Former Attorney General William Barr has attempted to resuscitate his image after the controversy of his tenure at the Trump administration, releasing a book about the former president's malfeasance and making the rounds on cable news.
But on CNN's "The Lead" Friday, confronted by anchor Jake Tapper with his own role in helping Trump push lies and fearmongering about the election being stolen, Barr declined to take responsibility.
Tapper played back a clip from Barr in 2020 talking about mail-in voting: "There's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed. I think it would be very bad. But one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting."
"NPR later issued an article correcting that claim, quoting experts calling your claim 'nuts' and 'ridiculous'," said Tapper. "In September 2020, you came on CNN with Wolf Blitzer."
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He played another clip of Barr saying, "Mail-in voting is fraud" and claiming a man in Texas fabricated 1,700 ballots.
"That was not accurate," Tapper pointed out. "It was one ballot, and it was a state case, not a DOJ one. Do you bear any responsibility for all the people out there that thought there was going to be widespread voter fraud given the fact that you were very vocally sounding the alarm based on theories and bad information?"
"Not at all, and I stand by all of that," said Barr. "My view is that in such a closely divided country, with so much at stake, we have to keep strong protections against fraud and protect the integrity of the election."
He then claimed that votes were "diluted" and "reduced" in 2020, "whether or not fraud occurred."
Watch below:
Tapper: Do you bear any responsibility for all the people who thought there was going to be widespread voter fraud given the fact you were sounding the alarm based on theories and bad information?\nBarr: Not at all and I stand by all of that\u2026pic.twitter.com/BQWlyuhHdw— Acyn (@Acyn) 1647035665
