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- United States Attorney General William Barr is leaving office.
- Barr infuriated Donald Trump by disagreeing with allegations of massive voter fraud.
- Officials say Barr was not forced to resign.
US President Donald Trump announced Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr, who infuriated him by contradicting his claims that he was the victim of massive fraud in the US elections, will step down.
“I just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House,” tweeted Trump, who is set to resign after losing the November 3 election.
“Our relationship has been very good … Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family.”
READ | ‘See you in four years’: Trump hints at running for US presidency in 2024
A senior White House official said: “Barr resigned of his own free will. He was not expelled or forced to resign. It was a very friendly meeting.”
Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, was heavily criticized by Democrats for what they said was his unethical behavior to protect Trump during an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into the president’s connections to Russia.
“Bon voyage to the worst despicable and corrupt attorney general in US history,” House Democrat Bill Pascrell tweeted.
Justice Department investigation
However, Barr angered Trump at the time of the presidential election for not using, in the eyes of the president, the Justice Department to aid his campaign or to support Trump’s claims of fraud.
Trump had long hoped that a Justice Department investigation into the alleged political roots of the Russia investigation would help him damage his Democratic opponent Joe Biden before Election Day.
When Barr made it clear that none of that was going to happen, Trump publicly enraged that he would be “very disappointed.”
He got angry at Barr again after the election, which Trump has tried to reverse, claiming without evidence that Biden only won by fraud.
Barr told The Associated Press that “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have had a different outcome in the election,” an assessment that put a big hole in the ongoing disinformation campaign Trump.
Trump is also furious at the revelation that the Justice Department decided not to release an investigation it is conducting into the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter Biden in the run-up to the election.
Once again, Trump hoped Barr would provide him with damaging news to help him win a second term.
Trump announced that Assistant Attorney General Jeff Rosen, “a prominent person,” will take over from Barr as an actor.
Trump, who will leave office on January 20, already fired an attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in 2018.
In that case, Sessions infuriated Trump by recusing himself in the Russia investigation, leading to Mueller’s appointment.
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