Ex-Attorney General Bill Barr has accused Donald Trump of an outrageous act of obstruction of his conduct in the classified documents case
Barr told Fox News that Trump even misled his lawyer by hiding files at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“He could have given the documents to the government and then sued to get them back and put forward his legal arguments as to why they really belong to him,” he said.
‘But he didn’t. What did he do? He engaged in an outrageous act of obstruction and deceit that impeded that summons.”
Bill Barr has become a staunch critic of his former boss in recent weeks, criticizing him for his behavior in the classified documents case
His comments echo those of Francis X. Suarez, the Miami mayor who has just announced his own presidential run.
Barr served in the Trump administration but resigned in December 2020 over the ex-commander-in-chief’s false claims that Joe Biden’s victory was a solution.
The 77-year-old real estate magnate, who celebrated his birthday on Wednesday, is out for his former presidential legal eagle, labeling him “gutsy.”
“I think he’s a coward who didn’t do his job. He was desperately afraid of impeachment,” Trump said in an interview with longtime friend Roger Stone.
“We had incredible people, as you know, in the administration. But you also had a few that we got wrong. And Bill Barr was a mistake,’
Barr has disputed claims by Trump loyalists that the Miami federal case should be heard under the Presidential Records Act.
The top attorney supports the more serious charges brought under the espionage law by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
He said in an earlier interview with Fox that Trump would be “toast” if they are proven to hold up in court.
The National Archives and Records Administration discovered soon after Trump left the White House in January 2021 that he had taken presidential papers with him.
Gary Stern, counsel at the National Archives, asked the former president’s team for the return of documents.
Donald Trump was advised by his lawyers for more than two years to return the documents, but refused
In the spring of 2021, some of Trump’s lawyers and advisers began recommending that he turn over the documents.
By the fall of 2021, Alex Cannon, who was a Trump attorney at the time, told his client to return them.
He warned the former president that archives threatened to go to Congress or the Justice Department if he did not return them.
Finally, in January 2022, he returned 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives.
More remained, and Trump was angry at repeated attempts to get him to hand over the rest.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, urged Trump to resist efforts to get him to hand over the documents, according to The Washington Post
Alex Cannon, a former Trump attorney, told the businessman in fall 2021 to turn over the documents, warning that the national records threatened to go to Congress or the Justice Department if he didn’t return them
Seven people with knowledge of the investigation say he misled his own advisers by telling them that the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothing.
In April 2022, he was served a subpoena forcing him to return them, and his new lawyer, Evan Corcoran, told him to comply.
But Trump was convinced by other allies, such as Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton and adviser Boris Epshteyn, that he should resist efforts to reclaim the papers.
That move led to the investigation led by Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor turned Trump fighter.