By Christina Zhao
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Twitter users slammed Attorney General William Barr this weekend for joking that his return to the Department of Justice felt like the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.
During a speech to a class of agents graduating from the FBI Academy on Friday — one day after the 75th anniversary of D-Day — Barr recalled his arrival at the Justice Department in February.
"I'm a two-time offender. This is my second stint as attorney general. My arrival this time was a little more eventful then I recall it being the last time," the attorney general said, prompting the audience to laugh quietly.
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"As we've been watching the coverage of June 6, 1944," Barr added. "I had the thought that my arrival this time felt a little bit, I think, like jumping into Sainte-Mère-Église on the morning of June 5, trying to figure out where you could land without getting shot."
Shortly after Barr's comments circulated the internet, social media users jumped at the chance to ridicule and condemn the attorney general for comparing himself to the Allied troops of D-Day, who landed in Normandy in 1944 in a significant step toward liberating France from Nazi occupation.
"Note to Bill Barr of the @TheJusticeDept: The paratroopers on DDay risked their lives jumping into Nazi occupied France. Many never came home. Never compare yourself to the heroes of DDay #SaturdayMorning Thoughts," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted on Saturday.
"Those brave men jumped on D-Day to defend us from people like Donald Trump and William Barr," Twitter user @chiefster16 wrote.
"Obscene. On D-Day, US troops & allied forces fought & killed Nazis to stop white supremacist rule. Today, William Barr works for Trump who has support of Nazis who endorse white supremacist rule," writer and producer Greg Wilson tweeted.
"William Barr likened his arrival at DOJ to the D-Day landing at Sainte-Mère-Église on the morning of June 5, 1944," Twitter user @dr0lst0n wrote. "He thinks that he's a hero for helping to destroy the credibility of the DOJ."
"The galling arrogance of Barr comparing his bureaucratic expansion of executive branch power to the deeds of heroes who died fighting Nazis puts him on par with his boss," Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, tweeted.
"It is incomprehensible that anyone would be so morally degraded as to suggest legally unfounded manipulations to provide cover for criminals is somehow comparable to the heroism of the bravest defenders of human freedom & dignity," Joseph Robertson, Global Strategy Director for the Citizens Climate Lobby, tweeted.
"Smug ego maniac who avoids the physical exercise that might clear his head, reminds me of another prominent Republican," Twitter user Bardley Clayton Barth wrote.
"Wow. He's as good at all-about-me-ism as his narcissistic boss, all while trivializing the experience and heroism of our D-Day heroes," Twitter user Eleanor Arnold added.
"This is equal parts delusional, arrogant and idiotic," CNN legal analyst Elie Honig tweeted.
Barr's comparison of his arrival at the DOJ to D-Day is apparently in reference to the controversy surrounding his office's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. In his 4-page summary of the Russia report, delivered in March, Barr wrote that the special counsel's investigation "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election." The attorney general also concluded that Mueller's probe neither exonerated nor indicted Trump on whether he obstructed justice and indicated he didn't see any reason to move forward with criminal proceedings against the president.
However, when Mueller's 448-page redacted report was finally released almost a month later, it painted a hazier picture for Trump. Despite the special counsel declining to accuse Trump of a crime, he did reveal ample evidence of wrongdoing by the president and his team, dating back to the then-presidential candidate's 2016 campaign to current day.
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