U.S. Attorney General William Barr said at a news conference on Monday that he doesn’t plan to appoint a special counsel to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter or the election as he rejected President Donald Trump’s inflammatory and unfounded claims regarding the presidential election.
“If I thought a special counsel at this stage was a right tool and was appropriate, I would name one, but I haven’t and I’m not going to,” Barr said in response to a question on the presidential election. He said that widespread fraud wasn’t found in this election.
Barr also roundly rejected suggestions from the President’s supporters in recent days who’ve called for the US government to seize voting machines.
“I see no basis for seizure of machines by the federal government,” Barr said Monday.
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Trump has inquired about the need for special investigations of Hunter Biden and on so-called voting fraud, and he continues to entertain and distribute unfounded theories that the presidential election was stolen from him.
“There is fraud unfortunately in most elections, I think we’re too tolerant of it,” he said. But in this election, Barr said, he stands by the finding that there was no systemic or broad-based fraud that would change the outcome of the election, a finding the President refuses to admit.
Barr also addressed the cyber attack that affected several agencies in the US government, saying “it certainly appears to be the Russians,” adding that “he agreed with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on this conclusion.”
Trump over the weekend appeared to defend Russia by downplaying the massive cyberattack on US federal government agencies, saying without evidence that the attack may have come from China.
AG Bill Barr: No need for special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, election fraud https://t.co/hSSEySUd6S pic.twitter.com/3l2ZLKudE8
— The Hill (@thehill) December 21, 2020
