Trump staff may want to grab any ketchup bottles now that his former attorney general, Bill Barr, spent more than six minutes on Fox News ripping apart Trump’s talking points about classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Barr began by calling the Trump team’s request for a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI a “waste of time” and a “red herring.”
“What people are missing,” Barr said, is that almost all the documents, classified or privileged, belong to the government. The other documents, like news clippings, that were held in the same boxes as the classified material were “seizeable under the warrant because they show the conditions under which the classified documents were held.”
Also, the FBI has already gone through the documents, Barr noted.
Co-anchor John Roberts asked, “Is there any legitimate reason for those materials to be in the former president’s possession?”
That's the cue to make sure ketchup bottles are out of Trump’s reach.
BARR: Uh, no. I can’t think of a legitimate reason why [those documents] should have been, could be taken out of the government, away from the government if they’re classified.
I, frankly, am skeptical of this claim that “I declassified everything,” you know, because frankly, I think it’s highly improbable. And second, if, in fact, he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them and said, “I hereby declassify everything in here,” that would be such an abuse, that shows such recklessness that it’s almost worse than taking the documents.
Barr concluded with a rueful smile.
Co-anchor Sandra Smith asked if there was “more room” to obtain the material without “raiding” Trump’s home. (“The FBI could have just asked” is another MAGA talking point.) It was also another one Barr wasn’t buying.
Barr said he thought the answer depended on two questions: “the character of those top secret documents and secret documents, how sensitive were they” and “how raw is the evidence of deceit and obstruction.”
When asked what he thought the answer might be, Barr said, “I personally think for [the FBI] to have taken things to the current point, they probably have pretty good evidence.” But that’s speculation, he quickly noted.
Then he added:
BARR: Let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this was unprecedented, well it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put ‘em in a country club, OK?
And how long is the government gonna try to get that back? You know, they jawboned 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 facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around and so how long do they wait?”
The one thing nobody mentioned are the serious concerns that Trump may have deliberately or inadvertently given the classified material to one or more U.S. adversary. But maybe that’s coming.
You can watch the interview below, from the September 2, 2022 America Reports, but you might want to pop some popcorn first.
I haven’t forgotten that Shepard Smith was pushed out the day after Barr met with Rupert Murdoch during a time when Trump was upset with Smith and some other Fox hosts Trump deemed not supportive enough.
https://www.newshounds.us/one_day_after_murdoch_meets_barr_shepard_smith_abruptly_resigns_101119
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/politics/fox-news-poll-trump-impeachment.html
In any event, the fact that Barr went on a Fox daytime “news” show to say all this, as opposed to one of the primetime MAGA shows, tells you that the Murdochs are still looking to squeeze profits out of the Trump base, even as they wring their hands over the damage #TraitorTrump is doing to their midterm chances.
Sad!
uhhhh. Is that why Bill Barr has decided to speak the truth?