Minutes after Attorney General William Barr walked off-stage at the end of his Mueller report, in which he openly and preemptively spun away President Trump’s actions, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace blasted Barr’s performance and claimed he was acting more as the president’s personal counselor than the nation’s attorney general.
During his morning presser, which took place hours before Congress and the public ever saw a copy of the report, Barr exonerated the president on any possible obstruction by saying he was simply “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” He also admitted that he provided the redacted Mueller report to the president’s personal lawyers days before its release.
During Fox News’ post-game coverage of the presser, Fox News anchor Bret Baier said that Barr provided more detail on the matter of obstruction while seemingly dismissing the press conference as an attempt to pre-spin the report’s findings.
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“But Bill Barr kind of laying it out straight cut and dry, here is what his conclusion is, and then he is going to release the report,” Baier said. “And we'll see.”
Wallace, meanwhile, pointed out right away that Barr is obviously someone the president appointed as attorney general because he was looking for to protect him “from getting in trouble,” adding that Trump was obviously frustrated by Jeff Sessions in that role.
“I suspect that the president was pretty pleased with the performance of Bill Barr today and particularly on the issue of obstruction,” Wallace stated. “Because again, on collusion, it does appear and I will say that the attorney general said it about a half dozen times, I lost count after that, there was no collusion, there was no cooperation, there was no coordination.”
On the issue of obstruction, the Fox News anchor noted there were ten instances in which the special counsel said it could have raised to the possibility of a crime, and it was here that Barr acted as the president’s defense lawyer.
“You got into this very curious area where the attorney general seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president rather than the attorney general,” Wallace declared. “Talking about his motives. Talking about his anger, his feeling this was unfair and there were leaks. And really, as I say, making a case for the president.”
Moments after Wallace trashed Barr’s performance, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace applauded him on the rival network, noting how remarkable it was that a Fox News anchor was describing the attorney general as “Donald Trump’s defense attorney.”
