Fox News’ Chris Wallace says Attorney General Bill Barr ‘clearly is protecting’ Trump
Critics of Fox News have often noted how overtly favorable its coverage of President Donald Trump has been — and how critical some hosts have been of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. But Chris Wallace isn't shy about asking tough questions to conservatives.
And during a Friday appearance on Fox News, Wallace commented on how strong an advocate Attorney General William Barr has been for the president. Wallace’s Fox appearance followed the airing on Friday of anchor Bill Hemmer’s interview with Barr. And Wallace noted the strong contrast between Trump’s relationship with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump fired after the 2018 midterms, and his relationship with Barr.
Wallace asserted, “What really comes across to me, most of all, is that for two years, Donald Trump sat there and said, ‘I don’t have an attorney general. I don’t have somebody out there looking for and protecting my interests.’ He clearly has that now with Bill Barr.”
Wallace added, “I’m not saying that Barr isn’t right in everything he says, but he clearly is protecting this president and advocating his point of view on a lot of these issues. I suspect that President Trump, who probably has watched some of this interview himself, is saying: ‘Finally, no Jeff Sessions. Bill Barr instead.’”
Wallace went on to address Barr’s evaluation of Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation. Barr’s detractors have been asserting that the attorney general’s statements were misleading when he was questioned by Rep. Charlie Crist and Sen. Chris Van Hollen recently and discussed his response to Mueller’s report. Mueller, Wallace pointed out, called Barr “the day after he issued his conclusions and said that he wasn’t happy with it.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” Wallace explained. “Bill Barr’s a very accomplished lawyer…. I think there are other lawyers who would say—whether he lied or not, that he certainly was not forthcoming to either Crist or Van Hollen when he answered their questions about what he knew about Mueller’s opinion.”
Wallace praised Hemmer as an interviewer, saying that the Fox News anchor did a “hell of a job and squeezed the sponge dry getting everything that Bill Barr was prepared to say.”
Watch the clip below:
