By Jeff Mason and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday declined to say whether he still had confidence in U.S. Attorney General William Barr after the Department of Justice chief this week said there was no sign of major fraud in last month’s presidential election.
Barr told the Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday the department found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. But Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said Barr had not looked for any evidence, calling that “a disappointment.”
Trump’s legal team has accused Barr of failing to conduct a proper inquiry or audit voting machines, a task that does not fall to the Justice Department during an election.
Democratic President-elect Joe Biden beat Republican Trump by a wide margin in the Nov. 3 election of 306 to 232 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that chooses the president, as well as by more than 6.8 million ballots in the popular vote.
Despite that, Trump has continued to say without evidence that the election was marred by widespread fraud, claims that have been repeatedly rejected by state and federal officials.
Barr has long been a staunch Trump ally, winning scorn from Democrats and many of the department’s own career prosecutors who have accused him of putting Trump’s personal interests ahead of the country’s interests.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Sarah N. Lynch and Susan Heavey; editing by Chris Reese and Alistair Bell)
