Keep a critical eye on William Barr — Trump’s newest and most effective hatchet man. In his CBS interview on May 31, he actually said this:

“I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it’s President Trump that’s shredding our institutions. I really see no evidence of that…. [B]asically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring.”

And this:

“[R]epublics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state.”

So Barr is worried that Trump’s critics are the norm-busters, not Trump. And he has a special concern about leaders who label critics “enemies of the state.”

Irony is dead. In its place Barr is inserting something very dangerous.

Here’s a complete list of the latest updates to the Trump-Russia Timeline at Dan Rather’s News & Guts and at Just Security:

MAR. 5, 2019: Mueller Tells Barr That His Report Will Include Executive Summaries, Says He Won’t Make Determination on Obstruction (revision of previous entry)

REVISED: MAY 27, 2019: Trump Tweets: ‘Impeach For What’, Dems ‘Only Want A Do-Over’, ‘Statements By Agents Investigating Trump Could Well Be Treason’ (revision of previous entry)

MAY 29, 2019: Mueller Makes First Public Statement Since Issuing Report

MAY 29, 2019: Trump Tweets: ‘Nothing Changes’, ‘WITCH HUNT’; Retweets Attacks on DOJ and FBI, Sanders’ WH Spins Mueller Statement: ‘No Collusion, No Conspiracy, No Obstruction

MAY 30, 2019: Trump Tweets: ‘Highly Conflicted Robert Mueller Would Have Brought Charges If He Had ANYTHING’; Trump Campaign ‘Clearly Did Not Conspire Or Collude’; Attacks Comey and Brennan; ‘ ‘Shame on Robert Mueller’; CASE CLOSED’

MAY 30, 2019: Trump Tweets ‘I Had Nothing To Do With Russia Helping Me To Get Elected’, ‘Presidential Harassment’; Then Backtracks

MAY 31, 2019: Trump Tweets Mueller’s Investigation Was ‘Political Hit Job’

MAY 31, 2019: Barr Changes Story on Mueller; Discusses Investigating the Investigation and the People Who Did It; Defends Trump

MAY 31, 2019: Justice Department Defies Judge’s Order, Complies With Separate Order to Release Transcript of Call to Flynn

JUNE 1, 2019: Trump Tweets That Flood Is Departing; ‘NO COLLUISON, NO OBSTRUCTION’, ‘THE TRUTH! The Witch Hunt Is Dead’

JUNE 2, 2019: Trump Tweets ‘NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION, NO NOTHING’, ‘Greatest Witch Hunt In American History’