Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy read the first part of the prologue to former Attorney General Bill Barr’s new book, One Damn Thing After Another.
Michael Patrick Leahy:
We’re going to change a little bit from our normal pattern because I just can’t wait to talk about this book. So I’m going to read to you. I have a copy of it now. It was published today. I’m going to read to you the prologue of former Attorney General Bill Barr’s book. It’s got a fabulous title, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General.
And actually you think, what is he talking about there? He actually took that phrase “one damn thing after another” from a former attorney general under Gerald Ford, who talked about, well, what’s the job of attorney general? And basically, it’s not some great philosophical thing.
This was back in the ’70s when William Levy, attorney general under Gerald Ford, described the job as one damn thing after another. And so when you see the book, obviously, you immediately think, well, he’s talking about dealing with Trump. Not just Trump.
It’s talking about all the problems he had as attorney general, one damn thing after another. Now we take exception to some of the things that Bill Barr, former attorney general, said about election integrity. We think he made a mistake.
And we are efforting to get Bill Barr as a guest here on The Tennessee Star Report. We’ll do an extended time with him. I don’t think we’ll be able to get him in-studio, but we’re going to try to get him on as a newsmaker.
I find he’s a very interesting fellow, it seems to me. And so if you’re ready, we’ll start here in this segment, and we’ll have to continue until the next segment and then I’ll tell you my interjections. So here we go. This is the prologue of One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General by Bill Barr. He served as attorney general under Donald Trump for about three years and was basically fired in the latter part of December 2020. Here is a description. We begin the prologue:
The first day of December 2020, almost a month after the presidential election was gray and rainy. That afternoon, the president, struggling to come to terms with the election result, had heard, I, Bill Barr, was at the White House for another meeting and sent word that I was to come to see him immediately.
I knew what was coming. I soon found myself standing in the president’s small dining room off of the Oval Office. The president was angry. As angry as I had ever seen him.
More than 2 hours earlier when I had left the Justice Department for the White House, I told my personal assistant, Theresa Watson, that there was a good chance the president would fire me.
If he does, I said he will probably direct me not to return to the office so she might have to pack up for me. ‘Oh, POTUS always says that,’ Theresa responded using the government acronym referring to the President of the United States.
But everyone ignores it and if it happens, you just come back, she said. As I walked out the door Theresa called after me, “but anyway, he’s not going to fire you.” (Laughter) Famous last words.
We will continue with the prologue to One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of Attorney General Bill Barr after this break.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “William Barr” by Office of Public Affairs CC BY 2.0.
