Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that it “would not come out very well” for former President Trump if he took the stand in the Jan. 6 case because the 2024 GOP front-runner would not be able to keep his stories straight during a cross-examination.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Barr on “The Source” about Trump lawyer John Lauro’s decision to use an advice of counsel defense against the charges from special counsel Jack Smith earlier this week. Barr said that the lawyers will probably not end up pursuing the argument because it would likely mean Trump would have to testify on the stand.
“Also, I don’t think this defense of advice of counsel is going to go forward because I think the president would have to get on the stand and subject himself to cross-examination in order to raise that, and he also has to waive attorney-client privilege,” Barr told Collins on Wednesday.
“I think it would not come out very well for him,” Barr said when asked what would happen if Trump took the stand, noting that it would hurt him. When pushed further on why it would hurt him, he said that the cross-examination would be “very skilled.”
“Well, because I think he’d be subjected to very skilled cross-examination and I doubt he remembers all the different versions of events he’s given over the last few years,” he said.
Lauro said on NBC’s “Today” that Trump is “entitled to believe and trust advice of counsel.”
“You have one of the leading constitutional scholars in the United States, John Eastman, say to President Trump, ‘This is a protocol that you can follow. It’s legal.’ That eliminates criminal intent,” Lauro said Wednesday.
Trump was indicted Tuesday over his alleged attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Biden. In a 45-page indictment, the Justice Department alleges Trump engaged in a campaign of “dishonesty, fraud and conceit” to obstruct a “bedrock function” of a democracy.
Trump is expected to make his first court appearance in the case Thursday afternoon.