(Credit: Vox)
“The claim by former President Donald Trump that he declassified the documents with classified markings found at Mar-a-Lago was challenged Sept. 2 as “highly improbable” by former Attorney General William Barr.
“I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they could be taken out of the government, away from the government, if they’re classified,” who was attorney general during the Trump and George H.W. Bush administrations, said during an appearance on Fox News.
“I frankly am skeptical of this claim that ‘I declassified everything,’ because, frankly, I think it’s highly improbable and second, if in fact, he stood over scores of boxes not really knowing what was in them, and said ‘I hereby declassify everything in here,’ that would be such an abuse, and show such recklessness that it’s almost worse than taking the documents.”
Trump publicly ordered in October 2020 the “total declassification” of “any and all documents” related to the U.S. investigation into alleged Russia-Trump collusion, as well as all documents related to the use of a private email server by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump Responds
(…) Barr was known as a staunch Trump defender after becoming attorney general in 2019 but towards the end of the administration, he publicly diverged from Trump on a number of issues, including alleged election fraud.
In a statement on his Truth Social network after Barr’s comments, Trump said that the former attorney general is a Republican in name only, or a RINO, “who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats.”
“Barr never fought the way he should have for Election Integrity, and so much else. He started off OK as A.G., but faded fast—Didn’t have courage or stamina. People like that will never Make America Great Again!” Trump added.
Trump also said that Barr acted too slowly on the report from former special counsel Robert Mueller, which found no coordination or cooperation between Trump or his campaign and Russia, and knocked Barr for not releasing the laptop computer once owned by Hunter Biden before the 2020 election.
“The Laptop information should have been released BEFORE the Rigged Election, not after it, for the VOTERS TO SEE,” Trump said.
Barr has defended not making public the existence of a federal investigation into Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, before the election, saying that it would have affected the outcome.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/3/2022) (Archive)