Fox News anchor Bret Baier is denying that he communicated with the Justice Department before interviewing Donald Trump.
Baier’s sit-down interview with the former president was notable for several reasons, but most prominently because, as lawyers pointed out, Trump appeared to have admitted to obstructing justice.
During the interview, Baier asked Trump why he didn’t return the boxes of documents requested by the National Archives and Records Administration, which then obtained a subpoena for the documents. Trump replied that he was busy.
“But according to the indictment, you then tell this aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers to say you’d fully complied with the subpoena, when you hadn’t,” Baier followed up.
“But before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things — golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things,” Trump responded.
Trump, then, essentially allowed Baier to cross-examine him by simply reading from the indictment. Special counsel Jack Smith will likely attempt to use Trump’s own words to strengthen his case that Trump willfully and knowingly conspired to obstruct justice and withheld documents from a federal grand jury (count 32 and 33 of the indictment). Better yet for Smith, he didn’t even have to cross-examine Trump himself.
Baier: Why not just hand them over? Trump: Because I had boxes, I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things pic.twitter.com/PwW85wlTzH
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023
The interview led Trump supporters to accuse Fox News of being in cahoots with the Justice Department to entrap Trump.
The Fox News anchor directly responded to an accusation on Wednesday that claimed, “The big question is did @BretBaier have any contact with the DOJ to try and entrap @realDonaldTrump into incriminating himself. Who wrote his questions. The DOJ will be using his interview against him.”
According to Baier, it is unequivocally false to suggest he was recruited to help investigators.
“I’ll answer that. No. I wrote my own questions,” he said. “And frankly I didn’t know that I would get much on the indictment questions assuming he might say he couldn’t talk about it. Thanks for watching.”
I’ll answer that. No. I wrote my own questions. And frankly I didn’t know that I would get much on the indictment questions assuming he might say he couldn’t talk about it. Thanks for watching. https://t.co/J17r0RqPit
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) June 21, 2023
Why oh why does Trump do this to himself???? ♀️ Sometimes you just have to keep your mouth shut especially when you be prosecuted in court!!! I’m a Trump supporter but I’d wish he would just use some wisdom now and again. He KNOWS Brett can’t stand him!!!
I read the headlines to my wife and asked her if she knew who the article was about. Her response: “What it Brett Baier?” Need I say anymore. We never trusted him. Of course, he coordinated with the DOJ.
Bret Baier is a loser, He will do anything he is told to do for money and just acts stupid like he don’t know the truth, These kind of people i don’t want to listen to at all