people are getting away with this stuff—it's unbelievable. This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud."[42]
"Where is the DOJ and the FBI in all of this, Mr. President?" Bartiromo asked.[43] "You have laid out some serious charges here. Shouldn't this be something that the FBI is investigating? Are they? Is the DOJ investigating?" Bartiromo asked incredulously.[44]
"Missing in action," the President replied, "can't tell you where they are."[45] He conceded that when he asked if DOJ and FBI were investigating, "everyone says yes, they're looking at it."[46] But he didn't leave it there. "You would think if you're in the FBI or Department of Justice, this is, this is the biggest thing you could be looking at," President Trump said. "Where are they? I've not seen anything. I mean, just keep moving along. They go onto the next President."[47] He claimed the FBI was not even investigating Dominion, adding that votes processed in its machines "are counted in foreign countries."[48]
None of this was true. Just 6 days earlier, Attorney General Barr had explained to President Trump how DOJ and FBI were investigating fraud claims. Barr also made it a point to emphasize that the Dominion claims were nonsense. The President simply lied. The "crazy stuff," as Barr put it, was all Trump could cite.
Attorney General Barr then decided to speak out. He invited Michael Balsamo, an Associated Press (AP) reporter, to lunch on December 1st. Barr told the journalist that "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."[49]
That made the President irate.
Later that evening, Attorney General Barr met with President Trump at the White House. It was their second face-to-face meeting after the November election.[50] At first, President Trump didn't even look at Attorney General Barr.[51] The President "was as mad as I've ever seen him, and he was trying to control himself," Barr said.[52] The President finally "shoved a newspaper" with the AP quote in Barr's face.[53]
"Well, this is, you know, killing me. You didn't have to say this. You must've said this because you hate Trump—you hate Trump," Barr remembered him saying.[54] "No, I don't hate you, Mr. President," Barr replied. "You know, I came in at a low time in your administration. I've tried to help your administration. I certainly don't hate you."[55]
President Trump peppered him with unsupported conspiracy theories.[56] Because he had authorized DOJ and FBI to investigate fraud claims, Attorney General Barr was familiar with the conspiracy theories raised by the President. The "big ones" he investigated included claims such as: Dominion voting machines switched votes, votes had been "dumped at the end of
