Trump blasts Bill Barr as 'weak,' says his former attorney general 'wouldn't know voter fraud if it was staring him in the face'

• Former President Donald Trump on Friday slammed ex-AG Bill Barr as "weak" and "ineffective."
• Trump lashed out at Barr as the former attorney general speaks out about the 2020 election in an upcoming book.

Former President Donald Trump on Friday laced into former Attorney General Bill Barr, calling him "weak" and "ineffective" for rejecting his debunked election claims about the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, who continues to promote the debunked voter fraud claim, said that his former top cop had been crushed by Democrats.

"Former Attorney General Bill Barr wouldn't know voter fraud if it was staring him in the face – and it was," the former president said in a statement. "The fact is, he was weak, ineffective, and totally scared of being impeached, which the Democrats were constantly threatening to do. They 'broke' him."

He added: "He should have acted much faster on the Mueller Report, instead of allowing the fake Russia, Russia, Russia, Hoax to linger for so long, but it was the Election Fraud and Irregularities that he refused to act on because he wanted to save his own hide — and he did."

Trump then stated that Barr got a reprieve from Congress, while he remained deeply dissatisfied with Barr's performance.

"He never got impeached, contempt charges never went forward, and the Democrats were very happy with him — but I wasn't," the former president said.

Barr bluntly wrote in his forthcoming book, "One Damn Thing After Another," that Trump didn't win the 2020 presidential race against Biden.

"The election was not 'stolen,'" the former attorney general wrote, according to excerpts published by The Washington Post. "Trump lost it."

In an upcoming NBC News interview with anchor Lester Holt, Barr revealed that Trump became incensed when he told the then-president that his election claims weren't rooted in the truth.

"I told him that all this stuff was bullshit ... about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was," the former attorney general said, adding that Trump became "very angry" after hearing his comments.

While Trump's interactions with Barr regarding the presidential election have been mentioned in other books, the attorney general's memoir is expected to detail some of the tensest moments between the two men as it related to Trump's unfounded voter-fraud claims.

After Barr said in December 2020 that there wasn't evidence of mass fraud, he met with Trump in the White House to discuss the interview, according to the book.

Barr's statements, which quickly ricocheted around Washington, threw cold water on Trump's unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate.

"This is killing me — killing me. This is pulling the rug right out from under me," the book says the then-president told Barr, according to The Post. "He stopped for a moment and then said, 'You must hate Trump. You would only do this if you hate Trump.'"

As Trump mulls a 2024 presidential bid — which Barr wrote in his book would be a "dismaying" prospect — he has continued to float election conspiracies as some Republicans have sought to shift the narrative and focus on the 2022 midterm elections.