- In a forthcoming book, the ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl chronicles the final days of the Trump administration.
- According to the book, Bill Barr reportedly blasted Trump’s false election claims as ‘bullsh–.’
- Mitch McConnell reportedly pleaded with Barr to speak out against Trump’s voter fraud claims.
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Former Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly blasted former President Donald Trump’s debunked election claims as “bullsh–,” according to a forthcoming book by ABC News Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Barr’s response to the aftermath of the highly contentious 2020 presidential campaign was detailed in an excerpt of the book “Betrayal,” published in The Atlantic on Sunday.
The interview offers critical insight into Barr’s relationship with Trump after the election and provides a stunning look at the then-attorney general’s line of thinking regarding the former president’s false election claims.
The former attorney general, who reportedly told Karl that he foresaw a Trump election loss, knew that the former president would approach him about allegations of voter fraud.
According to Karl, Barr “wanted to be able to say that he had looked into” the allegations and prove that the claims were “unfounded.”
He added: “In addition to giving prosecutors approval to open investigations into clear and credible allegations of substantial fraud, Barr began his own, unofficial inquiry into the major claims that the president and his allies were making.”
In an interview with Karl, Barr was incredibly blunt in his assessment of Trump’s litany of fraud allegations.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr told Karl. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullsh–.”
Barr reportedly told Karl that the claims of voting machines being “rigged” to switch votes from Trump to Biden were untrue.
“We realized from the beginning it was just bull—,” Barr told Karl. “It’s a counting machine, and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two. There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still not aware of any discrepancy.”
In the interview, Barr also detailed how then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pleaded with him to rebuke Trump’s false election claims.
McConnell was reportedly concerned about the nationwide fallout from Trump’s allegations, as well as the effect that the complaints would have on the January 2021 Georgia US Senate runoff elections. (Then-Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were eventually defeated by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively.)
According to the excerpt, McConnell confirmed Barr’s account.
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