Former Attorney General Bill Barr took his book tour The Lead with Jake Tapper While tapping on CNN on Friday, Taper acknowledged that the bar’s assessment of the description of Russian integration was accurate, and wondered if the bar was still helping Vladimir Putin.
Tapper began by acknowledging that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had not made any conspiracy-related allegations against President Trump or his allies. Caper and a deception and – and a fantasy of the Democrats. That’s right- this is true, I mean, Muller has found and his party has not found any conclusive evidence that there was a conspiracy between the Trump party and the Russians. “
Still, Tapper is surprised:
If you so casually blow up the whole thing just as nonsense, you don’t, you’re dismissing the legitimate Russian interference in the election, which they did, which you don’t contest. You admit that they did. And a legitimate attempt by the Russians to influence foreign policy by changing the Republican platform through Manafort and others, and a legitimate attempt by the Russians to make the president more hostile to NATO, more hostile to Ukraine, which they also through Manafort. And others, did. Doesn’t it help Putin to dismiss the whole thing as a hoax? When, yes, the wind that steel dossier and dirty tricks and everything. But of course, Russia was a detrimental player here.
Barr quietly broke Tapper’s weak argument by arguing that the two had nothing to do with each other:
… Yes, the Russians tried to influence our election. They basically did it through a hack and dump. They grab some, hack some emails and then throw them out in public. That was the effect. And they somehow tried to influence the election and it was bad, but that doesn’t mean that Trump was involved and that it was appropriate to try to hurt him politically and in the end try to oust him from office.
Even when CNN comes close to discovering the truth about Milne’s story, they can’t help but accuse critics of being Putin’s helpers.
Sponsored by this segment Dove.
Here is a transcript of the March 11 show:
CNN The Lead with Jake Tapper
3/11/2022
4:47 PM ET
Jake Tapper: One last question about Russia-Gate-
Bill Bar: Yes
Tapper: – You call it in the book, which you basically call a caper and deception and a Democrat fantasy. That’s right- this is true, I mean, Mueller found out and his party did not find any evidence that there was a conspiracy between Trump and the Russians. And I don’t want to reconsider that.
Bar: Of course, okay.
Tapper: But I’m surprised that by so casually blowing the whole thing up, you are dismissing legitimate Russian interference in the election, which they have done, which you do not contest. You admit that they did. And a legitimate attempt by the Russians to influence foreign policy by changing the Republican platform through Manafort and others, and a legitimate attempt by the Russians to make the president more hostile to NATO, more hostile to Ukraine, which they also through Manafort. And others, did. Doesn’t it help Putin to dismiss the whole thing as a hoax? When, yes, the wind that steel dossier and dirty tricks and everything. But of course, Russia was a detrimental player here.
Bar: Well, without agreeing with your characteristics of Manafort’s activity, yes, the Russians tried to influence our election. They basically did it through a hack and dump. They grab some, hack some emails and then throw them out in public. That was the effect. And they tried to influence the election in some way and it was bad, but that doesn’t mean that Trump was involved and that it was appropriate to stop him in order to hurt him politically and eventually try to oust him from office.