Former Attorney General William Barr is pushing back against the decision to describe Jan. 6 as an “insurrection.”
During an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition” ahead of the release of his new memoir “One Damn Thing After Another,” Barr said, “I didn’t view it as an insurrection. I mean, I think it was a riot that got out of control,” Barr said.
He revealed he did not believe there was a serious threat against then-Vice President Mike Pence even though there were chants of “hang Hike Pence” heard that day.
“I didn’t think there was a risk that they would go and get Mike Pence and hang him up on Capitol Hill. I thought that that was essentially a propaganda-type thing,” Barr said.
Listen to the interview below:
During an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, Barr said former President Donald Trump was “responsible in the broad sense of that word” for the Jan. 6 riot.
“It appears that part of the plan was to send this group up to the Hill. I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that that was wrong,” he explained.
Still, he added, “I haven’t seen anything to say he was legally responsible for it in terms of incitement.”
Barr told NPR that if he had been a senator during the impeachment trial, he would have voted to acquit Trump because he had left office.
The former attorney general has expressed his belief that the Republican Party needs to move on from Trump. However, he suggested during an NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie that he would vote for the former president if he won the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.
“Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee,” Barr said.