Former Attorney General Bill Barr says he believes former President Trump is ‘toast’ if ‘even half’ of the allegations in the indictment against him are true.
Barr has described the indictment as highly comprehensive and incredibly damaging to Trump’s reputation.
‘I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, … and I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he willfully retained those documents are solid counts’, Barr said on Sunday.
‘If even half of [the indictment] is true then he’s toast. It’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning,’ Barr explained on Fox News on Sunday morning.
‘This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here – the victim of a witch hunt – is ridiculous. Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. Yes his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims, and I’ve been at his side defending him when he is a victim, but this is much different. He’s not a victim here,’ he said.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr says President Trump ‘is toast’ if even half of the allegations in the indictment against him are true
Former President Donald Trump speaks during the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina on Saturday
‘He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets the country has.’
The comments from Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general from February of 2019 through December of 2020, are notable and were made at a time when many other prominent Republicans have been hesitant to criticize the former president and current Republican front-runner in the 2024 White House race.
Trump is due to appear in a federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday to make his initial appearance on the charges, which include the willful retention of highly sensitive national defense records under the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, making false statements, conspiracy and concealment.
However, despite Trump’s claims of being the victim of a witch hunt, Barr emphasized that the situation was distinct and that Trump was not a victim this time around.
In the past, Barr had been a fierce defender of Trump, going so far as to appoint his own special counsel to probe whether the FBI improperly opened an investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia based on flimsy evidence. Pictured in 2019
Barr made the point that the former president was completely wrong in his belief that he had the right to possess the sensitive classified documents mentioned in the indictment, which are classified national secrets.
The records referenced in the indictment are ‘official records’ prepared by government intelligence agencies, he said, and therefore they are the property of the U.S. government.
‘Battle plans for an attack on another country or Defense Department documents about our capabilities are in no universe Donald J. Trump’s personal documents,’ he said.
In the past, Barr had been a fierce defender of Trump, going so far as to appoint his own special counsel to probe whether the FBI improperly opened an investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia based on flimsy evidence.
Barr’s views on Trump soured after the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department to launch bogus voter fraud investigations, in a failed bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The pair are pictured in April 2020
But towards the end of his tenure, Barr’s views on Trump soured after the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department to launch bogus voter fraud investigations, in a failed bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, who considers himself a victim of a political hit job, was indicted on 37 federal counts, including charges related to retaining national defense information, obstructing justice, and making false statements.
His attorney Alina Habba, who is not representing him in the case, told Fox News that Trump is innocent of the charges and plans to vigorously defend himself in the case.
‘He would never admit guilt, because there was nothing wrong with declassifying documents,’ Habba said.
‘This is completely politically motivated. It’s election interference at its best. He has every right to have classified documents that he declassifies under the Presidential Records Act,’ Habba explained.
But Barr said the claim that the documents were Trump’s personal records is ‘facially ridiculous.’
Of the 37 counts against Trump, 31 of them relate to secret and top secret classified documents that he kept after leaving the White House in early 2021.
‘They took one charge, and they made it 36 different times. And we have a thug who is in charge. This is a political hit job, Republicans are treated far differently at the Justice Department than Democrats,’ he said during a speech this weekend at the Georgia Republican state convention.
The indictment accuses Trump of failing to comply with demands to return classified documents, which included sensitive information about defense capabilities, nuclear programs, and plans for a retaliatory attack on an undisclosed foreign power.
‘The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods,’ the indictment says.
Trump has previously defended his retention of classified records, claiming without evidence that he declassified them while in office – a defense that his allies have also repeated.
‘I go on the president’s word that he said he did,’ U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday when asked if he had any evidence to back up Trump’s claim.
In previous litigation related to the FBI’s search of his Florida home, however, Trump’s lawyers repeatedly declined to make that argument in their court filings, and the indictment also contains evidence that Trump knew he had retained records that remained highly classified.
‘As president, I could have declassified it,’ the indictment quotes Trump as saying about one military document he allegedly displayed during a meeting at his New Jersey golf club in July of 2021. ‘Now I can’t, you know, because this is still a secret.’
Trump and his allies have also separately tried to argue that the records at the heart of the case are personal in nature and covered by the Presidential Records Act.
