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Former Attorney General Bill Barr discusses in his new book the “awkward” moment when he first saw then-President Trump after The Associated Press reported on an interview in which Barr said the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud that determined the outcome of the 2020 election.
Just weeks after the election, Trump and his legal team were making bold but unsubstantiated claims of massive fraud in multiple states. Barr told the AP’s Michael Balsamo that the DOJ explored some of these claims, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” This “enraged” Trump, according to Barr.
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“Did you say this?” Barr recalls Trump asking him after what Barr described as an “awkward silence,” with Trump “breathing a little heavier than usual, his nostrils flaring slightly.”
Attorney General William Barr and President Trump attend a signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 26, 2019, in Washington, D.C.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
After Barr admitted that he did give that quote, Trump asked him why he would do that.
“Because it is true, Mr. President,” Barr answered. “The reporter asked me what the department had found to date, and I told him.”
Trump told Barr that saying that was “killing me” and “pulling the rug out from under me,” before accusing Barr of hating him – an assertion that Barr rejected.
In the book, Barr states that he reminded Trump that the DOJ is not part of the president’s legal team and that Trump was blaming it for his own lawyers not being able to find evidence of fraud.
Attorney General Bill Barr waits before President Trump signs an executive order about social media in the Oval Office of the White House on May, 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
“Our mission is to investigate and prosecute actual fraud,” Barr recalls saying. “The fact is, we have looked at the major claims your people are making, and they are bulls—.”
“I’ve told you that the fraud claims are not supported,” Barr continued, noting that he was not the only one say this to Trump. Still, Barr said, Trump’s team of lawyers “continues to shovel this s— out to the American people. And it is wrong.”
Barr went further, telling the president that part of the problem is that instead of having a quality legal team that was prepared from the beginning, “you wheeled out a clown show” that good lawyers would not want to join.
“Maybe,” Trump acknowledged, according to Barr. “Maybe.”
Attorney General William Barr speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Dec. 21, 2020.
(Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Barr does discuss in the book how Democrats changed voting rules in a number of states and that he was opposed to this.
“The data suggested to me that the Democrats had taken advantage of rule changes–especially extended voting periods and voting by mail–to marshal the turnout they needed in their strongholds in key states,” he wrote.
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Barr went so far as to say that some rule changes stripped away safeguards meant to prevent fraud – such as sending mail-in ballots without requiring that voters apply for them – and that this “increased the opportunity for fraud.”
“Still,” Barr wrote, “the opportunity for fraud isn’t evidence of fraud.”
