Ex-AG Barr Attacks Trump as Unfit in Upcoming Book
William Barr is urging Republicans to put former President Donald Trump in the rearview mirror in 2024 in favor of the political party’s younger leaders, the former attorney general writes in a new book.
In his upcoming 600-page book, “One Damn Thing After Another,” Barr says he thinks Trump could’ve beaten Joe Biden in 2020 if he had “just exercised a modicum of self-restraint, moderating even a little of his pettiness,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
The conservative lawyer encouraged members of his party to consider “an impressive array of younger candidates” that he did not identify by name — who he believes shares Trump’s agenda but not his “erratic personal behavior,” the book says.
The former attorney general, who served from February 2019 to December 2020, wrote that the former president has “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed.”
Barr’s book hits shelves March 8 and comes as Trump hints at another presidential run in 2024.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida on Saturday, Trump repeated his claims that President Biden was not legitimately elected in the 2020 election.
“Under our administration, Russia respected America just like every other country respected America, but now Joe Biden is seen as weak,” Trump told the raucous crowd in Orlando.
“As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president.”
In his book, Barr defends himself against accusations that he was protecting Trump when he issued a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
He also dropped the criminal case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.
Barr wrote that he had to intervene in those cases because of what he saw as overreach by federal prosecutors.
“Predictably our motion to dismiss the charges led to an election-year media onslaught, flogging the old theme that I was doing this as a favor to Trump,” he wrote in the book. “But I concluded the handling of the Flynn matter by the FBI had been an abuse of power that no responsible AG could let stand.”
Barr also recounts a heated meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 1, 2020, just after Barr stated publicly that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could reverse Biden’s victory, contradicting the former president.
“This is killing me — killing me. This is pulling the rug right out from under me,” Trump fumed at Barr, according to the book. “He stopped for a moment and then said, ‘You must hate Trump. You would only do this if you hate Trump.’”
He said he reminded the 45th president that he had “sacrificed a lot personally to come in to help you when I thought you were being wronged,” but that the Justice Department could not hold up his claims about the “big lie.”
Trump then ticked off a number of grievances he had against Barr, including declining to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey.
At one point during the meeting, Barr offered to resign.
“Accepted!” Trump yelled and banged his hand on the table, Barr wrote. “‘Leave and don’t go back to your office. You are done right now. Go home!’”
White House lawyers intervened, however, and Trump did not follow through.
Barr stepped down weeks later.
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