Barr: Trump faces legal peril because he’s ‘his own worst enemy’

Former Attorney General William Barr called his ex-boss, former President Trump, “his own worst enemy” and said that his legal troubles are because he is “reckless.”

Trump has faced a slew of criminal and civil suits including being arrested and charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records earlier this month following a multi-year investigation by the Manhattan district attorney. 

He also faces three other criminal investigations, two in Washington D.C. over his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and his alleged mishandling of classified documents, and a third in Georgia over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election there.

In civil court, he faces a rape and defamation case from author E. Jean Carroll and an investigation into his business dealings by the New York attorney general, among a slew of other cases.

“I said he’s frequently his own worst enemy and he digs himself holes,” Barr said on CNN Primetime Thursday night. “And he does some things that are reckless that are clearly gonna give rise to investigations and look into them. And that included both the documents in Mar-a-Lago and the Jan. 6 episode.”

Barr said the document mishandling case is the most worrying for Trump, a stance he’s repeated before, and that “games were played” by Trump’s team who allegedly lied to federal investigators about if the former president possessed any classified materials.

“That, I think, exposes him,” Barr said.

Last week, Barr said he believes federal investigators have “very good evidence” against Trump in that case.

Barr has been openly critical of Trump since leaving his administration, even saying last week that Trump is the “most likely” GOP candidate to lose to President Biden in a hypothetical 2024 presidential election. Barr stepped down as attorney general, apparently at Trump’s request, in his final month as president and just before the Jan. 6 insurrection.