destroy Trump’s “Big Lie” — and we might have been spared the trauma of January 6.   

Even today, Barr can’t quit Donald Trump. Even though he holds Trump “broadly responsible” for January 6, Barr said this week he would still vote for Trump in 2024.