Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr says he was dumbfounded that the DOJ actually released the letter that Routh wrote prior to the failed assassination attempt of President Trump.
Barr said there was no justification for it and went further by saying “it served no purpose other than to risk inciting further violence” against Trump.
Here’s more from Fox News digitial:
Former Attorney General William Barr says he is “dumbfounded” that the Justice Department released a chilling letter penned by would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh on Monday, calling the decision “rash” and serving no purpose “other than to risk inciting further violence.”
Routh is the suspect in former President Donald Trump’s second foiled assassination attempt. The DOJ obtained the letter from a witness who says they received it inside a box delivered to them by Routh several months prior to the assassination attempt.
The box contained several handwritten letters as well as ammunition, among other things. One of the letters, addressed “Dear World,” admitted to an assassination attempt on Trump. He also offered money to anyone willing to finish the job.
“I was dumbfounded that the DOJ made public this morning the contents of the letter that, Ryan Routh, left with an acquaintance prior to the attempted assassination of former President Trump,” Barr said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“The letter calls on people to ‘finish the job’ of killing President Trump, attempts to rouse people in incendiary terms to do so, and offers $150,000 to anyone who succeeds. There was no apparent justification for releasing this information at this stage,” he continued.
Barr, who served during both the Trump and George H. W. Bush administrations, says that “DOJ had more than enough evidence to have Routh detained pending trial, without publicizing these details.”
“Even if DOJ thought it important to provide the letter to the court, it could have redacted inflammatory material or arranged to have the letter submitted under seal. It was rash to put out this letter in the midst of an election during which two attempts on the life of President Trump had been made,” Barr said.
“It served no purpose other than to risk inciting further violence,” he added.
I know this wasn’t my opinion when the letter was released, but I will defer to Barr on this one since he’s not one to just throw around baseless accusations against the DOJ.
