President Donald Trump issued a blistering statement attacking his former attorney general Bill Barr late Sunday, accusing him of being a “RINO” and a coward.
“RINO former Attorney General Bill Barr failed to investigate election fraud, and really let down the American people,” Trump wrote in a statement issued to reporters.
Trump responded to a series of comments Barr made to ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl for his book about the former president’s fight to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
Barr recounted and defended his statement to the Associated Press in December 2020, when he said his department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Barr recalled that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged him to speak out against Trump’s claims of fraud, noting the Attorney General was “in a better position to inject some reality into this situation.”
Trump was furious.
“How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?” he said after Barr’s December statement was widely covered by cable news, according to Karl’s book.
“Because it’s true,” Barr replied.
“You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,” the president replied according to Barr.
In his statement, Trump criticized Barr for failing to take allegations of fraud seriously.
“It’s people in authority like Bill Barr that allow the crazed Radical Left to succeed,” he wrote. “He and other RINOs in the Republican Party are being used in order to try to convince people that the election was legitimate when so many incredible facts have now come out to show conclusively that it wasn’t.”
Barr said he investigated the claims of election fraud, but found nothing.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr said to Karl in an interview. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”
Barr resigned on December 14, as President Trump announced the news on Twitter, citing a “very nice” meeting with his attorney general.
“Our relationship has been a very good one. He has done an outstanding job!” Trump wrote at the time.
But the president disparaged Barr in his statement issued Sunday calling his former attorney general “a disappointment in every sense of the word.”
“Bill Barr’s weakness helped facilitate the cover up of the Crime of the Century, the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” he concluded.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.