Jan. 6 committee has spoken with former Trump attorney general Barr, chairman says

Former attorney general William P. Barr has spoken with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, the committee chairman said Sunday, a further indication that several former Trump administration officials are cooperating with the panel even as others are fighting efforts to compel their testimony.

“We’ve had conversations with the former attorney general already. We have talked to Department of Defense individuals,” U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the committee, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

The bipartisan House panel is investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop the confirmation of Joe Biden’s electoral college win, an attack that resulted in the deaths of one police officer and four others and injured about 140 members of law enforcement.

It is unclear what has been discussed between the committee and Barr, who stepped down as attorney general in the weeks before the insurrection. Barr had been closely allied with Trump through most of his tenure at the Department of Justice but resigned in December 2020 after publicly disputing claims of widespread election fraud.

Thompson was asked Sunday if he intended to ask Barr about a draft of a Trump executive order, first reported by Politico last week, that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines in battleground states. Thompson said he did, though he acknowledged the plan was only in draft form and never became operational.

“We are concerned that our military was part of this big lie on promoting that the election was false,” Thompson told CBS News. “So, if you are using the military to potentially seize voting machines, even though it’s a discussion, the public needs to know. We’ve never had that before.”

The draft executive order is believed to be one of the documents former president Donald Trump went to court to try to block from release. The document was among hundreds of pages provided to the committee by the National Archives last week, after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s arguments. Trump has baselessly claimed for more than a year that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. (There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud affecting the election’s outcome.)

So far, it appears the committee, made up of two Republicans and seven Democrats, has not asked Barr about that draft executive order, according to a person familiar with the committee’s work, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Barr could not be reached for comment Sunday. The former attorney general plans to publish a book soon about his time in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, where he will touch on “the 2020 election fallout,” among other topics, according to his publisher.

The committee has ramped up its investigation in recent months, seeking voluntary cooperation from - and also issuing subpoenas to - several members of Trump’s orbit, from members of his former legal team to Fox News host Sean Hannity. Last week the committee requested voluntary testimony from Ivanka Trump, the former president’s eldest daughter and White House adviser, saying that other witnesses have indicated she may have direct knowledge of Trump’s actions before, during and after the insurrection.

“The Committee would like to discuss any other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding the President’s plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes,” Thompson wrote in his request to Ivanka Trump.

The committee’s conversations with Barr have been informal, according to a committee staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The committee’s contact with Barr started last year as it sought more information about the activities of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who encouraged the department to intervene after the election.

When Clark was called before the panel last year, he declined to answer questions, citing executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. According to a transcript of a committee deposition, lawmakers had intended to ask Clark about his communications and discussions with Trump, along with efforts by the former president to install Clark as acting attorney general.

“We then wanted to talk specifically about efforts that he took, proposed that the Department take with respect to election fraud,” said U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, a Democrat from California and a panel member on the committee, according to the transcript.

In addition, the committee has already interviewed Barr’s successor, Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen also took questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee for a separate probe into Trump’s efforts to influence the Justice Department. Clark is expected to return for questioning before the Jan. 6 committee in the near future.