Appearing on CBS Mornings, former Attorney General Bill Barr turned on former President Donald Trump, saying that “there is no excuse” for the former president’s handling of the documents the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence in a shocking raid.
Speaking about the documents, Trump’s handling of them, and the Department of Justice’s continued searching into Trump, Barr characterized the investigation as not a witch hunt but rather a responsible investigation.
Former AG Barr tackled that witch hunt accusation right from the beginning, saying that the facts of the case show the DOJ to be in the right, or at least not conducting a witch hunt. He said, “Based on the facts as the facts come out, I think over time, people will say that this is not a case of the Department of Justice, you know, conducting a witch hunt.”
Continuing, former AG Barr then foisted the blame on former President Trump, saying that he “jerked [the DOJ] around” for over a year instead of handing in the documents they wanted, saying, “In fact, they approached this very delicately and with deference to the President, and this would have gotten nowhere had the President just returned the documents, but he jerked them around for a year and a half.”
Barr then addressed the question of whether or not Trump tried to deceive the DOJ, suggesting that he did and that it would reflect poorly on him, saying, “And the question is, did he deceive them? And if there’s evidence of that, I think people will start to see that this says more about Trump than it does the Department of Justice.”
Barr then turned to directly attacking Trump, claiming that his ego leads him to act recklessly when he should be able to dodge trouble and assert that Trump’s ego also led him to not act honorably regarding public business. Speaking on that, Barr said, “And that is that he’s so egotistical that he has this pension for conducting, you know, risky, reckless acts to show that he can sort of get away with it. It’s part of asserting his, his, his ego, and he’s done this repeatedly at the expense of all the people who depend on him to conduct the public’s business in an honorable way.”
Barr then, bizarrely, blamed Trump for the impeachments instead of the Democrats and RINOs for their political persecution of him, saying, “And, you know, we saw that with both impeachments and there’s no excuse for what he did here.”
Conservatives were furious with Barr for the backstabbing attack on Trump. Commenting on the above video, commenters drew attention to Barr’s father’s alleged role in hiring Jeffrey Epstein to work at the Dalton School despite having no credentials, along with noting that Barr is only now turning on Trump in an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation now that Trump is even more controversial and facing legal battles.
Former President Trump responded by attacking Barr on Truth Social, saying, “Virtually everyone is saying that the Indictment is about Election Interference & should not have been brought, except Bill Barr, a “disgruntled former employee” & lazy Attorney General who was weak & totally ineffective. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying, it’s just MISINFORMATION.Barr’s doing it because he hates “TRUMP” for firing him. He was deathly afraid of the Radical Left when they said they would Impeach him. He knows the Indictment is Bull…. Turn off FoxNews when that “Gutless Pig” is on!”
Bill Barr on the classified documents investigation:
"This is not a case of the DOJ conducting a witch hunt…This would have gone nowhere had the president just returned the documents, but he jerked them around for a year and a half…There is no excuse for what he did here." pic.twitter.com/dYWzauBqjo
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) June 6, 2023
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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