Despite the break from former President Donald Trump on the 2020 election, former Attorney General Bill Barr said Democrats are using "the law as a political tool" to "preempt political decisions and sow discord in the political process" and are "playing for a repeat of the 2020 election."
"This is an abomination; it's the abuse of prosecutorial power to bring a case that would not be brought against anyone else," Barr told Fox Business' "Kudlow" on Friday. "They're going after the man, not a crime.
"And the legal theory, frankly, is pathetically weak. The case is held together by chicken wire, paper clips, and rubber bands. It's a lousy case. And it's a shame.
"It's a shameful episode in our history where this local prosecutor is trying to affect the political process by bringing this case."
Barr speculated the indictment of Trump is not intended to bring him to trial as much as just sow chaos and discord — a phrase Democrats had used to try to put a cloud over the Trump administration after the 2016 election with the allegations of Russian collusion.
"I think it's a weak case altogether; unfortunately, I think it's going to accomplish its political purpose, which is to inject chaos into the Republican process," Barr told host Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser for Trump. "I think probably the governing intent here is to help Trump and to have all the news focused on this kind of stuff for the next couple of years and turn the Republican primary into a circus."
Democrats inflicted with "Trump Derangement Sydrome," might even be using this to help Trump win the 2024 GOP primary, according to Barr.
"They think they can beat him, so they're actually trying to help him by generating the support of his base. And they feel like that will generate their own turnout," Barr continued. "They're essentially, I think, playing for a repeat of the 2020 election."
Barr, an attorney general for two presidential administration, denounced the "breakdown of the rule of law in New York State."
"This is New York State, and New York State has been acting like a banana republic," Barr said.
"We going to rue the day we cross this Rubicon. They'll be more and more of this. It just doesn't end well."
Barr addressed the reported details of the sealed indiction, saying that case unravels because it cannot prove a hush-money payment here reaches the legal threshold of proving "intent to defraud."
"I don't understand the basis for a fraud claim here," Barr said. "But then they take this misdemeanor, which also has a problem with statue of limitations, and they try to shoehorn it into a felony by claiming that the reason the documents were falsified was to cover up another crime.
"In this case, they're assuming that the payments were a campaign finance violation, because they were effectively a contribution to the Trump campaign.
"I can tell you that is not the law. That is not how the Justice Department would view it. It wasn't brought by the Justice Department during the Trump administration. But even after the Trump administration left, there was no inhibition on the part of the Department of Justice to bring this federal claim, if they thought it was valid. And it was never brought."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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