Former Attorney General William Barr blasted Republicans for supporting former President Donald Trump for president in 2024, saying even without criminal action, Trump's actions have been "outrageous."
Trump pleaded not guilty last week to 37 charges related to the retention of hundreds of classified documents that were discovered during an FBI raid in August 2022, including some that were labeled top secret and related to national defense.
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Barr wrote in the Free Press on Monday that Trump should not be the Republicans' pick for the White House, regardless if he is convicted.
"It is one thing to argue that Trump should not face criminal liability. Fine. But the next obvious question is whether, given his conduct, the GOP should continue to promote him for the highest office in the land," Barr said. "Many Republicans are avoiding this question and thus implicitly endorsing Trump for the presidency despite his egregious conduct. This posture is untenable."
He added that he, too, believes there is a two-tiered system of justice within the Justice Department when it comes to investigations of Republicans and Democrats. However, he said, it is not wise to blame Trump's indictment solely on that idea.
"While the double standard is real, responding to Trump’s indictment by repetitively invoking this grievance is essentially a dodge. It sidesteps the real questions raised by Trump’s behavior," Barr said.
"Should Trump have been given a pass by the DOJ just because Hillary may have been? Some of my Republican friends think the answer is yes. I am unconvinced. It is not clear to me that giving Trump a pass would be the best way of restoring the rule of law and putting the double standard behind us," he continued.
Trump's inability to remove national defense documents from the White House is "beyond debate," Barr said. The former attorney general, as he has in recent months, called out supporters and lawmakers who tried to frame the former president's actions as a "simple custody dispute."
He said that even Trump supporters agree there is "no universe" in which the documents could be "purely private." However, they have instead latched onto an argument that, as a former president, Trump had absolute "discretion" to label any document private or declassify important documents.
"In other words, they are not merely saying a president has some discretion to determine whether something gray should be treated as black or white," Barr said. "They are saying he has total discretion to label something indisputably black as white — which, if true, would obviously eviscerate the entire Presidential Records Act."
Barr said that, at its core, the Trump federal indictment is an obstruction case.
"Trump would not have been indicted just for taking the documents in the first place. Nor would he have been indicted even if he delayed returning them for a period while arguing about it," Barr said. "What got Trump criminally charged was his deceit and obstruction in responding to the grand jury subpoena served in May 2022 after he had stymied the government for a year."
On the whole, Barr advised supporters of the former president, GOP lawmakers, and opponents to wait for the case to play out before making any decisions.
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"Whenever defending Trump is concerned, it is always prudent not to get too far out on a limb until the facts are known," Barr said. "It would be wise to consider that the DOJ has held back a lot of information, and it will be coming out in the weeks ahead. But what we already know about Trump’s behavior is indefensible."
The Washington Examiner reached out to Trump's campaign for comment.