Ex-AG Barr Says Jan 6 Committee “Not an Optical Mechanism for Getting at the Truth”

Former Attorney General William Barr said there were “legitimate areas of inquiry” with regard to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but he argued that the House select committee investigating the matter was not “an optimal mechanism for getting at the truth.”

Barr made the comments in an interview Saturday morning with Fox News’s Cavuto: Coast to Coast after being asked for his thoughts on the House panel, which held its first prime-time hearing Thursday. Barr served as the nation’s top law enforcement officer until late December 2020, when he broke with then-President Donald Trump over his claims that the presidential election had been stolen through widespread fraud.

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“I do think there are legitimate areas of inquiry, but I also agree with the congresswoman that this isn’t set up as an optimal mechanism for getting at the truth, and there is obviously a big political overlay,” Barr told host Neil Cavuto, making reference to his previous guest, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The GOP lawmaker had argued that while she condemned the attempted insurrection, she believed the select committee was focused on political gains rather than fact-finding.

The former attorney general continued by noting what questions he believed were valid to ask about the lead-up to the Capitol riot.

“I think it’s legitimate to explore whether or not there was a plan to use violence to stop the vote, and if there was a plan, was the president involved? I haven’t seen anything up to now that makes me think he was, and I personally doubt it,” he said. “But I think that those are legitimate questions.”

“And the other question is more of a political nature, which is, did the president stand by for hours while the Capitol was under attack, and did nothing and made the comments that were attributed to him about the vice president? I think that’s a legitimate area of inquiry.”

As for whether Trump could be criminally culpable for trying to overturn the 2020 election results, Barr said he found that unlikely.

“Well, I haven’t seen anything that makes me think the president committed a crime,” he said. “What’s come out so far has generally been known before.”

Video footage of Barr being interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee was featured during Thursday’s hearing. The former attorney general was shown telling investigators of the breakdown in his and Trump’s relationship: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bulls***.”

He also said that he told Trump campaign officials that voter fraud claim against Dominion voting machines was “crazy stuff” that was “doing a grave disservice to the country.”

The committee also featured clips from a deposition by Ivanka Trump, who said she believed Barr’s repeated public assessments that the 2020 election was not stolen.

“It affected my perspective,” the former first daughter told committee investigators. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”

The former president took issue with both of their testimonies, writing on his Truth Social platform: “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).”

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Asked about the former president’s comments by Cavuto on Saturday, Barr laughed before replying, “Well, I considered the source. I sort of ignore those kinds of comments.”

“I think the president’s response is something I would expect from him, which is essentially ad hominem attacks,” he said.