Former Attorney General William Barr told PBS‘s Margaret Hoover that the Department of Justice probably has a legitimate basis for indicting former President Donald Trump.
Barr made the comments during an interview on “Firing Line,” saying that following the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August and subsequent investigation into the sensitive documents the former President held at his home was enough evidence to indict Trump.
Barr, a Trump-era Attorney General, had no issue speculating about his former boss’s legal culpability in storing the documents at his Mar-a-Lago home, inferring the former President could be facing “serious charges.”
During the interview with Hoover, Barr explained that if the DOJ could show “that these were indeed very sensitive documents” and “show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department… after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges.”
Barr made his comments after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the DOJ had appointed Jack Smith to be special counsel to oversee two investigations into Trump.
The investigations include the mishandling of sensitive documents uncovered at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, home and the former President’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection.
Barr had said in September in an interview with Fox News that he believed the DOJ was “getting very close” to having the necessary evidence to indict Trump. However, he expressed his desire for the DOJ not to pursue the indictment because of the precedent it would set in the U.S.
