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Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr appeared on “America Reports” Monday and said he was “shocked” to hear then-candidate Joe Biden lie about his son Hunter’s laptop during the 2020 presidential debate against then-President Donald Trump.
The New York Times recently confirmed the legitimacy of the laptop, breaking with the media’s earlier position that the laptop and its contents were “unverifiable” and the product of a “Russian disinformation campaign.”
“America Reports” co-host John Roberts asked Barr where the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the laptop could be headed, giving mention to a heated exchange between Barr and Trump referenced in the former attorney general’s book “One Damn Thing After Another.”
PSAKI DODGES QUESTIONS ON PAST DISMISSAL OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP AS ‘RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION’
Attorney General William Barr and President Trump attend a signing ceremony for an executive order on Nov. 26, 2019, in Washington, DC.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Barr responded that he was “limited” in what he could discuss because of “possible ongoing investigations,” but acknowledged that he was previously against injecting a criminal investigation against Biden’s son into the 2020 race without “definitive judgement” from the DOJ.
“Dammit, Mr. President, I am not going to talk to you about Hunter Biden. Period!,” Barr allegedly told Trump in the months leading up to election day.
Barr maintained that he would have said the same thing today, asserting that he would not discuss criminal cases with Trump. Despite his disagreement with the former president, Barr noted that he was “very disturbed” that Biden “lied to the American people” about the laptop during the presidential debate in October 2020.
“He’s squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by some intelligence people that was baseless—which he knew was a lie. And I was shocked by that,” Barr said.
Joe Biden speaks in the final presidential debate at Belmont University, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020 (Jim Bourg/Pool via AP)
Barr added that he believed the suppression of the laptop was an example of “election interference” but said he did not want to “venture an opinion” on whether President Biden could face any “legal liability” for his role in the laptop controversy.
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Co-host Sandra Smith pressed Barr on whether the Hunter’s laptop could become a “problem” for the White House.
“From a political standpoint now that this is in people’s consciousness, it had been suppressed up until now, obviously they have a hot potato and just to see how they handle it will be interesting,” Barr responded.
