Former Attorney General Bill Barr On Monday morning, in his first TV interview since leaving the Trump administration in late December 2020, he further pours cold water on his old boss’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Former law enforcement official said there is “simply no evidence” that the last presidential race was “stolen” from Donald Trump — although he left the door open for a re-vote for him if Trump ran in 2024.
Barra White House memoir One Damn Thing After Another is due out March 8th. Ahead of their release, excerpts show that the former Attorney General has clearly and directly targeted Trump, claiming he has “gone off the rails” after 2020. elections and making him responsible for January 6 Capitol attack.
NBC Today host Savannah Guthrie asked him on Monday: “Once and for all, did the president lose the election or was it stolen or rigged through massive fraud?”
“Stolen and falsified are different things, but there was no theft of election results through fraud. This means you know that people who didn’t have the right to vote or didn’t exist, their votes were counted or good votes were subtracted. The votes reflected the decision of the people,” Barr said.
“There just wasn’t any evidence of it.”
Barr said the alleged “evidence” that Trump’s lawyers promoted in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s victory was “nonsense” and “simply false,” pointing out that “no evidence has surfaced since.”
He continued: “You look at the vote, the actual vote, and there is no mystery as to why he lost. He lost because he was told for a year that he would lose. That is, he alienated independent and Republican voters in the suburbs. That’s why he lost.
Barr joined NBC for his first live television interview since leaving the Trump White House following his pre-recorded interview with the same network that aired Sunday night.
Barr also acknowledged that he underestimated Trump ahead of the Capitol riots, saying his “goal was to put pressure on Congress and the Vice President.”
“Regardless of whether the laws were broken, regardless of whether it was shameful, because one branch of government should not try to use the mob to pressure another branch,” the former attorney general said.
However, he does not rule out voting for him in 2024 if Trump bids for re-election, saying the Democrats pose an even greater threat.
“I’ve made it clear that I don’t think he should be our nominee and I’m going to support someone else in that nominee,” Barr began.
But, he added, “because I believe the biggest threat to the country is the progressive agenda promoted by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.”
Guthrie nudged him, “So even if he lied about the election and threatened democracy, as you say in your book, better than a democrat?”
“It is difficult to predict what the facts will be in three years. But at this point, it’s hard to imagine that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Guthrie mentioned to Barr that there was a big gap between his public and private concerns about Trump. In his book, Barr writes that he felt Trump had taken a “dangerous turn” after the 2020 election. On the contrary, in his resignation letter, he shared praise for Trump’s “historic” accomplishments before leaving home.
Barr said Trump’s handling of the Capitol riot was “shameful” and feared he was “in a precarious position” after the 2020 election, but still said he would have voted for Trump had he been the nominee Republicans because he thought Democrats and Joe Biden’s progressive agenda were “the biggest threat to the country”
He repeatedly evaded the question, explaining, “I said that he acted in a dangerous way because he… you know, he did not listen to the advice of his advisors. And in the past you could keep things in order, and now I felt like he kind of went off the rails.”
This is his second interview with the NBC host after a lengthy pre-recorded meeting with Lester Holt, who apparently reached out to Trump for comment on Barr’s interview.
Trump discarded barr in a three-page letter released Monday morning alleging he fired a Justice Department official because he “didn’t have the backbone.”
Letter dated March 2 received Axios, was sent to NBC headquarters in New York. It contains a series of questions followed by lengthy responses from Trump.
He said of Barr’s upcoming book, “I guess if the book is anything like him, it’s going to be long and slow and very boring.”
It was printed in the name “Mr.” Holt,” but the ex-president seemed to take a more personal approach, crossing it out and handwriting “Lester.”
In his Monday morning interview, Barr called Trump’s letter “childish.”
“It’s in the order of things,” he replied when asked about his reaction.
“The president is a person who, when he is told something he does not want to hear, immediately throws a tantrum and attacks the person personally. So I thought the letter was… was childish.
Trump sent a March 2 letter to NBC News headquarters in New York that appears to be in response to statements made by Bill Barr in his lengthy Sunday night NBC interview with host Lester Holt.
