
Among many of the things that NBC News' Lester Holt discussed with former Attorney General Bill Barr was special counsel Robert Mueller's findings in his investigation. When Barr released his four-page summary of the Mueller finding, he explained that he was giving his own kind of judicial verdict that Trump was either "guilty" or "not guilty." The problem, as some pointed out, is that wasn't what Mueller said, nor was it what Mueller's aim was in the probe.
As a former prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig explained, Barr outright lied. First, Barr's facts don't sync with the timeline on the Mueller findings and his so-called "summary."
Honig also pointed out that many of the findings that showed how dangerous Trump was to national security were ignored in Barr's version of the report. At the time, Mueller revealed that he was furious about Barr's attempt to rewrite the findings from the probe.
The way that Barr explained away his "summary" by saying that it wasn't really a summary still doesn't excuse that he lied in the four pages, said Honig.
"Here's a question that needs to be asked," Honig said at one point. "Mr. Barr, why did you lie to Congress and the American public about the threat of massive election fraud, BEFORE the election?"
The lies were something that fellow ex-prosecutor Joyce White Vance agreed really struck her from the interview.
Bill Barr is a facile liar. He almost succeeded in preventing investigation of the Ukraine whistleblower complaint. The cases he interfered in just happened to benefit Trump buddies Roger Stone & Mike Flynn. He was the AG Trump wanted b/c Jeff Sessions wasn't servile enough.— Joyce Alene (@Joyce Alene) 1646624137
See some of his takes below:
"...and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts..."— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646619037
Barr claims he wanted to put out the entire Mueller report right away. Yet (1) he held it back for 27 DAYS and (2) he refused to release Mueller's own pre-scrubbed summaries.— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646619162
Here we go, Holt doing a good job pressing Barr on his inaccurate summary of Mueller. Barr lies to Holt's face, claims Mueller didn't send a letter complaining about the letter's inaccuracy. (He did). A perfect example of Barr's ability to just look right at people and lie.— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646619272
Commercial break. I'm struck by Barr's continuing dishonesty. He seems to think he can offer up some half-assed, unconvincing lawyerly parsing to excuse himself from all manner of abuse of power and outright lying.— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646619392
Barr has long claimed he didn't see Trump's tweets, when he carried out Trump's stated wishes. He now admits he saw them (and his recently-released texts reveal the same).— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646619743
Barr is right to lambaste Rudy, Sidney Powell, etc. But ultimately, in a less outrageous manner, Barr did as much or more damage. Barr was AG; Rudy and Powell were nothing.— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig) 1646621155