Two heavyweight champions stepped into the Oval Office ring. Bad Boy Donald Trump, wearing a black suit and no cape has more ring experience than his Attorney General William Barr. But the Double AG (once for President George H.W. Bush and once for this president) dressed in a dark charcoal three-piece has been battling bad guys on a national level since 1992.
The president has been in the squared circle of the WWE since Andre the Giant was king. He hosted WrestleMania IV and V in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was performance art.
Trump dropped tens of thousands of dollars from the rafters of the arena onto his clapping fans. He was the first WWE Hall of Famer to reach the White House, and it has been a knockout drag-out since the day he opened the Oval Office door with Americans getting knocked around and with the bruises to show for it.
On the other hand, Barr knew what he was getting into when he had his one-of-a-kind resume ferried over to Trump.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sat in a ringside seat until the referee sent him to the locker room. Standing between the Trump and Barr was former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani who has been unabashedly biased toward the president. The word is he had been making $20,000 a day for his loyalty.
For months before the fight, Giuliani had been feeding his guy a steady diet of conspiracy theories. Plus, he has been telling anybody who would listen that the Democrats dumped “millions of illegal votes into the system with no evidence,” according to The Associated Press.
This week, the president gave Barr an invitation he could not refuse that led to the lengthy clash of the Titans. One individual familiar with the meeting spoke on the condition of anonymity and told CNN:
‘The interview had caused his boss to erupt, multiple people familiar with his reaction said.’Â
Trump was also angry that Barr’s long investigation had not provided him with a report from John Durham. He believed it would come out before the election and further help him. He asked repeatedly:
‘Where is it?’
ABC News first reported that the meeting was “tense.” Officials did not want to see Barr fired, but Trump has always been capricious, dancing from foot-to-foot saying he could dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
According to CNN:
‘Ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud.’
Barr hit back, supported by state officials, and said:
‘There is no evidence of widespread election fraud.’
Giuliani has sparred with Barr on and off. The former mayor said, according to The Associated Press:
‘We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud. As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ. The Justice Department also hasn’t audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth.’
However, Barr said earlier that people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits, according to The Associated Press. He said a remedy for many complaints would be a top-down audit by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department:
‘There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. … And those have been run down; they are being run down. Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.’
Trump pounded Barr claiming:
‘He hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t looked [for fraud in the Georgia election.]’
After the “intense” meeting, the Department of Justice (DOJ) had no comment at first, but then came back and issued an off-the-record statement:
‘[The DOJ has not finished the fraud investigation and therefore not] announced an affirmative finding of no fraud in the election. The department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.’ Â