Trump says wait and see if he’ll fire Barr

When pressed on the speculation by reporters in the White House on Thursday, Trump expressed annoyance with Barr but punted on the question of whether a firing is imminent.

“Ask me that in a number of weeks from now,” he said.

Trump has so far refused to concede to Biden, instead claiming that the election was “rigged.” He is leaning on a patchwork effort to convince the courts to overturn the results in some battleground states and GOP-led legislatures in others to pick electors who will defy the popular vote and back the president.

This hinges on convincing people there was widespread voter fraud, and so far, at least in court, the Trump legal team has had little success. Further cementing the team’s shortcomings in making a compelling case was when Barr told the Associated Press this week, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

Although the DOJ later clarified that its investigatory work is not finished, Trump complained that Barr “hasn’t done anything yet.”

Pointing to recent election fraud hearings, Trump added, “When he looks, he’ll see the kind of evidence that right now you are seeing in the Georgia Senate. They are going through hearings right now in the Senate, and they are finding tremendous volumes, so they haven’t looked very hard, which is a disappointment, to be honest.”

Another source of vexation for Trump, according to a Washington Post report, is the lack of a preelection report from U.S. Attorney John Durham on his criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation.

Barr revealed on Tuesday that he appointed Durham in October to be a special counsel, providing him extra protection from Biden trying to shut down the investigation, which could reflect harshly on the Obama administration.

Still, it appears too little, too late for Trump, who in a video address on Wednesday took a swipe at Durham.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Durham didn’t want to go after these people or have anything to do with going after them before the election. So who knows if he’s ever going to even do a report?” he said.

The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey told CNN on Wednesday night that Barr also doesn’t have a great relationship with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who recently received praise from the president for leading his legal efforts to expose voter fraud in the election.

“Barr has not had the best relationship, frankly, with Rudy Giuliani and sees him, frankly, as a sideshow and someone who’s not in the best interest of the president,” Dawsey said.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the Justice Department and the White House for comment.

With Trump’s time left in the Oval Office nearing an end, save for the improbable chance the election is turned on its head, the president has fired other top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Trump was long said to be unhappy with Esper and announced the Defense Department chief’s termination by tweet after Esper broke with the president’s stance to invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops in to quell unrest during a summer of violent protests in 2020.

The president fired Krebs after his agency put out a joint statement that called the 2020 election the “most secure” in history, which undercuts Trump’s claims of a stolen contest.

In addition, Trump is considering more pardons before he leaves office, with reports suggesting he is looking into pardoning members of his family over concerns that a Justice Department run by the Biden administration might go after people such as his son Donald Trump Jr. and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.