Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s once-favorite attorney general, on Friday stunned Fox News hosts while destroying the former president’s legal lines of defense in his attack on the Dept. of Justice for executing a legal “search and seize” warrant on Mar-a-Lago .
Donald Trump had five attorneys general in four years – just two of them confirmed by the U.S. Senate – but his favorite AG, Bill Barr, resigned in the final weeks of the twice-impeached President’s only term, after being his primary source of defense. In the 20 months that have followed, Trump has attacked Barr, and Barr has fought back via his memoir in which he called the former president “detached from reality.”
The Daily Beast reports on Friday Barr told Fox News the U.S. Dept. of Justice was “being jerked around” by Trump, as the Fox News hosts tried to portray the former president as a victim of the DOJ’s “raid,” even asking why they didn’t serve Trump with a second subpoena after he refused to comply fully with the first.
Fox News’ Sandra Smith said to Barr, “looking at the unprecedented nature of a raid of a former president’s home like this,” some suggest “there was more room for the authorities to obtain these materials without raiding the president’s home while he was not even there. Do you think this type of this raid was was avoidable? Do you think a second subpoena for example could have been issued?”
Smith did not get the answer she expected.
“Well, I think whether the raid was reasonable under the circumstances, whether there is in fact a case to be made, and whether or not as a matter of prudential judgment, that case should be brought depend on two questions,” Barr said. “The character of those top secret documents and secret documents – how sensitive were they? – and second, how raw is the evidence of deceit and obstruction? Do they have really good evidence from people who were involved?”
Barr told Smith, “I personally think for them to have taken things to the current point they probably have pretty good evidence, but that’s speculation and until we see that, it’s hard to say.”
“Now let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was was you know, loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago,” Barr said. “People say this was unprecedented, but it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club. Okay? And how long is the government going to try to get that back? You know, they jaw-bone for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken, they then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel, and the record the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around.”
“And so how long, you know, how long do they wait?”
This was the second portion of the Barr interview, earlier he stunned his Fox News hosts when he informed them that the 13,000 items the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago are government property, and the former president’s call for a “special master” is unnecessary.
As NCRM previously reported, late Friday morning a federal judge unsealed the more detailed inventory list of what FBI agents seized from Mar-a-Lago on August 8. It shows 13,097 items were removed from Donald Trump’s residence/resort, among them over 100 classified documents including 31 documents marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” 54 documents marked “SECRET,” and 18 documents marked “TOP SECRET.”
Watch below or at this link.