June 11, 2023

Trump’s AG: “If Even Half of It Is True, He’s Toast”

Former attorney general Bill Barr says the Trump indictment is “damning.”

Donald Trump and Bill Barr pictured on July 11, 2019 in Washington, DC. Oliver Contreras/AP

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Former attorney general Bill Barr said Sunday morning that he believed that Donald Trump is in real trouble with the latest indictment against him for mishandling classified documents. “I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly,” Barr told Fox News’ Shannon Bream. “If even half of it is true, he’s toast. It is a very detailed indictment and it’s very, very damning.” Barr noted that despite Trump’s insistence that the prosecution is a politically motivated witch hunt, “I think the counts under the Espionage Act … are solid counts.”

When it comes to Trump, Barr has been all over the map since leaving his post running the Department of Justice. But his assessment of the new indictment may be telling given that just last month, Barr was on Fox News decrying Trump’s first—first!—indictment in New York on charges related to his alleged payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. He told host Larry Kudlow that the New York indictment was an “abomination” and a weak case, “the epitome of the abuse of prosecutorial power.” He dubbed the legal theory behind the indictment “pathetically weak…held together with chicken wire, paper clips and rubber bands. It’s a lousy case.”

The fact that Barr is conceding that the Justice Department may have a solid case against Trump in the classified documents case suggests that the charges may be far more serious for Trump that the former president likes to acknowledge. Trump’s most die-hard supporters, however, still remain unconvinced.

Also making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows this week was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House judiciary committee, who was deeply involved with Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Jordan told CNN’s Dana Bash that the new indictment was “most political thing” he’d ever seen. “Dana, he said time and time again he declassified all this material,” Jordan claimed. “If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, if he wants to store it in a box on a stage, he can do that.”

Jordan’s assertions are directly contradicted by Trump himself, who was captured on tape bragging to people at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that the military secrets he was sharing with them had not, in fact, been declassified. “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump says during the meeting, according to the transcript obtained by CNN. “This was done by the military and given to me…. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information.”

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