According to an excerpt from an upcoming book by ABC News Jonathan Karl, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly pushed for former Attorney General William Barr to dispel Trump’s claim that widespread fraud affected the 2020 election. According to the excerpt, McConnell largely wanted Barr to refute the claims to help Republicans win two Senate run-off elections in Georgia.
The Hill reports:
But the Kentucky Republican had been telling Barr privately since mid-November that Trump’s claims were damaging to the party and to the country, according to an excerpt of the upcoming book “Betrayal” by ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl published in The Atlantic on Sunday.
Barr and McConnell both confirmed the account to Karl.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell told Barr, according to the excerpt. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
“I understand that,” Barr said. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time.”
Ultimately, Republicans lost both elections in Georgia and control of the Senate.
In a statement from Trump’s Save America PAC he slammed Barr, saying he let down the American people.
“RINO former Attorney General Bill Barr failed to investigate election fraud, and really let down the American people. Even the scam that took place in Georgia of ballot stuffing on camera, he couldn’t see what was wrong with it. Just like he failed to understand the Horowitz report and let everyone down with respect to getting a timely investigation (where’s Durham?) on all of the corruption of the Obama-Biden Administration,” Trump wrote.
“It’s people in authority like Bill Barr that allow the crazed Radical Left to succeed,” Trump continues. “He and other RINOs in the Republican Party are being used in order to try to convince people that the election was legitimate when so many incredible facts have now come out to show conclusively that it wasn’t.”
“He came in with a semi-bang and went out with a whimper. Earlier in his term Bill Barr went ballistic on CNN with Wolf Blitzer warning Democrats were changing election rules to flood the system with mail-in ballots that “as a matter of logic” are “very open to fraud.” They are, and Bill Barr did nothing about it.”
