Former Attorney General Bill Barr has said that former President Donald Trump became “very angry” when he was told that his election fraud claims were “bulls***”.
“I told him that all this stuff was bulls***... about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shovelling it out the way his team was,” Mr Barr told NBC News.
He added that “the narrative” during his time as attorney general was that he was a “toady to Trump and I would do Trump’s bidding. And the media constantly went out with that story”.
Mr Barr pushed back on that narrative, saying that he “tried to take every issue that came to me and decide it what I thought was the right thing”.
About the call between Mr Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to Mr Trump’s first impeachment, Mr Barr said that “this whole maneuver of trying to get the Ukrainians to investigate Biden — that was a hair-brained scheme. It was ridiculous”.
He added that Mr Trump “never really had a good idea of, you know, the role of the Department of Justice (and) to some extent, you know, the president’s role”.
Mr Barr noted that he publicly spoke out against his election fraud claims, adding that Mr Trump was so angry that he thought he would have to leave the administration that day.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Mr Barr told the Associated Press after the 2020 election.
Mr Barr said he was called to a meeting at the White House on 1 December. He said Mr Trump “was asking about different theories, and I had the answers. I was able to tell him, ‘this was wrong because of this’”.
Mr Barr said Mr Trump “was obviously getting very angry”, and that he told him, “I understand you’re upset with me. And I’m perfectly happy to tender my resignation”.
The then-president slapped the table.
“Accepted. Accepted,” Mr Barr remembers Mr Trump saying. “And then — boom. He slapped it again. ‘Accepted. Go home. Don’t go back to your office. Go home. You’re done.’”
Mr Trump told NBC that he asked Mr Barr to resign that day and that the former attorney general’s account of events was untrue.
Mr Barr said Mr Trump instructed White House lawyers to stop him before he left to inform him he had not in fact been fired. He formally submitted his resignation on 14 December 2020.
“I am proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people,” Mr Barr wrote to Mr Trump in his resignation letter.
“Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!” Mr Trump tweeted at the time.
