By C. Ryan Barber
Business Insider
June 24, 2022
Former Attorney General William Barr said he was “not sure we would have had a transition at all” if the Justice Department had not investigated Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud and found them baseless.
In a closed-door deposition, Barr suggested to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol that Trump might not have left office voluntarily if DOJ had not proactively examined the election fraud claims ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if the position of the department was: We’re not even going to look at this until after Biden’s in office,” Barr said in the recorded deposition, a portion of which the committee aired Thursday at a hearing focused on Trump’s effort to pressure the Justice Department to advance his false election fraud claims.