Trump’s former AG claims ex-President is ‘TOAST’ if ‘even half’ allegations against him are true

Former Attorney General Bill Barr says he believes Donald Trump is “toast” if “only half” of the charges against him are true.

Barr – who was appointed by Trump in 2019 as the country’s top prosecutor – described the indictment as wide-ranging and incredibly damaging to Trump’s reputation.

“I was shocked at the level of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, … and I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he deliberately kept those documents are solid counts,” Barr said Sunday.

‘If even half of [the indictment] right, then he’s toast. It’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning,” Barr went on to explain Fox news on Sunday morning.

“This idea of ​​putting Trump here as a victim — the victim of a witch hunt — is ridiculous. Yes, he has been a victim in the past. Yes, his detractors have obsessively pursued him with false claims, and I have stood by his side defending him when he was a victim, but this is very different. He’s not a victim here,” he said.

Former President Donald Trump speaks Saturday at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina

“He was completely wrong that he had a right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets the country has.’

The comments from Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general from February 2019 to December 2020, come as other prominent Republicans rush to support Trump.

Trump will appear in a federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday to make his first appearance on the charges.

They include deliberate retention of highly sensitive national defense data under the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, making false statements, conspiracy and concealment.

However, despite Trump’s claims of being the victim of a witch hunt, Barr insisted that the situation was different and Trump was not a victim this time.

In the past, Barr had been a fierce defender of Trump. He even went so far as to appoint his own special counsel to investigate whether the FBI improperly opened an investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia based on weak evidence. Pictured in 2019

Barr pointed out that the former president was dead wrong in his belief that he had a right to possess the sensitive classified documents mentioned in the indictment, which are classified national secrets.

Prior to last week’s indictment, the former AG had long warned that the scrutiny of classified documents was the biggest legal danger Trump faces — and Barr doesn’t seem to have changed his mind.

The documents referred to in the indictment are “official documents” prepared by government intelligence agencies, he said, and therefore belong to the US government.

“Battle plans for an attack on another country or Defense Department documents about our capabilities are not the personal documents of Donald J. Trump in any universe,” he said.

In the past, Barr had been a fierce defender of Trump. He even went so far as to appoint his own special counsel to investigate whether the FBI improperly opened an investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia based on weak evidence.

Barr’s views on Trump soured after the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department to launch false voter fraud investigations in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The pair is pictured in April 2020

But towards the end of his term, Barr’s views on Trump soured after the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department to launch false voter fraud investigations in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, who considers himself a victim of political assassination, was indicted on 37 federal charges, including charges related to withholding national defense information, obstructing justice and making false statements.

His attorney Alina Habba, who is not representing him in the case, told Fox News that Trump is innocent of the charges and plans to vigorously defend himself in the case.

“He would never plead guilty because there was nothing wrong with releasing documents,” Habba said.

This is completely politically motivated. It is election interference at its finest. He has every right to have classified documents that he releases under the Presidential Records Act,” Habba explained.

But Barr said the claim that the documents were Trump’s personal data is “preposterous on the face of it.”

Of the 37 charges against Trump, 31 involve classified and highly classified secret documents he kept after leaving the White House in early 2021.

“They took one load, and they made it 36 ​​different times. And we have a thug in charge. This is a political hit, Republicans are treated very differently in the Justice Department than Democrats,” he said during a speech at the Republican state convention in Georgia this weekend.

The indictment accuses Trump of failing to meet demands to return classified documents, including sensitive information about defense capabilities, nuclear programs and plans for a retaliatory strike against a secret foreign power.

“The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could pose a risk to United States national security, foreign relations, the security of the United States military and human resources, and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence gathering methods,” the statement said. charge.

Trump has previously defended his retention of classified documents, claiming without evidence that he released them while in office — a defense his allies have also echoed.

“I’m going to take the president’s word that he said yes,” Jim Jordan, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday when asked if he had any evidence to support Trump’s claim.

However, in previous lawsuits involving the FBI’s search of his Florida home, Trump’s lawyers repeatedly refused to make that argument in their court documents, and the indictment also contains evidence that Trump knew he had retained records which were kept very secret.

“As president, I could have declassified it,” the indictment quotes Trump as saying of a military document he allegedly showed at a meeting at his New Jersey golf club in July 2021. “Now I can’t, you know, because this is still a secret.’

Trump and his allies have also separately attempted to argue that the documents at the center of the case are personal in nature and fall under the Presidential Records Act.