'Barr ended up just being like Trump': Morning Joe writes political epitaph for 'resigning' attorney general

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough buried President Donald Trump's outgoing Attorney General Bill Barr, and said he's lucky to have escaped criminal charges during his term overseeing the Department of Justice.

Barr submitted his resignation Monday and will leave the government before Christmas, and the "Morning Joe" host said Trump's corruption became too much for even this attorney general to endure.

"Well, actually, what happened was Bill Barr found himself backed against the wall and forced to write a letter because Donald Trump obviously was going to fire him," Scarborough said. "But Bill Barr ended up doing what other Republicans ended up doing. When they could undermine American democracy by their words, when they could spread propaganda that Vladimir Putin couldn't pay for, when they could lie about investigations that were conducted, he would gladly lie about [Robert] Mueller's investigation and misstate facts. When he had a chance to go and testify in the Senate and the House, he would openly commit perjury. Still surprised no one ever brought charges against him for that."

"But like those local Republican officials, when it came to signing his name on a legal document, that would expose him legally in the years to come, he never did it," Scarborough added. "Barr ended up just being like Trump, just like all of the Republicans in Washington, D.C., like the [126] that signed on to that [Texas lawsuit], they had no problem with gestures that undermined American democracy. They just wouldn't sign their name on the dotted line in a way that would expose them legally to undermining the United States of America. So it's interesting, Barr leaves with one of the most horrific records for any attorney general. He was Donald Trump's Roy Cohn, but as we got near the end of the election there were some things that even he -- even he wouldn't do."