Maddow urges viewers to ignore the DOJ ‘official lie’ defending Trump and Barr: ‘The truth is evident’

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow on Thursday urged her viewers not to believe the administration's "official lie" on Roger Stone's sentencing that Attorney General Bill Barr unveiled during an interview with ABC News.

"Over the last few days, as this crisis has erupted within the Justice Department and more broadly in a country that is now acutely concerned about the rule of law, but there's one very specific piece of this that I'm not sure anybody has reported on yet, which is kind of a beacon in a dark night here in terms of demonstrating what happened and demonstrating what the official lie is going to be as they try to make us swallow this," Maddow noted.

The host described how multiple DOJ sources said Barr's interference in Stone's sentencing was "unprecedented."

Yet Barr told ABC News that his intervention was "totally normal," in the words of Maddow, and Trump's tweet "totally coincidental."

Maddow described that defense as the "official line" from the administration -- which she urged voters to ignore.

"Here, plainly, among us citizens, let us not abandon our powers of reasoning and common sense," Maddow suggested. "I mean, here, plainly, despite the official lie that was rolled out today to try to alleviate this crisis, here, plainly, the attorney general intervened personally to do this most unusual, once in a lifetime thing for the president's friend, because that guy was the president's friend."

"And there is now -- broadcast on ABC News -- an official lie about that, but the truth is evident here," she noted.

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