Steve Bannon Issues Threat to Trump’s Former Attorney General Bill Barr

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Former White House strategist Steve Bannon issued a warning Friday to ex-Attorney General Bill Barr over recent criticism of Donald Trump.

Barr said in an interview Thursday with CBS News that Trump is “very exposed” legally over his alleged mishandling of classified documents seized by FBI agents from the Mar-a-Lago estate of former president in Florida in August.

Trump is now being investigated for illegally keeping the documents, which he took from the White House after leaving office in 2021. The former president has maintained his innocence in the case and claimed he declared them before move them to Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s claim of “automatic” declassification of documents when they are placed in boxes won’t “fly,” Barr added in his interview.

“I’ve said that of all the cases out there today, the one I’d be most concerned about, if I were the president, is the Mar-a-Lago document case,” Barr said. When asked why by CBS News’ Catherine Herridge, he said it was because the investigation wasn’t more focused “on purpose or anything like that.”

Former US Attorney General William Barr speaks Sept. 20, 2022, in Washington, DC Former White House strategist Steve Bannon issued a warning to Barr on Friday over recent criticism of former President Donald Trump. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told Trump on Thursday that 16 records would be turned over to special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the case. Multiple sources told CNN that Trump and his top advisers had knowledge of the proper declassification process while he was president.

“It’s very clear that he had no business having those documents,” the former attorney general said Thursday. “He’s been given a long time to get them back and he’s—they’ve been subpoenaed. And if there’s any game being played there, he’s going to be very exposed.”

Bannon shared Barr’s remarks on Friday and commented to Gettr, “First Impeachment of President Trump’s Second Term—Bill Barr …..The worst kind of Republican Establishment vermin.”

The former Trump official made similar comments last year as he floated the idea that Barr could face trial if Republicans take back the White House in 2024. Trump announced his 2024 presidential bid this past November, though that some Republicans have expressed their preferences for other potential candidates.

During his War Room podcast at the time, Bannon criticized Barr and his memoir One Damn Thing After Another. Bannon added that Barr’s book, which he called “shocking,” will be used as evidence against him if the GOP takes back the White House.

Bannon also criticized Barr in that segment for “the lies he’s been telling about election fraud, the lies he’s been telling about deceiving President Trump.”

“I will tell Bill Barr, ‘Preserve your documents, preserve your documents, OK?'” he said.

Once a Trump loyalist, Barr has long received backlash from some Republicans and conservatives for repeatedly saying there is no “evidence” to support claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Barr resigned as attorney general in mid-December 2020, just over a month before Trump left the White House and before the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, another incident the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating the former president .

Newsweek reached Barr by email through the Center for Legal Action, where he serves as advisory board chair.

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