Fmr. AG Bill Barr Predicts Trump Indictment

Former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday said he’d “bet” there’ll soon be an indictment of the former president.

In an interview on CBS Mornings, Barr was pressed about a Monday meeting between three of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith regarding possible criminal charges for Trump’s handling of classified documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August 2022.

“I’ve said for a while this is the most dangerous legal risk facing the president. … There’s substantial evidence there,” Barr said, adding about a possible indictment in the case, “If I had to bet, I’d bet it’s near.”

“This is not a case of the Department of Justice conducting a witch hunt,” Barr said. “In fact, they approached this very delicately and with deference to the president.”

Barr added that if Trump hadn’t “jerked them around for a year and a half,” he thinks this would have “gone nowhere.”

According to news outlet The Messenger, there’s also a second grand jury is meeting in South Florida to hear evidence in the special counsel investigation.

Barr’s blunt assessment of the chances for an indictment come as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also predicted Monday in a Fox News interview that he thinks Trump will be indicted — though on a different matter.

“Mark my words: I believe [Attorney General] Merrick Garland will indict Donald Trump,” because “he hates Donald Trump,” Cruz said. “Garland is angry that he wasn’t confirmed to the Supreme Court. He wants to indict him.”

Garland’s role in Smith’s investigation is limited, according to Department of Justice regulations. Although the attorney general named the special counsel last fall, it’s up to Smith on whether to press charges. If Garland overruled the move, he’d have to give Congress a report notifying lawmakers of the decision, The Messenger reported.

On Monday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he’s expecting to be indicted, complaining: “The Marxists and Fascists in the DOJ & FBI are going after me at a level and speed never seen before in our Country, and I did nothing wrong.”