Former federal prosecutor explains what can happen to Bill Barr now that he's been caught in lies

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace played a years-old clip of legal adviser and former prosecutor Neal Katyal saying that it was clear there was a "miss-match" between what then-Attorney General Bill Barr was saying about Robert Mueller's investigation and what the special counsel was saying. Years after the fact, it has become clear that Barr not only lied to the American people, but he lied to Congress and he lied in court, while trying to cover up what was actually being done to protect then President Donald Trump.

"I'm not sitting here feeling good about the fact that I and so many others were right two years ago," he confessed Wednesday. "I desperately wanted to be wrong. Our system is set up to trust Barr was attorney general of the United States. not the attorney general for President Trump. He was supposed to be for the people. Unfortunately, there was always a degree of corruption around him. He constantly acted like one of Donald Trump's personal attorneys. Now, with the new decision by the judge into his deception, he's finally being treated like one of the gang, which he always was."

He noted that Judge Amy Berman Jackson made it clear that Barr lied to the court as well as the American people.

"She called Barr's actions in the litigating position disingenuous, which is something you almost never hear a federal judge say about any litigant, particularly not someone from the Justice Department, and particularly not the attorney general of the United States," Katyal continued. "If a federal judge calls your testimony before the Congress disingenuous, as she did, I think it's time to start retaining legal counsel, and ideally someone who can save whatever is left of that tattered reputation that you have."

Wallace pressed Katyal, asking what can be done now that Barr is out of office.

"Well, I think, you know, this is true about every attorney who surrounded themselves with Donald Trump," he began. "They run into criminal liability. You see it -- you know, we'll talk about [Rudy[ Giuliani a bit later. You see it time and again, Michael Cohen, all these other people. Judge Jackson is saying in this opinion, Barr, you testified before Congress, your testimony before Congress was that you had made these decisions. Now it looks like you didn't actually make these decisions, and this material you're trying to prevent the American people from seeing you claimed was shielded because you hadn't made the decisions at the time, but it looks like you did. So, there is the possibility of a criminal investigation into Bill Barr now. There's also the possibility of civil and disciplinary actions against him as well. I mean, the attorney general of the United States is supposed to be above reproach. Here you have the top lawyer for the entire government, you know, being accused of being disingenuous by an incredibly well-respected judge in D.C. This is the third judge."

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