Former Attorney General Bill Barr stopped by Fox News on Wednesday where he continued to voice his opposition to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling that a special master could review the documents seized by the FBI during its search of Mar-a-Lago. According to Barr, the Department of Justice had every right to scoop up Donald Trump’s personal items because it could be “evidentiary” and would be quickly sorted by a “taint team” at the DOJ.
As Barr explained, the FBI agents aren’t going to sift through every single document during the course of the search, and there’s a process to remedy that. More importantly, Barr said there is no doubt about the ownership of the government documents and it’s relevant to know that Trump had them mixed in with personal items. Via Mediaite:
“There is no scenario legally under which the president gets to keep the government documents, whether its classified or unclassified,” Barr said. “If it deals with government stuff, it goes back to the government.”
Barr went on to explain that FBI agents could have seized Trump’s passports and personal materials if they were stored with the classified documents, which could be kept as evidence of how those documents were managed.
When asked where he thinks this situation will end, Barr said he believes the DOJ is “very close” to having enough evidence to indict Trump. While that’s a damning statement for Trump’s former attorney general to make on Fox News, Barr then tempered his comments by saying that he hopes the DOJ decides not to indict Trump because it would be “unprecedented.”
“What will that do to the country?” Barr said. “What kind of precedent will it set? Will the people really understand that this is not failing to return a library book? That this was serious? You have to worry about those things.”
(Via Mediaite)