William Barr reacts to latest Trump indictment: ‘Legitimate case’

Former Attorney General William Barr believes the Justice Department has a “legitimate case” in the latest indictment against former President Donald Trump, who is accused of spreading lies about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

In a Wednesday night interview on CNN, Barr, who served a stint as the nation’s chief law enforcement under Trump, also said he has grown to believe that Trump has always known that he legitimately lost his White House reelection bid.

“As a legal matter I don’t see a problem with the indictment,” Barr told “The Source” host Kaitlan Collins. “I think that it’s not an abuse  — the Department of Justice is not acting to weaponize the department by proceeding against the president for a conspiracy to subvert the electoral process.”

Trump’s attorneys have claimed that the president was exercising his first amendment rights — a defense that Barr does not think will hold in court.

“They’re not attacking his first amendment rights, he can say whatever he wants he can even lie and tell people the election was stolen when he knew better, but that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. All conspiracies involve speech and all fraud involves speech,” he said. “Free speech does not give you the right for fraudulent conspiracy.”

Barr said he wasn’t sure initially, but has since “come to believe that [Trump] knew well that he had lost the [2020] election.

“And, now, what I think is important is, the government has assumed the burden of proving that. The government, in their indictment, takes the position that he had actual knowledge that he had lost the election and the election wasn’t stolen through fraud,” Barr told Collins.

The government assuming the burden to prove the president committed the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt has led Barr to believe that the public has only seen “the tip of the iceberg on this indictment.”

“I think there’s a lot more to come, and I think they have a lot more evidence as to President Trump’s state of mind,” he said.

Barr declined to comment on whether or not he had spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators.

After the election, Barr issued a memo to federal prosecutors giving them approval to investigate allegations of “vote tabulation irregularities” in a number of states as Trump and other conservatives cried foul.

Weeks later, on Dec. 1, Barr revealed the Justice Department uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

“Not only did we not find any fraud of that magnitude, but, in the states, and when you actually looked at the votes, they were very clear to me why he lost,” Barr said. “He ran as the weakest person on the Republican ticket. Like, in Pennsylvania, he came in 60,000 votes below the Republican ticket.”

Barr stepped down as attorney general on Dec. 14, 2020.

Trump “brought this indictment on himself” through his carelessness, Barr said.

“This is one of the reasons I oppose him for the Republican nomination, because he has this penchant for engaging in these reckless acts that create these calamitous situations and then undercut the cause he is supposed to be leading. And this is a perfect example of it,” he said.

Barr said he feels that the DOJ does appear to go after Republicans more than Democrats, he fears that Trump, if re-elected, would use the government to take out his opponents.

“And that’s why I think it’s so ironic all these people are getting huffy about weaponization, which they should, because we can’t go tit for tat,” he said. “But Trump, as you say, I mean, he’s very clear about it. I think there’s no question that he believes these institutions should be used to go after his enemies.”

“Whether it’s criminal or not, someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office,”Barr told Collins. “And for him to be attacking a prosecutor who is investigating that with all the epithets and so forth, which he has no basis for, as far as I can tell, is ridiculous.”

Trump is facing a separate federal indictment in Florida related to his mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-A-Lago estate. Barr said that case is now stronger with a superseding indictment that accuses Trump of directing an employee to delete surveillance camera footage that had been subpoenaed by a grand jury.

Trump also faces an indictment in New York regarding hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election, which Barr dismissed as a “political hit job.”