In Monday’s January 6 hearing, former Attorney General William Barr said in a video testimony that having to deal with voter fraud claims from Donald Trump’s team was similar to “playing Whac-a-Mole,” adding that he thinks that the allegations surrounding the 2020 election were “bogus.”
Barr made the remarks in a televised interview with the House committee on Monday. The committee has been discussing the findings of the investigation of the US Capitol attack that occurred on January 6, 2021.
In the interview, Barr talked about how he dealt with an “avalanche” of claims of voter fraud made by Trump and allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who turned into the key peddlers of the campaign.
“After the election, he didn’t seem to be listening,” Barr said as he provided details of his conversations with Trump after the former president was defeated by President Joe Biden in 2020.
Also Read: What to expect from third Jan 6 hearing
“It was like playing Whac-a-Mole,” the former attorney general said, referring to a game in which players aim to hit a robotic rodent with a hammer before it drops down in a hole. Barr said that he believed that the allegations “were completely bogus, and silly, and usually based on complete misinformation.”
“I thought, ‘Boy if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality, if he really believes this stuff,'” Barr said, according to Business Insider.
Also Read: ‘Too early to tell’: Ex-Trump campaign manager warned Trump on election night
He further revealed that he met Trump a few weeks after the 2020 presidential election and told him that “the claims of fraud were bullsh*t,” adding that they “wasted a whole month on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims.”
The top lawman’s testimony was one of the multiple interviews presented in the second round of public hearings by the January 6 committee on Monday.