William Barr says Trump likely to be indicted
Former US Attorney General William Barr has reiterated that Donald Trump will likely be indicted.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) probably has a “basis for legitimately indicting” Trump over the classified and sensitive documents law enforcement agents found at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
In August, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Trump's resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and seized classified documents there.
Barr said in an interview with PBS’s “Firing Line” on Friday that he thinks the DOJ has enough evidence to reach the amount they would need to indict Trump.
In an earlier interview with Fox News in September, Barr had said that he believed the DOJ was “getting very close” to having enough evidence to indict Trump, but that he hoped it wouldn’t because of what an indictment would do to the country and the precedent it would set. However, in the interview with PBS Barr clarified that if a former president commits a crime, they should be indicted for it.
“If the Department of Justice can show that these were indeed very sensitive documents, which I think they probably were, and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government, and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges,” Barr said.
He also denounced Trump's 2024 bid for the presidency and said his ex-boss, who was at loggerheads with him towards the end of his stint, should step aside.
Barr's interview with PBS was aired on the same day that the present US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to oversee the investigations surrounding the documents that the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago, as well as Trump’s role in instigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill in an effort to overturn the disputed 2020 US presidential election.
The former Attorney General, whose tenure coincided with Trump's presidency, said Garland will need to weigh the facts and decide whether to indict Trump and what the move will do to the country and the office of the presidency.
Meanwhile, the DOJ appointed Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor, to serve as the special counsel overseeing the department’s investigations related to Trump.
Trump, for his part, downplayed the Friday appointment of Smith as special counsel, saying that he would not “partake” in any investigations.
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