1. This thread is based on recent conversations with people whose information and judgment I trust, who in turn have spoken candidly with Trump appointees still on the inside.

Here's a question: Why did Trump and Barr, when they negotiated Barr's departure, settle on Dec. 23?

2. It could, obviously, be kind of random--a date picked last week to allow Barr to get things in order, an accommodation of Barr's family schedule, etc. But it could also be that Barr very much wanted to get out before Dec. 24, and/or that Trump wanted him out by then.

3. One obvious possibility discussed in the White House: Trump has spoken about a bunch of pardons on Christmas Eve. Some of the names may have been too much for Barr--so they agreed on his departure on Dec. 23.

4. (Or the pardons will be a few days later, but the principle holds--Barr wanted out, or Trump wanted him out, first.) But it could be more than pardons. Yesterday Barr suggested there were several things he wouldn't do that Trump wanted him to do as AG...

5. ...ranging from appointing special counsels for Hunter Biden or election fraud, to giving a legal ok for seizing voting machines or for various types of Insurrection Act-type moves by the president. Can one be confident Barr's successor as AG, Jeffrey Rosen, will also say no?

1. Thread.

In light of tomorrow's congressional session to record the electoral votes, and for conservatives and Republicans who claim to look for guidance to the Founders, a short thread from Federalist #68.

2. "It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any pre-established body...

3. "...but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture...It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder...But the precautions which have been so happily concerted...

4. "...in the system under consideration promise an effectual security against this mischief...As the electors, chosen in each state, are to assemble and vote in the state in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less...

5. "...to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place. Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption...