Former Attorney General Bill Barr said on Saturday—the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incident—that the Justice Department under President Joe Biden went too far when it comes to prosecuting individuals involved in the events of that fateful day and targeted people who merely “walked into open doors and hung around.”
“I don’t think it was an insurrection,” Mr. Barr said, rejecting a label that has been pushed in particular by opponents of former President Donald Trump, who faces over a dozen lawsuits seeking to bar him from the 2024 presidential ballot under the claim that he engaged in an “insurrection.”
Mr. Barr was then asked in the Fox News interview for his thoughts about the fact that criticism appears to have grown with regard to the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants by federal authorities, with allegations that it’s been unfair, unwarranted, or heavy-handed.
“Well, you know, like everything else the left does, they did, I think, go too far,” Mr. Barr replied.
In his interview on Fox News, Mr. Barr said that some people involved in the Jan. 6 incident—like those who attacked police and broke into the building—deserve to be punished.
“There were people that should have been prosecuted,” Mr. Barr said. “But I think they cast their net far too broadly.”
He said the DOJ under President Biden “has been hounding people that really, you know, just walked into open doors in the Capitol and hung around.”
“I think they just took it too far,” he said. “But that being said, I don’t minimize what happened up there. While I don’t think it was an insurrection, it clearly was a shameful episode and some of the people involved should be prosecuted.”
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