Former Attorney General Bill Barr stated that he was "demoralized" after discussing allegations of voter fraud linked to Dominion voting machine with former President Donald Trump. This was because Trump "became detached from reality if this is what he truly believes."
Barr, who appeared Monday at the Jan. 6, committee hearing via video testimony that was recorded earlier, stated to the panel that Trump did not care about the facts.
Barr stated that "Before the election it was possible talk sense to President and, while sometimes you had to engage in big wrestling matches with him, it was still possible to keep things on the track." He spoke earlier this year in interviews with the committee. "I felt that he didn’t seem to listen after the election."
Dominion Voting Systems' claims that voting machines had been tampered, were part of one of the most significant conspiracy theories to emerge from the 2020 election. Dominion sued Fox later in a $1.6 million defamation lawsuit that is still pending.
Trump discussed voter fraud even before Nov. 3's closing. He floated numerous allegations that the election was "stolen", which were later disproven. Barr found the most troubling allegations related to Dominion among all of Trump's.
He said that he found the allegations disturbing in the sense that he saw no basis for them. However, he added that the allegations were sensationalized in such a way that they clearly had the power to influence a lot of people.
Barr stated to the Jan. 6 committee, that he first spoke with Trump Nov. 23, 2017. Barr announced his intention to resign on Dec. 14.
Trump told him that the "Justice" department was not an extension to his legal team, and added that Trump's allegations of election fraud were "not meritorious."
After the meeting with Trump, he said that he had asked Mark Meadows (the White House chief of staff) and Jared Kushner (the president's adviser, son-in-law): "How much longer is he going with this stolen election stuff?"
Barr replied to Meadows: "I think he's becoming less realistic."
Kushner replied, "Yeah. We're working on it." It's being worked on.
Barr testified to the Jan.6 committee that he doesn't rule Trump out of voting again. However, he said that Republicans should not nominate him again.
"It would be a huge mistake to put him up, but if he were the nominee, I would vote for him instead of the Democrat." In April, Barr spoke to Sean Spicer at Newsmax.
