Bill Barr says federal cases against Trump will be tried before election and ‘chances are’ he will be convicted 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday argued that former President Donald Trump’s 2024 White House bid shouldn’t give him “immunity” from prosecutors and suggested the ex-commander-in-chief “will be convicted of some counts” before Election Day. 

Barr appeared on Fox News and was asked by host Neil Cavuto whether judges handling the 77-year-old former president’s four criminal cases should weigh the upcoming primary elections when scheduling Trump’s trial dates.

Barr insisted that while some accommodations may be appropriate, it would be better for the country to have the cases resolved before voters head to the polls in November of 2024. 

“I don’t think that that should govern the schedule for pursuing these cases,” Barr, 73, said of Trump’s campaign schedule. “You know, you don’t get immunity for two years in the run-up to an election just by saying, ‘Hey, I’m a candidate.’”

“These investigations have been going on for a while. Everyone knew about them even before he announced his candidacy. So, if there’s a chance to get it resolved before the election, it should be because the American people should know these are crimes that involve, or potential crimes, involving moral turpitude,” the former attorney general added. 

Barr dismissed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels as an “obviously a political hit job” and a “joke” that may not even make it to trial. 

He also criticized the most recent indictment against the former president out of Georgia – where Trump faces 13 felony counts related to his alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results – as “too sweeping, much too broad” and “excessive.”

Barr argued that it is unlikely to be tried before the 2024 presidential election and that it makes it “look like people are piling on and being excessive to Trump and feeds the narrative that he’s being victimized.” 

“I’m not happy with the Georgia case,” Barr said. “I don’t think it’s going to be trialable before the election. It’s just too sprawling.” 

Barr, however, called special counsel Jack Smith’s two federal cases against Trump, related to his alleged mishandling of national security documents and “knowingly false” claims made by the former president in an attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election, “responsible cases” that will make it to trial sooner than the other cases. 

“I think the federal cases are legitimate. At the end of the day, at the core of this thing, he engaged, in the case of the documents, in outrageous behavior where anyone would be prosecuted,” Barr argued.

“I don’t know of any attorney general who could walk away from it,” he said of the classified documents case. “He’s not being prosecuted for having the documents he’s being prosecuted for obstruction – two egregious instances are alleged. So I think that’s a very simple case and that should be tried. If the judge is anywhere competent, that can be concluded before the summer.” 

Barr added that he believes Trump “crossed the line” after the 2020 election and that his alleged efforts to impanel fake electors in conjunction with demanding that former Vice President Mike Pence not certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory “was a calculated and deceitful plan.”

“I think the chances are that he will be convicted on some counts,” Barr said. 

However, the former attorney general doesn’t see Trump serving any time behind bars. 

“I don’t think that that translates into jail time,” Barr told Cavuto, explaining that “a very substantial penalty would serve the public interest” but that putting Trump in jail “has too many collateral bad impacts on the country.” 

“There’s ways of having custody without putting him in, you know, in federal facilities. You can have home detention and other things,” Barr said of the most likely result of a Trump conviction. 

Barr wouldn’t rule out voting for Trump in the general election even if he were to be convicted of a crime

“I will jump off that bridge when I get to it,” the former attorney general said, noting that he would have to “see all the evidence that comes out about his conduct.”

The former president blasted Barr ahead of his Fox News sitdown, questioning why the network would have the former top Justice Department official on as a guest.

“Why does FoxNews constantly put on slow thinking and lethargic Bill Barr, who didn’t have the courage or stamina to fight the Radical Left lunatics while he was A.G., and who, even more importantly, refused to fight Election Fraud,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He knew what was going on, just look at his past remarks! Unless FoxNews starts putting the RIGHT people on, their Ratings will never recover.”