Bombshell from former AG Bill Barr: ‘Not sure we would’ve had a transition at all’

How close were we to Donald Trump seizing power, coup d’etat-style, in early 2021? Video testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr offered chilling insight telling us we were thisclose.

Barr had been asked by the House Jan. 6 Committee why he had authorized a real-time investigation into the allegations from Trump’s legal team that voter fraud had given Joe Biden the victory in the 2020 election.

“I felt the responsible thing to do was to be in a position to have a view as to, whether or not, there was fraud,” Barr said. “Frankly, the fact I put myself into the position that I could say we had looked at this and didn’t think there was fraud was really important to moving things forward.

“I shudder to think what the situation would have been, if the position of the department was were not looking at this until after Biden is in office, I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all.”

“I am not sure we would have had a transition at all.” Let those words sink in.

This was the bombshell from Thursday’s Jan. 6 Committee hearing, where we also heard testimony from former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue in which Donoghue shared notes that he had taken in meetings with Trump, including one quoting the former president telling officials to “just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

Trump, according to Donoghue, also told Justice Department officials that they were “obligated to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election.”

We also learned more in Thursday’s hearing about Trump’s scheme to place Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, with the understanding that Clark would send a letter to election officials in Georgia and other states to pressure them to decertify their election results, throw out their slates of Biden electors and replace them with Trump electors.

Clark, according to White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, was more than willing to go along with this scheme, which was what apparently qualified him for the attorney general job.

Herchmann, in video testimony shared publicly on Thursday, said he listened to Clark explain what he would do as acting AG to overturn the election.

“And when he finished discussing what he planned on doing, I said, ‘Good, fucking – excuse me, sorry, ‘effing a-hole. Congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you’d take as attorney general would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6(e). You’re clearly the right candidate for this job,” Herschmann said.