William Barr has spoken to the Jan. 6 committee


Former Attorney General William Barr has spoken with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the panel's chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), said on Sunday.
During an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation, Thompson said the committee has had "conversations" with Barr and several "Department of Defense individuals." He did not elaborate on what Barr said to the panel.
A committee staffer told The Washington Post that the discussions with Barr have been informal. Barr resigned as attorney general in December 2020, just a few weeks before the Capitol riot. Before submitting his resignation letter, Barr pushed back against Trump's false claims of widespread election fraud, saying the Justice Department did not uncover any evidence of this happening.
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Trump's lawyers attempted to shield hundreds of documents from the Jan. 6 committee, but lost at the Supreme Court last week. Politico reports that one of the documents the lawyers attempted to block was a draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines from states. Thompson was asked about the document on Sunday, and whether it will be discussed with Barr.
Thompson replied that while it was a draft and the executive order was never implemented, "we are concerned that our military was part of the big lie on promoting that the election was false. So, if you are using the military to potentially seize voting machines, even though it's a discussion, the public needs to know. We've never had that before."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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