‘You Should Resign’: Trump Cabinet Secretary Testified Bill Barr Told Him ‘Get Out of There’ After Jan. 6
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Former Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia testified that former Attorney General Bill Barr advised him to resign from the Trump administration after the 2021 Capitol insurrection.
The exchange is documented in a transcript released by the House Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday.
Testifying under oath, Scalia said the administration “bore responsibility for what happened on Jan. 6th.”
On that day, a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president. Trump spent two months lying to the public by falsely claiming the election was stolen.
Scalia said shortly after the insurrection, he called Barr, who had resigned from his post in December 2020.
“I had considered Bill Barr a friend,” he stated. “And I just called Bill to say, ‘Bill, what’s your advice? What should I do?’ I was interested in what he had to say.”
A lawyer for the committee asked Scalia if he had considered resigning.
“You know, at that time, I did not give resignation serious consideration,” he answered. “But I recognized it as the kind of thing that people might consider in that circumstance, and Bill did tell me, ‘You should resign.’ That was Bill’s advice.”
“Barr’s advice was, it’s time for you to resign immediately,” the lawyer stated.
“Yes,” Scalia responded. “Bill didn’t say, ‘Gene, you have a responsibility to resign.’ He said, you know, ‘If I were you, I’d resign. Get out of there.'”
The lawyer asked Scalia why he declined to take Barr’s advice.
“I continued to think about what the right thing to do was,” he replied. “I thought that trying to work within the administration to steady the ship was likely to have greater value than simply resigning, after which point I would have been powerless to really affect things within the administration.”
CORRECTION: This article originally stated Eugene Scalia was secretary of transportation. He was secretary of labor.
