Bill Barr Says He Thinks Trump ‘Will Be Convicted on Some Counts’

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday said that he thinks "the chances are" that former President Donald Trump will be "convicted on some counts."

Barr noted in an interview on Fox News that he did not think Trump would get "jail time," but he thinks the GOP will go with a different nominee for president due to his legal troubles.

“I think when push comes to shove, it’ll be clear that there are other candidates who can win decisively,” Barr said in the wide-ranging interview with Neil Cavuto. “But, you know, I think the chances are that that he will be and he will be convicted on some counts.”

“I don’t think that that translates into jail time,” Barr added. “Because I think, you know, if I was attorney general and we were prosecuting, for example, on the documents case, which is a righteous case, I wouldn’t want to see a former president in jail. I think a very substantial penalty would serve the public interest. But putting him in jail as too many collateral bad impacts on the country.”

Trump's former attorney general also said that the latest indictment of Trump, this one in Georgia, is “too broad.”

“I’m not happy with the Georgia case,” Barr said while on Fox News. “I think it’s much too sweeping, much too broad, excessive case that is [going to] make it look like people are piling on and being excessive to Trump and feed the narrative that he’s being victimized here.”

Trump was indicted Monday in Fulton County, Ga., for his role in allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. This was his second state indictment, after New York indicted him for allegedly engaging in illegal business practices, and his fourth indictment overall.

Barr said he believed the federal cases — in which Trump was indicted for illegally retaining classified documents and lying about it in one case and for his role in trying to overturn the election in the other — “are legitimate.” 

“I think the federal case is good, because it really focuses on the hub of the issue, which is not just the lies and knowing they were lies, but that he used this device of impaneling imposter electors,” said Barr. “It was a calculated, deceitful plan.”