Barr says he doesn’t think Obama-era Justice officials committed treason

BY RACHEL FRAZIN – 05/30/19 08:33 PM EDT 1,8091,612

© Greg Nash

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview with “CBS This Morning” airing Friday that he doesn’t think Obama-era Justice officials committed treason “as a legal matter.”

When asked by reporter Jan Crawford whether Barr believes that Obama-era officials committed treason, Barr replied “not as a legal matter.”

Asked whether he was concerned about the way officials handled a probe into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and whether they conspired with the Trump campaign, Barr said he was. 

“Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest and better good,” he said during the Thursday interview. “They don’t realize that what they’re doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have.”

Barr also said during the interview that he believes special counsel Robert Mueller could have made a determination as to whether President Trump obstructed justice. 

President Trump has accused FBI agent Peter Strzok, who served on Mueller’s team, of treason.

“This is the FBI we’re talking about — that is treason,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal last year, referring to Strzok’s anti-Trump text messages. “That is a treasonous act.”