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GOP Disarray: Barr slams Trump, Rove defends FBI's Mar-a-Lago search on Fox, a sore Loomer in Fla. [1]
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Date: 2022-08-27
As attorney general, William Barr was only too willing to do Donald Trump’s bidding, including distorting the findings of the Mueller investigation into the former president’s collusion with Russia in the 2016 campaign.
A few days ago the Justice Department released the full text of a secret 2019 memo that Barr used as justification for not charging Trump with obstructing the Mueller investigation, even though special counsel Robert Mueller found numerous instances of obstruction.
But Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud and efforts to overturn the results were too much even for Barr who stepped down as attorney general in December 2020. And Barr testified before the House Jan. 6 select committee, declaring in videotaped testimony that Trump’s election fraud claims were “bullsh-t,” “complete nonsense” and “a disservice to the country.”
Barr’s real concern was that Trump’s actions were potentially damaging the Republican Party and the conservative movement — which he also defended as attorney general during the Iran-Contra investigation in President George H. W. Bush’s administration.
So Barr went out and attacked Trump and his supporters for questioning the legitimacy of the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
The Huffington Post reported that Barr was interviewed Thursday on journalist Bari Weiss’ podcast Honestly.
Barr said:
“Something I’m pretty tired of from the right is the constant pandering to outrage and people’s frustrations. And picking and picking and picking at that sore without trying to channel those feelings in a constructive direction.”
Barr said it’s “premature” to reach a conclusion about the Aug. 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, but he admitted that it’s “hard to explain” why Trump would have held on to official documents that should have been turned over to the National Archives under the Presidential Records Act at the end of Trump’s term..
And Barr criticized the attacks orchestrated by Trump on FBI Director Christopher Wray, He said that Wray, a Trump appointee, is not going to “wake up and say, you know, ’How do I throw the FBI’s weight around to interfere in the political process? Just the opposite. I think he’s very cautious about that.”
But what Barr said particularly “irritated” him about the “whole episode” is that it “strengthens [President Joe] Biden and hurts the Republican Party going into the midterms because the focus once again returns to President Trump and his persona and his modus operandi rather than the pocketbook issues.”
“The problem with Trump is that it’s all about running just the base election, whip up your base, get your base all upset, get them outraged and turn them out at the polls,” Barr said. “That’s a prescription for continued hostility within the country, and demoralization of the country and an impasse in the country.” Of course, he also had to blame Democrats for doing the same.
Barr also said that Trump was hurting the Republican Party by turning it into a personality cult.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/27/2119196/-GOP-Disarray-Barr-slams-Trump-Rove-defends-FBI-s-Mar-a-Lago-search-on-Fox-a-sore-Loomer-in-Fla
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