Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s former attorney general who once said that voting for the indicted ex-president would be “playing Russian roulette with the country,” stood by his decision to vote for Trump in November while also suggesting that Trump used to regularly float the idea of executing his political rivals while in office.
Barr made the nonchalant admission Friday during a CNN interview when anchor Kaitlan Collins mentioned former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin claiming that Barr was present in the summer of 2020 when Trump suggested that an unknown White House leaker should be executed.
“I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying ‘executing,’ but I wouldn‘t dispute it, you know… The president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would’ve actually carried it out,” Barr said.
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Collins then questioned whether Trump would say things like that “on other occasions.”
Barr responded that people would sometimes take Trump “too literally.”
“He would say things similar to that on occasions to blow off steam. But I wouldn’t take them literally every time he did it,” he acknowledged.
“Why not?” Collins pressed.
“Because at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be carried out and you could talk sense into him,” Barr argued, prompting Collins to counter that an unexecuted order doesn’t remove the threat.
Barr insisted that there was no threat.
“I don‘t think the threat is there. The thing that I worry about President Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” Barr said.
When Collins inquired as to why Barr believes that, and whether or not it’s a “hunch,” Barr responded that it was just his “feeling.”
“Having worked for him and seen him in action, I don’t think he would actually go and kill political rivals and things like that,” Barr claimed.
Later in the interview, Collins read aloud Trump’s mocking response to Barr following his endorsement. Barr replied by effectively kowtowing: “Classic Trump,” he said.
The “real threat to Democracy,” Barr claimed, came from the Biden administration, as opposed to the former president who has been indicted for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
