Bill Barr: 'Reckless' Trump 'exposed' himself
Donald Trump is facing a mountain of legal trouble, and the former president has nobody to blame for it but himself, former Attorney General Bill Barr said Thursday.
Barr, during an appearance on CNN Primetime, told host Kaitlan Collins that he attributes some of the legal hurt Trump is experiencing to overzealous prosecutors, “but that doesn't mean everything that Trump does, he's a victim.”
“I said he's frequently his own worst enemy and he digs himself holes and he does some things that are reckless, that are clearly going to give rise to investigations.”
Trump last week appeared in a Manhattan courtroom for his arraignment on a 34-count felony indictment over alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
The New York case is among four criminal investigations the former president is under.
A Fulton County, Georgia grand jury is investigating Trump for election interference, and the Department of Justice is conducting separate probes over the handling of classified documents and Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
He’s also facing multiple civil suits.
“I’ve tried to call them as I see him and there's some cases or some legal proceedings that I think have been unjust and unfair to Trump including the Russia-gate episode and the New York cases, both the civil case and the latest criminal case. I don't think they have any substance and I think they're brought for political reasons.”
But Barr doesn’t believe that’s the case with the two cases special counsel Jack Smith is investigating for the DOJ, and he said the classified documents case figures to be of concern to the former president.
“I've said all along, I think the more significant case, or the one that appears to me to be most threatening is the Mar-a-Lago document case,” Barr said.
“I think the real question there is not whether he kept the documents and had them in Mar-a-Lago so much as once this was raised with him, and it was clear that he was being asked to return the documents as the government's property that games were played for quite a long time, and I think that that exposes him.”
