Barr spoke directly to Republican outcries about the nature of the “unprecedented” search of a former president, offering a counterpoint: “It’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club.”
“And how long is the government going to try to get that back? They jaw bone for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken. They then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel, and the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around. And so how long, you know, how long do they wait?” Barr said in an interview on Fox News.
“What people are missing — all the other documents taken, even if they claim to be executive privilege, either belong to the government because they are government records. Even if they are classified, even if they are subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government and go to the archives. And any other documents that were seized, like news clippings and other things in the boxes containing the classified information, those were seizeable under the warrant because they show the conditions under which the classified information was being held.”
The Department of Justice, to have escalated the investigation to this point, “probably has pretty good evidence” of obstruction, Barr added.
“And how long is the government going to try to get that back? They jaw bone for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken. They then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel, and the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around. And so how long, you know, how long do they wait?” Barr said in an interview on Fox News.
“What people are missing — all the other documents taken, even if they claim to be executive privilege, either belong to the government because they are government records. Even if they are classified, even if they are subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government and go to the archives. And any other documents that were seized, like news clippings and other things in the boxes containing the classified information, those were seizeable under the warrant because they show the conditions under which the classified information was being held.”
The Department of Justice, to have escalated the investigation to this point, “probably has pretty good evidence” of obstruction, Barr added.