William Barr says a lot of people have the wrong idea about his time as attorney general in the Trump administration.
He told Morning Edition in an interview aired on Monday, "The media chose to weave a narrative that I was a toddy for the president, and that was false from the start, because I thought I could be free, and I Was."
Barr gives his version of events in a new memoir called One Demon Thing After Another, a reference to how one of his predecessors described running the Department of Justice. In an NPR interview, Barr said he categorically denied the president's views on the stolen election. He also defends his interference in the investigation of Trump and his allies.
The memoir takes a critical look at Trump's presidency and suggests that Republicans should nominate someone else in 2024. If Trump ran again, Barr told NPR, "I think he'll be one of the weaker candidates. We have a lot of young candidates who will fight for the principle, but they don't have those kind of obnoxious personal characteristics." Which alienates a lot of voters."
Yet as remarkable as the book is, Barr still agrees with the former president. He blames the Left Progressives, not his party, for dividing the country.
Barr describes the former president as constantly distracted by his own self-interest. Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State at the time, took advantage of this feature:
“We had this running joke that, whenever the president was munching on the mic about something in a private Oval Office meeting, the mic just had to mention Russiagate or something like that,” he said. "And the president, you know, would take it and run long enough, he'd rant and ... he wouldn't remember what he was angry about with Pompeo."
"At one point, I said to the President: 'You know, Mr. President, you're like a bull in a bull ring and your opponents have your number. They know how to get under your skin, And all they have to do is wave a red flag over here and you go to charge and attack him.' And I said, 'At the end of the day, you're gonna be sweating in the middle of the ring and someone's going to come and put a sword on your head,'" Barr said. "He didn't think much of that metaphor."
A natural sympathy for Trump has been diluted by the election
Barr, a two-time attorney general and conservative Republican, grew up in a conservative family in liberal New York City. When left-wing protesters took over the library at Columbia University during the 1960s, a freshman, Barr, joined the protestors.
Barr called on President George H.W. Worked for the CIA before his first term as Attorney General. Bush. His book spent much of the time on the culture wars, accusing the radical advance of dividing the country – making it easier to understand what he saw in Donald Trump.
But after the 2020 election, when Barr couldn't tell Trump what he wanted to hear, the attorney general finally broke up with the president.
As he told the Associated Press at the time, Barr said the Justice Department found no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in the election. Barr says in his book that he told the president to his face that the stolen election claims were "bull****".
The president angrily accepted Barr's resignation on the spot. He withdrew it sometime later, but Barr de facto resigned in December 2020.
Barr said, "After the election, he didn't listen to anyone except a group of sycophants who were telling him what he wanted to hear."
When the DOJ investigated claims of baseless election fraud, Barr said, "It was like playing whack-a-mole. All the theories came out that day, when we looked at them, they just evaporated." They were completely without foundation."
Barr drew attention to an NPR interview with Trump in January, in which Trump repeatedly told election lies. "He had a year to think about it," Barr said, and there's still no better evidence than a false claim that Biden got "more votes than voters" in Philadelphia. The claim has been denied, "and yet you keep hearing this over and over again," he said.
He calls his Trump-friendly decisions a refusal to criminalize politics
Before Trump tried to reverse the election, Barr was seen as one of his ruthless defenders, making decisions in favor of Trump and his allies for the Justice Department.
He does not express regret for those decisions. He argues that much of the political differences have been turned into criminal investigations, which is why he personally intervened in high-profile cases during his tenure.
He dropped the charge against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn of lying to the FBI, even though Flynn himself admitted to the crime. Barr said FBI agents have no good reason to interrogate him.
In 2019, Barr provided Congress with his summary of the high-profile investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, concluding that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russia and no determination as an obstruction of justice. can be done.
Then-special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation, said Barr failed to capture the "substance" of Mueller's findings. Barr disagrees, and tells NPR that he hasn't spoken to his longtime friend since.
Does Barr have anything to say to Mueller today? "I won't tell him anything," Barr said. "He tried to do his job. I tried to do my job."
In Some Ways, Barr and Trump Stay on the Same Page
Barr defends the former president on several issues. He tells NPR that he doesn't "understand" Trump's "affinity" for political strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin, but understands his efforts to foster good relations with Putin.
Then there was Trump's infamous phone call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that 2019 call, Zelensky appealed for Javelin missiles to defend itself against Russian tanks, weapons Ukraine now says it needs more in its fight against Russian aggression.
Trump asked Zelensky for help digging up the political mess to use in his re-election. He urged Zelensky to speak with his personal attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Barr. Barr says he had nothing to do with it.
"It was an absurd idea and it was pushed in a ridiculous way," Barr said. "But at the time, I didn't think it was criminal, and I still don't think it was criminal."
For all his criticism of Donald Trump, Barr writes repeatedly that radical leftists are those who seek to subvert traditional American institutions.
When asked whether the January 6 attack on the Capitol was not an attempt to sabotage the democratic system, he said, "I didn't see it as a rebellion. I mean, I think it was a riot that turned out to be . Control."
Despite calls by a pro-Trump crowd at the Capitol that day to "hang Mike Pence," Barr said he didn't take the threat against the then-Vice President literally. "I thought it was essentially a propaganda-type thing," he said.
He tells NPR that if he were in the Senate for Trump's second impeachment, he would have voted to acquit the former president because Trump had left office by then.
Nonetheless, he is hopeful that his party moves forward - making a different choice when it comes to selecting the next Republican presidential candidate.