Trump refuses to say whether he has confidence in Barr
03 December 2020
President Trump declined to say on Thursday whether he still has confidence in Attorney General Bill Barr, after insisting that Barr "hasn't done anything" to investigate his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
Why it matters: Trump has weighed firing Barr in recent days, seething about the attorney general's statement this week that the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
- Those comments — in tandem with the delay of findings from the Durham investigation, which Trump hopes will damage his political enemies — have come close to pushing Trump over the edge.
- Trump is seeking to install someone at the head of the Justice Department who would unquestioningly do his bidding, but it's not clear which government employee would be willing to go further than Barr in satisfying the president's demands, sources tell Axios' Jonathan Swan.
What they're saying: "Well, he hasn't done anything.So, he hasn't looked," Trump told reporters Thursday when asked about Barr's assertion that the DOJ has not found evidence to back up his claims of voter fraud.
- "When he looks,he'll see the kind of evidence that right now you're seeing in the Georgia Senate ... so, they haven't looked very hard, which is a disappointment, to be honest with you."
Asked whether he still has confidence in Barr, Trump hesitated, before responding: "Uhhh... ask me that in a number of weeks from now."
- "They should be looking at all of this fraud. This is not civil, he thought it was civil. This is not civil, this is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff."
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.