William Barr, Donald Trump’s former attorney general, said he believes Trump’s legal troubles are likely to bolster him during the Republican primaries but “greatly weaken” him during the 2024 general election, which Barr said the former president cannot win.
“He’s already, I think, a weak candidate that would lose, but I think this sort of assures it,” Barr, who has previously said he won’t support Trump’s reelection, told ABC News “This Week” on Sunday.
Barr said it’s not because of Trump’s arrest last week in New York on charges related to hush money payments during his 2016 campaign. The former attorney general called that case “unjustified” and “an abuse of prosecutorial power,” echoing complaints by Trump allies and even some critics.
Instead, Barr said it’s the federal investigation into classified documents ― reportedly more than 300 ― found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and another investigation into Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, violence at the U.S. Capitol. Trump is also being investigated over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Those first two investigations, Barr said, will ultimately make him an undesirable candidate for most voters.
“He had no claim to those documents,” Barr said of the series of recovered classified files. “They belonged to the government. I think he was jerking the government around.”
Trump has continued to insist that he has the power to automatically declassify documents, telling a crowd last week that “the process is automatic if I take them with me.”
The seriousness of any charges related to those documents, Barr said, will be based on how sensitive the documents were and if there’s evidence of obstruction, such as him directing people to lie or give deceitful information to the government.
“I think that’s a serious potential case. I think they probably have some very good evidence there,” Barr said.
“He had no claim to those documents … I think he was jerking the government around.”
– William Barr, referring to classified documents found at Trump’s Florida home
Citing people familiar with the matter, The Washington Post reported last week that the Department of Justice and the FBI have gathered new evidence that points to possible obstruction by Trump.
Regardless, Barr said he believes any criminal charges against Trump will motivate his supporters to rally behind him ahead of the primaries early next year. But that support won’t spread into the general election, he predicted.
“I think, ultimately, the savvy Democratic strategists know that this is going to help Trump, and they want him to be the nominee because he is the weakest of the Republican candidates, the most likely to lose again to Biden,” Barr said.
As for when Trump could face any kind of sentence if he’s convicted of any crimes, Barr said he doesn’t believe it will happen before the 2024 election.
“This stuff is going to drag out through ’24, and it’s going to stymie and disrupt the whole Republican primary process,” he said.
Trump’s next in-person hearing on the hush-money charges has been scheduled for Dec. 4. That’s roughly two months before the start of the 2024 Republican presidential primary calendar.