Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker hit back at former Attorney General Eric Holder for his comments on William Barr, the current attorney general.
Appearing on “Fox & Friends” with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade on Friday, Whitaker said that when he read Holder’s new op-ed in The Washington Post – in which Holder blasted current Attorney General William Barr for his so-called “loyalty” to President Trump – it “struck him as odd.”
ERIC HOLDER, ONCE OBAMA’S ‘WINGMAN,’ NOW CALLING OUT BARR FOR LOYALTY TO TRUMP
Holder wrote that Barr had “…taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate.”
He charged Barr as “unfit to lead the Justice Department.”
Yet, in a 2013 interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Holder labeled himself President Obama’s “wingman.”
“[For] somebody that has criticized Jeff Sessions, myself, and Bill Barr [to] suddenly say just how hard it is to criticize attorney generals, I guess just Republican attorney generals is all he wants to criticize. Because when Loretta Lynch did her tarmac meeting with [Bill Clinton], there was no Eric Holder to be heard from in that situation,” he said.
Whitaker noted that Holder has been “out there playing in state redistricting fights and trying to change legislatures, like in Virginia.”
“He has been effective,” Kilmeade commented.
“He has been effective,” Whitaker agreed. “But, he is a highly partisan person who, as attorney general, was there to protect [President] Obama and did all sorts of things to make sure that Obama was successful.”
Whitaker told the “Friends” hosts that everyone knows Holder is “not Mr. Law and Order,” adding that the Obama administration and Eric Holder specifically did a lot to undo relationships with law enforcement.
Whitaker also said that, although he does not have “direct evidence,” he believes there’s “no doubt” Obama knew about operation Crossfire Hurricane. Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the FBI in 2016 and 2017 into links between Trump associates and Russian officials.
“When there is an investigation of that magnitude, you would make sure that key people, including the attorney general and the president, would know that it’s going on,” Whitaker said.
“[John] Durham will get to the bottom of it?” Earhardt asked.
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“For sure, you saw there was a gratuitous hit on Durham by Holder, as well, where he kind of said, ‘well your, reputation is on the line.’ Same finger-wagging that we had Comey doing with Durham because they’re all scared that…Durham’s going to get to the bottom of it,” he concluded.
