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William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general.
- Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr, said in 1992 that Roe v. Wade will "ultimately be overturned."
- Barr made the comments in a recently-unearthed CNN interview.
- He said future Supreme Court appointees would undo the decision.
William Barr, President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, told CNN in 1992 that he expected Roe v. Wade to "ultimately be overturned."
"I think that Roe v. Wade will ultimately be overturned," Barr says in a clip from CNN's now-defunct "Evans & Novak." "I think it'll fall of its own weight. It does not have any constitutional underpinnings."
The downfall of Roe v. Wade, he predicted, would be due to "further appointments to the Supreme Court." The interview originally aired on July 4, 1992, days after the Supreme Court upheld the ruling in a close five-to-four decision.
That June, the court upheld Roe v. Wade in its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which was written by Ronald Reagan-appointed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Two other conservative justices, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, also voted to uphold Roe, according to CNN.
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In the clip, Barr called all three "so-called moderate justices," adding that they were wrong to uphold the ruling and that they should've stuck to the Constitution.
Barr, who was serving his first term as attorney general at the time, said his department was going to "continue to do what it's done for the past 10 years and call for the overturning of Roe v. Wade in future litigation."
"The vote was worse than five to four several years ago, and we continued to go back to the Court," he said. "I think the defects of the current decision will become more and more evident over time."
Next week, Barr is scheduled to testify at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. Upon the resurfacing of this interview, CNN reported that Barr hasn't changed his views on abortion, at least since 2001.
"I'm anti-abortion myself," he told UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs, according to CNN.