Trump mulls firing Bill Barr for contradicting him on election fraud: report

On Wednesday, The Washington Postreported that President Donald Trump is furious with Attorney General William Barr for publicly contradicting his conspiracy theories on election fraud — and with less than two months left in office, is considering firing him early.

"One senior administration official said there was a chance Trump would fire his attorney general and asserted that the president was not merely frustrated over Barr’s fraud-related assertions," reported Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett. "The person said that several people are trying to persuade Trump not to do so. Like others, this official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations."

"Trump, the official said, was perhaps even angrier that Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham did not issue a public report of his findings before last month’s election, and that Barr had secretly appointed Durham as special counsel in October, giving him extra legal and political protection to continue the work he started a year ago," said the report. "Durham is examining whether crimes were committed by law enforcement during its 2016 investigation of whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia."

Barr has been generally criticized for using the Justice Department to pursue the political grievances of the Trump administration, including pushing to dismiss their own charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and downplaying the findings of the Mueller report. However, while he has empowered his department to look into claims of widespread election fraud, no credible evidence has been found.