President Donald Trump seemed “detached from reality” when he made his “crazy” claims of voter fraud after Election Day 2020, piling up a mountain of “bullsh-t” stories that he’d been cheated out of a second term. So sayeth former attorney general William P. Barr.
Barr’s blunt assessments of Trump’s frantic and fabulist efforts to stay in power anchored the second public hearing of the House committee looking into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, a riot fueled by months of the former president’s false claims President Biden stole the White House.
In a nutshell, Monday’s hearing aimed to establish that Trump knew his public accusations were false, not the least because he’d heard as much from senior aides like Barr, who assured the panel in videotaped testimony that he’d been a behind-the-scenes voice of reason.
Here’s some of what the former attorney general said Monday, according to my colleagues Mike DeBonis and Jacqueline Alemany:
Shortly after the election, he said, he concluded the stolen-election claims “were completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.”
(Over at the New York Times, Katie Benner noted Barr also said he had dismissed some of Trump’s conspiracy theories as “complete nonsense” and “crazy stuff.”)
In June 2020, Barr told Fox Business mail-in ballots “open the floodgates of potential fraud.”
(My colleague Aaron Blake pointed out Barr himself voted by mail in 2012 and 2019.)
Also that month, Barr told NPR elections done chiefly via mail-in votes can’t be secure because “there's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed” and suggested foreign countries might counterfeit ballots.
“Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion,” he said. (That’s not true either.)
“For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected, he — from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to. Okay?”
Nope, as my colleague Matt Zapotosky chronicled. There was no such federal indictment. (A Barr spokeswoman blamed an errant internal memo.)
In September 2020, Barr told a Chicago Tribune columnist that moving to vote-by-mail meant “we’re back in the business of selling and buying votes” and said fraudsters could simply pay off a mail carrier to steal ballots.
“Someone will say the president just won Nevada. ‘Oh, wait a minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots! Every vote will be counted!’ Yeah, but we don’t know where these freaking votes came from,” Barr told the columnist.
None of Barr’s fire-and-brimstone predictions came true. But they served Trump’s purpose: To try to discredit mail-in ballots.
Nor were Barr’s actions all before Election Day. Barely a week later, my colleagues Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett reported, Barr publicly gave the green light to Justice Department investigations into allegations of voter fraud before the results were certified, a break with protocol.
Some federal prosecutors called bullsh-t.
Barr’s blunt assessments of Trump’s frantic and fabulist efforts to stay in power anchored the second public hearing of the House committee looking into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, a riot fueled by months of the former president’s false claims President Biden stole the White House.
In a nutshell, Monday’s hearing aimed to establish that Trump knew his public accusations were false, not the least because he’d heard as much from senior aides like Barr, who assured the panel in videotaped testimony that he’d been a behind-the-scenes voice of reason.
- If you followed Barr’s public remarks throughout the 2020 presidential cycle, his baritone bravado was a lot to take in, given that he was a purveyor of fact-free claims casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election for much of the year.
Barr then and now
The phrase “voter fraud allegations” appeared in the letter’s first paragraph, but not to highlight the lack of evidence supporting Trump’s claims. “It is incumbent on all levels of government, and all agencies acting within their purview, to do all we can to assure the integrity of elections and promote public confidence in their outcome,” Barr wrote.Here’s some of what the former attorney general said Monday, according to my colleagues Mike DeBonis and Jacqueline Alemany:
Shortly after the election, he said, he concluded the stolen-election claims “were completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.”
- “I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public was bullsh-t — I mean, that the claims of fraud were bullsh-t. And, you know, he was indignant about that.”
(Over at the New York Times, Katie Benner noted Barr also said he had dismissed some of Trump’s conspiracy theories as “complete nonsense” and “crazy stuff.”)
Barr stokes mail-in ballot fears
But throughout 2020, Barr lent his full support to Trump’s efforts to discredit mail-in voting.In June 2020, Barr told Fox Business mail-in ballots “open the floodgates of potential fraud.”
(My colleague Aaron Blake pointed out Barr himself voted by mail in 2012 and 2019.)
Also that month, Barr told NPR elections done chiefly via mail-in votes can’t be secure because “there's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed” and suggested foreign countries might counterfeit ballots.
- Did he have any evidence, NPR asked? “No, it’s obvious,” Barr said. Election experts dismissed his claims, noting not just the security measures used with mail-in ballots but the idea that something on the scale of what he was suggesting would go undetected. They also pointed to the lack of fraud in U.S. states that do vote-by-mail.
“Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion,” he said. (That’s not true either.)
“For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected, he — from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to. Okay?”
Nope, as my colleague Matt Zapotosky chronicled. There was no such federal indictment. (A Barr spokeswoman blamed an errant internal memo.)
In September 2020, Barr told a Chicago Tribune columnist that moving to vote-by-mail meant “we’re back in the business of selling and buying votes” and said fraudsters could simply pay off a mail carrier to steal ballots.
“Someone will say the president just won Nevada. ‘Oh, wait a minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots! Every vote will be counted!’ Yeah, but we don’t know where these freaking votes came from,” Barr told the columnist.
None of Barr’s fire-and-brimstone predictions came true. But they served Trump’s purpose: To try to discredit mail-in ballots.
Nor were Barr’s actions all before Election Day. Barely a week later, my colleagues Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett reported, Barr publicly gave the green light to Justice Department investigations into allegations of voter fraud before the results were certified, a break with protocol.
Some federal prosecutors called bullsh-t.