‘No Excuse For What He Did’: Bill Barr Slams ‘Reckless’ Trump in Defense of DOJ Docs Probe

Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr tore into his former boss, Donald Trump, on CBS Mornings Tuesday and argued that the Department of Justice has treated the president more than fairly while probing the ex-president’s retention of classified documents.

Gayle King asked Barr to weigh in on Trump’s attorney’s meeting with DOJ officials this week.

“What does it say to you? What is the significance? Because you know how this game is played. You know this record. You know this song. What did it say to you?” King asked.

“I think that meeting was probably held to complain about some aspects of the special counsel’s work, because generally the special counsel is generally independent and can make up their own mind. And I think they probably went to Main Justice, which is where this meeting was held, to complain about the claim that the special counsel hasn’t been following the rules,” Barr replied.

“But does it say to you that an indictment is near?” King followed up.

“I suspect it’s, I suspect it’s near. I’ve said for a while that I think this is the most dangerous legal risk facing the former president. And if I had to bet, I would bet that it’s near,” Barr replied.

Barr was then asked if he believed the DOJ had enough evidence.

“Well, they won’t indict if there’s not enough evidence. But from what I’ve seen, there’s substantial evidence there,” he replied.

King then asked, “And if there is a federal indictment, Bill, do you think that that hurts him politically? You know, it seems that whenever he’s indicted or he’s under scrutiny, his numbers go up, the support goes up, the donations go up. Do you think a federal indictment will make a difference? And I know it won’t for his core base.”

“So in the immediate future it might,” Barr replied, adding:

But I think if this is based on the facts, as the facts come out, I think over time people will say that this is not a case of the Department of Justice, you know, conducting a witch hunt.

In fact, they approached this very delicately and with deference to the president. And this would have gone nowhere had the president just returned the documents. But he jerked them around for a year and a half. And the question is, did he deceive them?

And if there’s evidence of that, I think people will start to see that this says more about Trump than it does the Department of Justice, and that is that he’s so egotistical that he has this penchant for for conducting, you know, risky, reckless acts to show that he can sort of get away with it. It’s part of asserting his is his ego. And he’s done this repeatedly at the expense of all the people who depend on him to conduct the public’s business in an honorable way. And, you know, we saw that with both impeachments. And there’s no excuse for what he did here, Whether it’s a crime or not, remains to be seen.

Barr, who defended Trump against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, was referring to Trump’s long-held claim that he is the regular victim of “witch hunts” against him.

Watch the full clip above via CBS.