Former US Attorney General Bill Barr has said he worries that Donald Trump can regain the keys to the White House next year. Barr, who served during the Trump administration, says his former boss could “run out the clock” on federal charges against him and win the Presidency before being convicted of a crime.
During an interview with Fox News, Mr. Barr addressed several issues facing the former President, including the Supreme Court’s refusal to rule on whether he has immunity from prosecution. The immunity issue must be settled before Smith’s case against Trump can go to trial, so the prosecutor asked the Supreme Court to expedite a decision. It refused, and Trump’s Presidential immunity appeal will be heard by the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, in January.
Referring to the issue of immunity, Barr said any time Trump acted in an official capacity, he had Presidential immunity, which he supports. He added, however, that the government will argue that he was acting in candidate capacity, and therefore has no immunity from prosecution. Mr. Barr also addressed Colorado’s decision to exclude the former President from its ballot and said it was “highly destructive.” He said these are “exactly the kind of tactics by the left that created Donald Trump in the first place.”
Trump said he would immediately appeal the Colorado decision in the US Supreme Court, and Barr believes the Court should “smack this down very quickly.” On his Truth Social media account after the ruling, Trump wrote, “What a shame for our country!!! A sad day for America!!!”
Legal experts suggest that the decision will be a very difficult one for the Supreme Court to make. Samuel Issacharoff, a constitutional law professor at New York University, said the Court was being asked to define the boundaries of democracy, and Justices will struggle to agree because Trump has “has tremendous support on one side of the aisle and tremendous vilification on the other.”
