Bill Barr hits the media for pushing the 'lie' of Russian collusion: 'A feeding frenzy'
'It was a lie which the media pushed,' Barr said
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former Attorney General William Barr criticized the media on Monday for pushing the "lie" that former President Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
"You decided when Robert Mueller chose not to analyze whether there was criminality on obstruction, you decided, ‘I’m attorney general, I’m going to make the decision,'" Savannah Guthrie asked Barr during an appearance on NBC's "Today" show. She said Barr "acknowledged" in his new book that he believed it was a "phony scandal" and asked why he decided to take the decision upon himself when "the whole point of the counsel was to take it out of the political chain of command."
Attorney General Bill Barr holds a news conference at the Department of Justice on Dec. 21, 2020, in Washington. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Well, it is a phony scandal. And people, in talking about the big lie after the election, forget that there was a big lie before – you know, at the beginning of the Trump administration," Barr responded.
Guthrie continued to push him on why Barr made the decision and not Mueller. "The reason he was selected by Rod Rosenstein was to give the appearance that there was no partisanship and then he went out and hired a lot of partisan Democrats," Barr said, saying half of the country didn't believe in the investigation.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller speaks at the Department of Justice about the Russia investigation on May 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Guthrie read an excerpt of the book and suggested Barr was acting like a defense lawyer after the completion of the Mueller testimony.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I had certainly taken a lot of guff about it. It was a lie. It was a lie which the media pushed. It was a feeding frenzy that hobbled the administration and was unfair to the President and I dealt with it accordingly," Barr said.
Barr said during an interview with NPR that the media "chose to weave a narrative that I was a toady to the president" and refuted the notion. It was "false from the beginning," he added.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on Oct. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Barr's new book, "One Damn Thing After Another," tells his story during his tenure as attorney general during both the George H. W. Bush and Trump administrations.