From left: William Barr and Donald Trump.Photo: Getty (2)
Barr, 71, was long seen as one of Trump’s closest allies but his public denial of election fraud last December reportedly infuriated the former president, 75. Their dramatic breakup is the subject of a chapter in ABC News reporter Jon Karl’s upcoming book,Betrayal, which is due out in November.
Barr had told Associated Press reporter Michael Balsamo during a lunch at the White House last December that after investigating Trump’s election claims, the Justice Department had not found evidence of the fraud that Trump and his team of lawyers repeatedly whined about.
Balsamo’s AP story went live shortly after their lunch and “blew a hole in the president’s claims,” Karl, 53, writes in thenew excerptof his book, previewed Sunday inThe Atlantic.
“It was all bull—-,” Barr now tells Karl about Trump’s claims over his 2020 loss to PresidentJoe Biden.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr.KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty
But telling that to Trump, who was reportedly enraged when Barr’s findings were reported, made for another movie-like moment.
Barr was soon called over to meet with Trump in his personal dining room near the Oval Office, according to Karl’s new book. The furious president then reportedly began yelling at the attorney general, whom he expected to help overturn his election loss, about his remark to the AP earlier in the day.
“He went off on Barr,” Karl writes, sharing quotes from the dramatic dining room scene.
Trump asked Barr if he, in fact, said what the AP had reported he said. When Barr confirmed he did and reiterated that his investigation showed the 2020 election was run correctly, without widespread fraud, Trump grew even angrier.
“How the f— could you do this to me?” Trump said to Barr, according to the book. “Why did you say it?”
Karl describes Trump as “livid” during the exchange, as he began banging on the table and referring to himself in the third-person: “You must hate Trump,” he reportedly said to Barr. “You must hate Trump.”
Donald Trump.Joe Raedle/Getty
Karl writes that Barr thought Trump “seemed angrier than he had ever seen him” and that the former president’s face was red during the exchange.
Barr would resign from office a few weeks later, before 2020 ended and days before the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building.
Meanwhile, Trump’s tantrum with Barr wasn’t an anomaly.
In Bender’s upcoming book,Frankly, We Did Win This Election, he writes that Trump had tried to put Milley “in charge” of a military response to protests in several cities, to which the general said no, citing his advisory role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which didn’t put him in command of a domestic military response.
“I said you’re in f—ing charge!” Trump reportedly yelled at Milley, who yelled back.
“Well, I’m not in charge!” Milley said, enraging Trump further.
“You can’t f—ing talk to me like that!” the former president reportedly said, although he later denied the exchange toAxioswhen asked about the book, calling it “fake news.” (Bender defended his reporting to Axios, pointing to “hundreds of hours of interviews” he had with top Trump aides.)
The two reports further paint a picture of a short-fused president prone to disavowing those he sees as having betrayed him, whether personally or politically.
Several political allies and attorneys, including former New York City MayorRudy Giulianiand MyPillow CEOMike Lindell, are facing $1.3 billion lawsuits for backing Trump’s false claims.
source: people.com