Ex-official of the Ministry of Justice condemned the actions of the ex-president elections 2020 allegations of fraud and its role in last year’s Capitol riot, both in his book and in a TV interview.
“Bill Barr cares more about being accepted by the corrupt Washington media and elite than serving the American people. He was slow, sluggish, and I realized early on that he never had what it took to be a great attorney general,” Trump’s letter began.
“When radical left-wing Democrats threatened to put him in contempt and, worse, impeach him, he became practically useless for law and order and fair elections. They broke him the way a trainer breaks a horse.
Trump also said that Barr’s dismissal of his 2020 election fraud claims was a “virtual joke”.
In support of this, he allegedly attached a report pointing to “widespread corruption” in at least one swing state in the election count, which was not included in Monday’s letter report and did not appear to have been picked up by NBC.
The former president accused Barr of now “bowing down before the media, hoping to get recognition he doesn’t deserve.”
During his interview with NBC, Barr said he was “furious” when he learned that Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their infamous 2019 phone call that the attorney general would contact him about Trump’s political rivals.
He told Holt that Trump “never had a good idea, you know, about the role of the Justice Department.” [and] to some extent, you know, the role of the president.”
Trump appeared to have responded to the allegation in a new letter, saying that what he was asking Barr had “nothing to do” with his personal problems.
Barr told NBC’s Holt that he doesn’t believe Trump understands how the Justice Department works and that he was “furious” to learn that his former boss had indicated that Barr’s department should investigate Trump’s political rivals.
“As President of the United States, I am the Chief Executive responsible for the heads of departments, including the Attorney General. When I saw that the Department of Justice was not doing its job, I have every legal right to ask them to do it in accordance with the law and the Constitution. This has nothing to do with my personal legitimate interests,” said the ex-president.
“With regard to the prosecution of political rivals, it was just the opposite. Despite the many crimes committed by the Biden family, I did not push Barr to go after them. Although what was done was legendaryly corrupt, I thought it would be inappropriate for me personally to get involved in it.”
In his forthcoming book, Barr claims he condemned Trump’s attempt to discuss President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who at the time was under a federal investigation into his overseas business dealings.
He also details one latest, explosive confrontation with Trump, in which the former president told Barr that he “must hate Trump” because he publicly rejected the idea of widespread electoral fraud shortly after Biden won the White House.
Barr claims in his book that Trump told him to go home immediately in response to Barr’s offer to resign. He left the Justice Department at the end of December 2020.
Trump called Barr’s version of events “incorrect and completely fabricated.”
Instead, the former president stated that he said: “If you have not seen the corruption in the elections, about which so much has already been revealed (and in huge numbers before this date), then (sic) you are not capable of being a prosecutor. General. You don’t have the energy or the backbone to oppose the radical left. Please give me your resignation letter.
Barr responded to Trump’s letter live in an interview with NBC Today on Monday morning.
“Stolen and falsified are different things, but there was no theft of elections through fraud,” the ex-prosecutor general reiterated. “That means people who don’t have the right to vote or don’t exist, their votes have been counted or good votes have been subtracted.”
“The vote reflected the decision of the people.”
The final question Trump asks in his letter is Barr’s claims about last year’s uprising.
On Sunday night, Barr said he held Trump “morally responsible” for the events of January 6, 2021, though he admitted he wouldn’t go after his former boss for it.
“I do think he was responsible in the broadest sense of the word, as part of the plan was to send this group to The Hill,” Barr said. “I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think it was wrong.
Trump said “January 6 wouldn’t have happened” if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington, D.C. agreed to beef up security at the Capitol that day.
“They weren’t interested in stationing troops in Washington because they ‘didn’t like the look.’ If they accepted my offer, there would be no January 6th as we know it,” Trump said.
He stated: “I was the President of the United States and I was asked to give a speech on January 6th. I went to the site, gave a speech, and returned to the White House.”
“Now the witch hunt continues with Shifty Adam Schiff, RINO Liz Cheney and other members of what I call the Unselection Committee. In the long run, the American people will win.”