One of our most colorful legal concepts is the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” The phrase was introduced by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter 80 years ago to hold that evidence obtained illegally cannot be used to convict a defendant.
We now know that the entire debate the country has been having over special counsel Robert Mueller's report was fatally infected by the lethal sapling that was Attorney General William Barr's four-page letter offering his gloss on the findings of the 448-page document. As a dandruff shampoo ad taught us long ago, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.