Trump's attorney general pick William Barr actually just made a strong case for impeachment

Because President Donald Trump has been so forthright about his belief that the U.S. attorney general should serve to protect him, his nomination of William Barr to head up the Justice Department terrified many political observers.

But despite the fact that there were a slew of disturbing elements of Barr's confirmation hearing on Tuesday, there were also some indications that he may, at some point, be willing to stand up to Trump.

At one point, it even seemed that Barr made a compelling case for impeaching Trump — though it's not clear how intentional this was.

"If a member of the president's family, or a business associate or something, was under investigation and he tries to intervene — he's the chief law enforcement office, and you could say, 'Well, he has the power.' But that would be a breach of  his obligation under the constitution to faithfully execute the laws," said Barr. "So in my view, if he attempts — if a president attempts to intervene in a matter that he has a stake in to protect himself, that should first be looked as a breach of his constitutional duties. Whether it also violates a statute [depends] on what statute comes into play depends on what all the facts are."

As MSNBC's Chuck Todd pointed out later, "He just outlined a case for impeachment!"

Reporter Katy Tur added: "In hearing him say that, 'intervene in a matter that ha has a stake in' — the president has been doing that over and over and over again for the past two years! He's on Twitter all the time intimidating witnesses. He's talking about how Manafort or Roger Stone or whomever should 'stay strong' — basically implying that he might be giving them pardons down the road the line. He's been doing this!"

Conservative writer Jennifer Rubin agreed — noting that Burr's analysis applied to one of the inciting incidents to Mueller's appointment.