Attorney General William Barr resigned on Monday, effective December 23. Barr was one of the two smartest and most effective Trump administration employees (the other being Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), and he was one of the best AGs in recent memory. As we have written on occasions too numerous to list, he served his country well, and every Patriot should thank Mr. Barr for doing his job with integrity and tenaciousness.

It’s admittedly unusual that he’d depart a month before the end of President Donald Trump’s term, but perhaps the Electoral College vote was sufficient. Barr’s resignation letter was certainly gracious to the president, who undoubtedly at times made Barr’s job more difficult. “I am greatly honored that you called on me to serve your Administration and the American people once again as Attorney General,” Barr wrote. “I am proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people. Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance.”

Specifically, Barr wrote, “You built the strongest and most resilient economy in American history — one that has brought unprecedented progress to those previously left out. You have restored American military strength. By brokering historic peace deals in the Mideast you have achieved what most thought impossible. You have curbed illegal immigration and enhanced the security of our nation’s borders. You have advanced the rule of law by appointing a record number of judges committed to constitutional principles. With Operation Warp Speed, you delivered a vaccine for coronavirus on a schedule no one thought conceivable — a feat that will undoubtedly save millions of lives.”

Trump was likewise gracious, tweeting, “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”

Yet their very public disagreements of late were likely the real reason Barr decided to take an early retirement from his second stint as attorney general. There was the lack of a full report from U.S. Attorney John Durham on Obama’s malfeasance, the quiet way in which the DOJ conducted its probe of Hunter Biden, and Barr’s statement last month that Justice had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.” All three led to disparaging remarks from Trump toward his AG.

As for the job Barr did, consider the cleanup he faced upon taking the job. Barack Obama had turned the Justice Department into a political weapon not just against Trump but against conservatives all over the nation. Barr was tasked with returning the department to upholding Rule of Law, and in the deep-state swamp, that’s a tall order.

In particular, take note of how Barr handled the aforementioned ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden — he did what he was supposed to do and kept it under wraps while it proceeded. That may not have helped Trump politically and, again, Trump certainly complained that Barr didn’t help him, but that’s not the attorney general’s job. To that point, and by contrast, Loretta Lynch secretly met with Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac in July 2016. No, they did not merely talk about grandchildren as they claimed; anyone who says they didn’t discuss the “matter” of the DOJ’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal email server is lying.

Lynch and Eric Holder before her viewed the AG post as primarily serving as Obama’s political wingman. Barr is nobody’s wingman, and that’s why he didn’t politically leak details of the Biden investigation or push Durham for faster results just to benefit Trump. And yet some folks, including the president, will unfortunately always resent Barr for not giving Democrats a sufficient “dose of their own medicine.”

Just remember that the Left will always denounce Barr for supposedly having been Trump’s political stooge, fixer, and hitman.

However, one of Barr’s final acts was giving “special counsel” status to Durham so he can continue conducting his newly expanding probe into the Obama-Biden administration’s criminal actions regarding Trump’s 2016 campaign and the ensuing coup attempts. That status at a minimum makes it politically difficult for Biden to fire Durham or interfere in any way.

In his resignation letter, Barr noted of the Russia-collusion hoax that Trump’s presidency was “immediately met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds” and that “the nadir of this campaign was the effort to cripple, if not oust, your Administration with frenzied and baseless accusations of collusion with Russia.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s greatest defenders, praised Barr. He was, Graham said in a statement, “the right man at the right time in overseeing highly political investigations, and stood in the breach at times against both the left and the right.” Barr stood for the Constitution. While Biden has not chosen his own AG yet, we don’t hold any hope that the same will be said of him or her.