Former Attorney General Bill Barr accused former President Trump of lying to the Department of Justice about the classified documents case in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning.
“Do I personally believe it? Yes, I do,” Bill Barr responded, when host Robert Costa asked him if he believed Trump lied to the Justice Department about the classified documents case.
“Absolutely,” Barr responded, when asked if Trump had mischaracterized the Presidential Records Act in defending his alleged actions.
“The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information as his personal papers is absurd,” Barr said, adding that it was “just as wacky as the legal doctrine they came up with for having the Vice President unilaterally determine who won the election.”
Barr went on to explain that the purpose of the Presidential Records Act statute, passed after Watergate, was to stop presidents from taking official documents out of the White House.
The act restricts what a president can take to items that are “purely private” and have nothing to do with deliberations of government policy, in Barr’s view.
“Obviously, these documents are not purely private … they’re not even arguing now that they’re purely private … it’s an absurd argument.”
“He had no right to those documents,” Barr said, adding that Trump “jerked around” authorities trying for over a year to retrieve the documents in question.
“This is not a circumstance where he’s the victim … he provoked this whole problem himself,” Barr said, also acknowledging that Trump had been the victim of “unfair witch hunts in the past.”
“He engaged in a course of deceitful conduct,” Barr said, commenting on his former boss’s actions following a subpoena, according to the indictment.
“It was a clear crime if those allegations are true,” he also said.
“[The obstruction case against Trump is] very strong, because a lot of the evidence comes from his own lawyers,” Barr said, when Costa asked him how strong he believed the obstruction case against Trump to be.
Barr deflected when asked whether Trump should serve a prison sentence if convicted, but did say he “didn’t like the idea of a former president serving time.”
Barr described Trump as “fundamentally flawed,” adding that he engages in “reckless conduct” that leads to “calamitous situations like this.”
“Trump has many good qualities and accomplished some good things,” Barr also said.
“He is a consummate narcissist, and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk.”
“He’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s.”
“Our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”
“I don’t expect to be a witness, but I’ll be glad to be one if I’m called,” Barr said.
Former President Trump described Barr is a “disgruntled former employee” who “hates” him, in a post to his Truth Social platform last Sunday.
Trump added that he believes Barr “knows the indictment is bull…” and advised people to “turn off Fox News when that ‘gutless pig’ is on!”
Barr resigned from his position as Trump’s Attorney General in December 2020, CNN reported. People familiar with the matter told the outlet Trump had been “seriously considering firing” him just prior to the resignation, but aides had discouraged him from doing so in the preceding months.
“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job! As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family,” Trump tweeted at the time.
Watch host Robert Costa’s interview with former Attorney General William Barr on CBS’s “Face the Nation” below.
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