(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) William Barr, who left the Trump administration as Attorney General on Dec. 23, 2020, has been making the media rounds to promote a new memoir in which he reveals his reasons for resigning.
WATCH: Former Attorney General Bill Barr describes the moment former President Trump accepted his resignation after Barr refused to say there were irregularities during the 2020 election.
Watch more from the exclusive interview with @LesterHoltNBC tonight on @NBCNightlyNews. pic.twitter.com/Wqy9xaYsur
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) March 3, 2022
“I told [President Trump] that all this stuff was bullshit about election fraud, and, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was,” Barr told NBC’s Lester Holt.
Barr claimed that during the same meeting, Trump slammed the table with his hand and shouted “accepted!” when he offered to tender his resignation. Barr also claimed that Trump is responsible for the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
“I do think he was responsible in the broad sense of that word, and it appears that part of the plan was to send part of this group up to the Hill,” Barr said. “I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress, and I think that that was wrong.”
However, as an excerpt of the book published by the Wall Street Journal reveals, Barr himself believed that there likely was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“The data suggested to me that the Democrats had taken advantage of rule changes—especially extended voting periods and voting by mail—to marshal the turnout they needed in their strongholds in key states,” Barr wrote.
“I had been a vocal critic of these rule changes precisely because they would increase the opportunity for fraud and thus undercut public confidence in the election results.”
“There was also no question that, in some areas, state rules meant to guard against fraud—for example, the requirement that voters file applications for mail-in ballots—were not followed,” he continued.
But, he lamely concluded, “the opportunity for fraud isn’t evidence of fraud.”
Holt said that Trump described Barr as a “coward” and a “big disappointment” in a letter to NBC.
In a statement issued today, Trump called Barr a “broken man.”
“[AG Barr] . . . was so petrified of being held in contempt or being impeached by the Democrats, which they were constantly threatening him with, that he was virtually a broken man who allowed for the systemic violation of election laws and other things to take place,” Trump wrote.
