(CNN)Ahead of Tuesday’s release of Bill Barr’s memoir of his time in the Trump administration, NBC’s Lester Holt sat down with the former attorney general to discuss his time as the nation’s top police officer.
Before the interview aired, former President Donald Trump sent Holt a three-page letter repeatedly criticizing Barr while further pushing the 2020 voter fraud conspiracy.
Axios received the letter, which you can read for yourself here. I went through it and plucked out the lines that really have to be seen to be believed. you are below
1. “He was slow, lethargic, and I realized early on that he never had what it took to be a great Attorney General.”
This description of Barr provides a revealing window into how Trump evaluates people: It’s all surface, not substance. And away we go!
2. “He became virtually worthless to Law and Order and Election Integrity.”
Why is “Law and Order” capitalized here? Is it a reference to the long-running show on NBC? Researchers want to know! And don’t even get me started on “electoral integrity”.
3. “They broke him, just like a trainer breaks a horse.”
Now that’s a picture! Trump’s contention here is that Democrat threats to contempt Barr for refusing to release Robert Mueller’s full account of Russian campaign interference in the 2016 campaign essentially spooked the attorney general, who then complied with all of their requests. You will be amazed to know that there is no real evidence to support this claim by Trump.
4. “Despite massive amounts of evidence, far more of which was produced after his departure, he refused to prosecute the fraud and irregularities that so openly took place in the 2020 presidential electionn.”
“In fact, we’ve looked at the top claims your people are making, and they’re bullshit.” — Barr said in an excerpt of his forthcoming book, to be published by The Wall Street Journal.
5. “Even the Mueller investigation that came out with a NO COLLUSION result should have gone much faster, especially after they knew all the information that was available and already available to them.”
What Mueller found was that there was no explicit agreement between Trump’s campaign and the Russians to collude in hopes of getting Trump elected. As Mueller put it, “Although the investigation found that the Russian government believed it would benefit from a Trump presidency and was working to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it to be informed in elections.” stolen and made public by Russian efforts, the investigation failed to establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its electoral interference activities.
6. “As everyone knows, my campaign was spied on and Bill Barr didn’t do anything about it.”
Way back in 2017, Trump claimed – without evidence – that former President Barack Obama ordered phone taps in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. And again earlier this year, Trump insisted that a file from Special Counsel John Durham confirmed the espionage. It has not. As Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler put it last month, “The Durham file says a lot less than Trump claims. So far, Durham has not accused anyone of spying on Trump. In fact, the statute of limitations for a key has already expired in the meeting cited in the file.”
7. “I imagine that if the book is anything like it, it will be long, slow and very boring.“
Boom. Roasted.
8. “Now he’s groveling to the media, hoping to gain credit he doesn’t deserve.”
On Monday, Barr told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that he would vote for Trump if the former president ran again in 2024. So yes.
9. “When I saw that the Department of Justice did not do its job, I have every legal right to ask them to do so, under the law and the Constitution.”
“Doing your job” should be understood here as “not doing what I wanted you to do”. Which isn’t the same as her job.
10. “It is now a fact that my campaign was spied upon. That is treason now confirmed by John Durham.”
“If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated or otherwise misinterpreted the facts contained in the Government’s request, this in no way undermines the Government’s valid reasons for including that information,” Durham wrote in a court filing.
11. “Despite the many crimes committed by the Biden family, I have not urged Barr to prosecute them.”
[narrator voice] There is no evidence that the Biden family committed any crimes, let alone “many” crimes.
12. “Although the things that were done were legendary for corruption, I felt it was inappropriate for me to get personally involved.”
Not just corrupt. “Legendary” corrupt.
13. “As it turns out, they spied in 2016 and, if possible, did far worse in 2020 — they rigged the election.”
It’s worth reiterating to Barr here: “The fact is, we’ve looked at the top claims your people are making, and they’re bullshit.”
14. “Barr’s lack of energy, drive, and curiosity caused me to say things to him that should never have been necessary — but he was so lazy and cowardly that he just never quite understood what was going on.”
From Trump’s point of view, there are two unforgivable sins: weakness and low energy. Barr had both!
15. “In other words, Bill Barr was a coward!”
Yes, you literally just said that.
16. “I never said, ‘You must hate Trump,’ I said, ‘If you didn’t see corruption in the election, which has already been exposed so much (and by this date massively) then you are it doesn’t. You don’t qualify to become Attorney General. They don’t have the energy or the backbone to oppose the radical left. Please give me your letter of resignation.'”
This is not, at all, how Barr explained his departure from the White House. Here’s how Barr said it happened: “The next morning I got a call from Mark Meadows. I told him I would not surprise President Trump by leaving without warning. On December 14, the day all states had confirmed their election results that effectively secured Biden’s victory, I walked over to tell the President I’d like to go before Christmas.
17. “The election was totally corrupt, and we didn’t have anyone fight that corruption because Bill Barr didn’t have the guts.”
Here’s Barr again: “The fact is, we’ve looked at the top claims your people are making, and they’re bullshit.”
18. “I was President of the United States and was asked to give a speech on January 6th. I went to the site, gave my speech, and returned to the White House.”
Trump conveniently omits what he said to the crowd gathered for the “Stop the Steal” rally. “We fight like hell,” he said. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country.”
19. “If they had accepted my offer, it wouldn’t have been a ‘6.’ January’ given as we know it.”
Trump has long said he has offered to call up 10,000 or more National Guard soldiers before January 6, 2021, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the idea. It’s his way of avoiding responsibility for what happened that day. It’s not true either. “There is no clear evidence that Trump made such a request and no evidence that Pelosi denied such a request,” PolitiFact said last year.
20. “Now the witch hunt continues with Shifty Adam Schiff, RINO Liz Cheney and others in what I call the Unselect Committee.”
Unnecessary capitalization? Check. name? Check. Yes, that feels like a happy ending.
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