By Jeff
Zymeri
Monday,
June 19, 2023
Former
attorney general Bill Barr had strong words for Donald Trump after
the former president was indicted on charges of mishandling classified
documents, arguing in an interview over the weekend that Trump “constantly
engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the
conservative and Republican agenda at risk.”
Speaking
to Robert Costa on Sunday’s Face the Nation, Barr was asked to
weigh in on Trump’s behavior as alleged in special counsel Jack Smith’s
indictment. The former president is facing 37 criminal counts, including
willful retention of national-defense information, conspiracy to obstruct
justice, and making false statements. According to Barr, Trump will always
gratify his own ego ahead of everything else, including the best interest of
the country.
“He’s
like a nine-year-old, defiant nine-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass
toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it.
It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people.
And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the
country’s, his personal gratification of his ego, but our country can’t be a
therapy session for a troubled man like this,” Barr explained.
According
to Barr, Jack Smith has a strong case against the former president. “If even
half of it is true, he is toast,” Barr said in a previous interview on Fox
News. “I mean, it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning.”
In an
op-ed published by the Free Press on Monday, Barr said he
thinks Trump has been subjected to politically motivated investigations in the
past, but the latest indictment does not fall into that category.
“Trump
has been the victim of witch hunts by obsessive enemies willing to do anything
to bring him down. On those occasions—most prominently Russiagate, and more recently the civil and criminal actions against him in New
York—I have never shied away from defending him. As his attorney general, I
witnessed firsthand the unfair and venomous treatment he, and those in his
administration, often received,” Barr wrote. “It is also true, as I know well, that Trump
is a deeply flawed, incorrigible man who frequently brings calamity on himself
and the country through his dishonesty and self-destructive recklessness. Even
his supporters, who can’t help but acknowledge that he is own worst enemy, know
it.”
According
to the former attorney general, Jack Smith’s other investigation into Trump in
connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 is a weaker one.
Barr is skeptical of that probe on First Amendment grounds, just as he is
skeptical of the Georgia DA’s probe into Trump. Fani Willis is looking into
whether the former president interfered in the 2020 elections in that state.
The former
attorney general has also criticized the case brought against Trump by the
Manhattan district attorney, who has accused the former president of falsifying
business records in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn actress.
Asked by
Costa if Trump should be sentenced to jail as part of any conviction, Barr
answered in the negative. “I don’t like the idea of a former president serving
time,” he explained.
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