‘I don’t remember’ Trump asking for news conference clearing him of wrongdoing in Ukraine call, Barr says — as though he’d forget
Attorney General William P. Barr said Wednesday that he did not remember President Trump ever asking him to hold a news conference declaring the commander in chief broke no laws in a controversial phone call with the leader of Ukraine, but he acknowledged discussions with the White House on how his department would communicate to the media about the matter.
At an event in Memphis about a Justice Department crackdown on gun violence, a reporter inquired, “Mr. Attorney General, did the president ask you to publicly defend him regarding the Ukrainian call, and if so, why did you not want to do that?”
“If you’re talking about press reports that he asked me to have a news conference, the fact is, I don’t remember any such request,” Barr said. “In fact, my recollection is that I told the White House that we would do what we would normally do, and that is issue a press statement, which we did, and that was not an issue. There was no pushback on that.” [Continue reading…]