Former US Attorney General says Trump ‘will’ if allegations are proven

Reuters – Former US Attorney General William Barr on Sunday defended Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 37-count indictment against Donald Trump, saying that if allegations that the former president knowingly withheld hundreds of top secret documents are proven, “it’s over.”

Barr, who served under the Trump administration, said, “I am shocked at the sensitivity and number of these documents … and I believe the accusations under the Espionage Act that he deliberately concealed these documents are true.” to “Fox News Sunday”.

“If half of that is true, it’s over.”

The comments by Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general from February 2019 to December 2020, are noteworthy and come at a time when many other prominent Republicans are reluctant to criticize the former president and the current Republican presidential nominee. The White House in 2024.

Trump responded to Barr’s remarks with criticism and insults. Trump called Barr a “lazy” and “weak” attorney general, and said on his Truth Social social media platform, that he made the remarks because he was upset and because it was false information. “Turn off Fox News when this is a ‘gutless pig,'” Trump said.

Follow up on recommendations

The former president is scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday to make his debut on charges that include withholding highly sensitive national defense records under the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, making false statements, conspiracy and concealment.

Trump told Politico on Saturday that he would continue his presidential campaign even if he was convicted in the case, saying, “I will never leave.”

His presidential campaign said he plans to give a speech at 8:15 p.m. (ET) on Tuesday at his golf club in Bedminster, New York.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Trump supporters traveled in a caravan from Miami to Palm Beach on Sunday to show their support for the former president, as they have on several occasions since he left office.

Cars festooned with American flags and pro-Trump slogans on license plates made the 80-mile trip, honking their horns most of the way, and converging in the parking lot of a Palm Beach supermarket for a rally.

Of the 37 charges against Trump, 31 relate to classified and top secret documents he kept after he left the White House in early 2021.

The indictment alleges that Trump stored the documents in a disorderly manner at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, refused to return them to the government, and tried to hide them from the FBI and even his own lawyers after a grand jury issued a subpoena demanding it. Turns over all confidentially marked records.

His attorney, Alina Habba, who is not representing him in the case, told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump is innocent of the allegations and plans to vigorously defend himself in the case.

In the past, Barr has been a staunch supporter of Trump, going so far as to appoint his own attorney general to investigate whether the FBI improperly opened an investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for possible ties to Russia based on flimsy evidence.

But toward the end of his term, Barr’s views of Trump deteriorated after the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department into launching bogus investigations into voter fraud in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

They are not “personal documents” – Trump has previously defended his keeping the classified records, claiming, without evidence, that he declassified them while in office — a defense that has also been echoed by his allies.

“I take the president’s word for what he said he did,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, when asked if he had any evidence to support Trump’s allegations.

However, in an earlier lawsuit involving an FBI search of his Florida home, Trump’s lawyers repeatedly refused to make that argument in their court documents. The indictment also contains evidence that Trump knew he withheld records that were kept top secret.

The indictment quoted Trump as saying of a military document he was alleged to have shown during a meeting at a golf club in New Jersey in July 2021: “As president, I could have ruled them out.” Secret.”

Trump and his allies have also tried to argue separately that the records at the heart of the case are inherently personal and covered by the Presidential Records Act.

“He has every right to have access to classified documents that have been declassified under the Presidential Records Act,” Heba told “Fox News Sunday.”

But Barr said the claim that the documents were Trump’s personal records was “ridiculously preposterous”.

He said the records named in the indictment are “official records” made by government intelligence agencies, and therefore the property of the US government.

“Battle plans for an attack on another country or Department of Defense documents about our capabilities are not, in any world, personal documents of Donald J. Trump,” he said.