By Steve Neavling
Former Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that he believes the Justice Department is “getting very close” to having sufficient evidence to indict former President Trump for removing classified documents when he left the White House.
In an interview with Fox News, Barr said that investigators must decide if they can make a “technical” case against Trump for stashing the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
“I think they’re getting very close to that point, frankly,” Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general, said.
Barr said there’s another issue, and that’s whether to indict a former president.
“What will that do to the country, what kind of precedent will that set, will the people really understand that this is not, you know, failing to return a library book, that this was serious,” Barr said.
Ultimately, Barr said, he doesn’t want Trump to be indicted.
“And so you have to worry about those things, and I hope that those kinds of factors will incline the administration not to indict him, because I don’t want to see him indicted as a former president,” Barr said.
He added, “But I also think they’ll be under a lot of pressure to indict him, because — one question is, look, if anyone else would have gotten indicted, why not indict him?”
Barr is not alone in thinking Trump could soon be indicted. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen told MSNBC that he expects the Justice Department will soon indict Trump.
“If the adage that no one is above the law holds true, then Donald should have been indicted already and facing consequences,” said Cohen. “I think that there’s going to be an indictment and relatively soon. I believe there will also be congressional hearings with Donald in the hot seat where, you know, either he’ll come in willingly—which I don’t think he will—or via subpoena.”
In a 54-page court filing last week, federal prosecutors said the raid on Trump’s house in Florida came after he and his advisers refused to turn over highly classified documents.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, a decision that will temporarily prevent federal prosecutors from using the documents in their investigation.
