Trump angrily rants against 'big disappointment' Bill Barr in a rambling letter to NBC News’ Lester Holt

William Barr has been keeping a relatively low profile during Joe Biden’s presidency, but the former U.S. attorney general gave his first Biden-era interview when he spoke to NBC News’ Lester Holt — and Barr made it clear that he considers the Big Lie exactly that: a lie, a fabrication, a figment of former President Donald Trump’s imagination. Trump, according to Axios’ Mike Allen, is furious with Barr over that interview. And he lambasted Barr in a rambling March 2 letter he sent to Holt.

The fact that Barr didn’t buy into Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him because of widespread voter fraud was evident on December 1, 2020, when the Associated Press published an article quoting Barr as saying that he saw no evidence that such fraud occurred. That AP interview made it clear that Barr saw Biden as the United States’ legitimate president-elect.

Barr didn’t grant any interviews to the media in 2021, but he was quite outspoken during his 2022 interview with Holt — recalling how furious Trump became when, in December 2020, he refused to go along with the Big Lie. Although Barr had been one of Trump’s most ardent loyalists, going along with the Big Lie was a line that he was obviously unwilling to cross. Barr, in fact, described Trump’s election fraud claims as “bullshit.”

Axios has obtained a copy of Trump’s March 2 letter to Holt, and it’s classic Trump: instead of expressing any gratitude for all the months in which Barr was a staunch loyalist and defender, he tore him to pieces.

“Bill Barr cares more about being accepted by the corrupt Washington Media and Elite than serving the American people,” Trump tells Holt in the letter. “He was slow, lethargic, and I realized early on that he never had what it takes to make a great Attorney General. When the Radical Left Democrats threatened to hold him in contempt and even worse, to Impeach him, he became virtually worthless to Law and Order and Election Integrity. They broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse.”

Trump goes on to say, “Bill Barr was a big disappointment to me as Attorney General, he was afraid to act, and usually didn’t. Even the Mueller investigation, which came out with a finding of NO COLLUSION, should have gone much faster…. He crumbled under the pressure, and bowed to the Radical Left.”

During an interview with NBC News' Savannah Guthrie, Barr said that Trump wouldn’t be his first choice for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee. But despite the Big Lie and the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Barr wouldn’t rule out the possibility of voting for Trump if he is the nominee.

Barr told Guthrie, “I certainly have made it clear: I don't think he should be our nominee, and I'm going to, you know, support somebody else for the nomination…. Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it's inconceivable to me that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee. It's hard to project what the facts are going to turn out to be three years hence; as of now, it's hard for me to conceive that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee.”