Barr sparks new political firestorm

Former Attorney General William Barr has created a political firestorm with interviews for a new book that call former President Trump’s claims about fraud in last year’s election “bullshit” and detail how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pressed him to publicly dispute Trump’s assertions.

Barr has enraged Democrats and liberal commentators who say he is seeking to rehabilitate an image badly damaged by the Trump years, when he was a forceful advocate for the president, particularly during the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

They say that Barr contributed to Trump's narrative undermining confidence in the voting system with his own comments about mail-in ballots in the lead-up to the election. 

“It’s better that he says something now than never, but it’s far too late,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor who penned the forthcoming book “How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department.”

“He’s contradicting months’ worth of propaganda that he put out there,” he said.

Barr is also taking significant body blows from his former boss, who has blasted his former attorney general for the late criticism.

“Bill Barr’s weakness helped facilitate the cover up of the Crime of the Century, the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” Trump said in a statement on Sunday, repeating his unsubstantiated claims, many of which are now believed by a large portion of GOP voters.

Reached by phone, Barr largely declined to answer questions from The Hill about his tenure during the Trump administration and his efforts to push back on the former president’s claims.