Bill Barr may spring an 'October Surprise' to save Trump's re-election: columnist

Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky is warning Democrats to beware of Attorney General Bill Barr's last-ditch effort to save President Donald Trump's reelection campaign by springing last-minute indictments of former law enforcement officials involved in probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Specifically, Tomasky speculates that Barr is pushing for prosecutor John Durham to allege that Russia was actually working to get Hillary Clinton, not Trump, elected in 2016.

"In light of the Berman ouster, which followed similar shenanigans to put 'his people' in place at the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s office and an exodus of top officials from Main Justice in Washington, people had better be paying renewed attention to what Durham might be up to," Tomasky writes. "Democrats have to start drawing attention to this."

The good news, Tomasky argues, is that Barr's credibility is already so weak thanks to a series of missteps that any investigation he presides over will already appear tainted to a large segment of voters.

"So Democrats need to start saying right now that Durham is engaged in a phony investigation that is an attempt by Barr to rig the election," he writes. "They need to say it and say it and say it. And then, when Durham issues his report or indictments, public opinion, or the important slice of it anyway, will be conditioned to believe that it’s all a scam."