Bill Barr Says Trump Should Be 'Most Concerned' About This Investigation

Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who served during the Trump administration, warned that Donald Trump should worry more about the investigation looking into his alleged mishandling of classified documents than his other ongoing legal cases.

The classified documents case came to the forefront after the former president ignored a subpoena that was issued last May that required him to return all classified documents that were in his possession. Attorney General Merrick Garland later approved the FBI's search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, which allowed agents last August to take back hundreds of documents that had "classified" markings on them that Trump took from the White House when he left office. The former president maintains his innocence and repeatedly blasted the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the search.

"I think I would be most concerned about the document case in Mar-a-Lago," Barr told ABC News' This Week co-host Jonathan Karl on Sunday, adding that Trump "had no claim to those documents" as they belong to the government and that prosecutors have "some very good evidence there."

He continued: "I think he was jerking the government around and they subpoenaed it, and they tried to jawbone him into delivering the documents. But the government is investigating the extent to which games were played and there was obstruction in keeping the documents from them. And I think that's a serious potential case. I think they probably have some very good evidence."

The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago reportedly included information about nuclear programs and highly classified programs. One of Trump's lawyers said last June that all classified documents were returned, but the FBI found evidence that suggested that he still kept more sensitive records.

Jack Smith was appointed in November as the special counsel to oversee the ongoing probe. Barr said on Sunday that he thinks Smith is a "very dogged, aggressive prosecutor who will get to the bottom of what happened."

Trump criticized authorities in December for taking the classified documents, saying on Truth Social that "under the Presidential Records Act and the very well established Clinton Socks Case, the raid of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, and the taking of documents and many other items, was ILLEGAL. Everything should be returned, at once!"

Meanwhile, Barr believes that the classified documents case has more merit than the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office.

"I don't think it has any merit. I think it is transparently an abuse of prosecutorial power to accomplish a political end," Barr said Sunday about Bragg's investigation.

Trump surrendered to the Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday afternoon and was arraigned on charges related to the investigation led by Bragg's office into an alleged finance violation committed by Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. He is now the first president to be indicted in American history and has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to hide a reimbursement made to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet ahead of the 2016 presidential election about an affair she claimed she had with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the affair and asserted his innocence throughout the investigation.

The former president is also facing several other investigations, including the events related to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and his alleged involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

"The president, unfortunately, has a penchant for engaging in reckless and self-destructive behavior that brings these kinds of things on him," Barr said Sunday, adding that it "doesn't surprise" him that the former president is facing several legal woes.

Newsweek reached out by email to Trump's media office for comment.