Bill Barr, the 77th and 85th Attorney General of the United States who recently resigned from office after declining to back President Donald Trump’s lies about there being evidence of widespread election fraud, called the events of January 6, 2021 a “betrayal” of Trump’s making.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Barr placed blame for the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol squarely on Trump, condemning the 45th president’s “betrayal of his office and supporters.”
Barr said “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable,” referring of course to the Trump supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol as Congress was attempting to count the Electoral College votes and certify Joe Biden’s win.
On Dec. 21, Barr held a final press conference where he undercut the incessant baseless, fantastical conspiracy theories of the president and his allies about the 2020 Election.
Barr made the remarks after it was reported over the weekend prior that Trump was discussing appointing Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate baseless allegations of widespread, election outcome altering voter fraud and irregularities. Barr reiterated what he said weeks before then: that he had seen no evidence to support those allegations.
“If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would name one, but I haven’t, and I’m not going to,” he said.
Barr said he was sure there is some fraud in every election, including this one, but he noted that he had seen no evidence to support allegations that “systemic or broad-based” election fraud cost Trump a win.
The attorney general also said he saw “no basis” for “wholesale seizure of [voting] machines by federal government,” which was essentially the goal of the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits unsuccessfully brought in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin by Powell and other lawyers.
Barr’s brief condemnation of the president on Thursday stands in stark contrast to Barr’s resignation letter, which read like an homage to Trump.
“Your 2016 victory speech in which you reached out to your opponents and called for working together for the benefit of the American people was immediately met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds,” Barr said, catering to Trump’s long list of grievances. “The nadir of this campaign was the effort to cripple, if not oust, your Administration with frenzied and baseless accusations of collusion with Russia.”
Barr then said few could be said to be a strong as Trump in the weathering of such attacks, capping a letter that was described as reaching a “Dear Leader” level of sycophancy. As Law&Crime noted many times before, Barr was instrumental—if not the most important administration figure—in propelling the Trump administration agenda forward, whether through the Mueller probe, impeachment or any number of scandals.
[Image via MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images]
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