Wednesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” host Chuck Todd said Attorney General Bill Barr’s comments during his congressional testimony that the Department of Justice had spied on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign “gave credence to a factless conspiracy theory.”
Todd said, “Attorney General Bill Barr did something extraordinary on Capitol Hill. He didn’t just say what the president wanted to hear, although he did do that and he didn’t make an explosive claim of what might have led to the Russia investigation. He did that, too. The country’s chief law enforcement officer went in front of Congress and gave credence to a factless conspiracy theory.”
He continued, “Using the word spying plays into the president’s language that the Russia investigation to him is just a witch hunt. Every time they’ve brought up this allegation, there has been zero factual basis for it. Every effort to perpetuate the spying conspiracy theory has been debunked.”
He added, “Barr said in a hearing he has no specific evidence about wrongdoing at the department. But you don’t get to put the toothpaste back into the tube, do you? Maybe it was because President Trump was making the same accusation literally as the attorney general was testifying before Congress.”
Later during the panel discussion, Todd said, “It doesn’t matter what the truth is, does it? I mean, I hate to say this now, but that’s the whole point. It feels like that basically the attorney general gaslit the country.”
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