This isn’t the first time Bill Barr has come out against former President Trump on this issue. Last September he made it clear that he didn’t see any justification for Trump having these documents in his possession. Yesterday, Barr appeared on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream and argued at length that Trump’s behavior is not justifiable.

The interview opened with Bream asking whether this matter could have all been handled under the presidential records act. Barr replied, “It started out under the Presidential Records Act and the archives trying to retrieve documents that Trump had no right to have…The government’s agenda was to protect those documents and get them out.” He continued:

“If even half of [the indictment] is true then he’s toast. It’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning,” Barr said.

“This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here–the victim of a witch hunt–is ridiculous. Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. Yes his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims, and I’ve been at his side defending him when he is a victim, but this is much different. He’s not a victim here,” Barr added. “He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets the country has.”

Returning to the difference between Russia gate and the indictment over these documents Barr said, “There was no problem or issue underlying the Russia-gate claim. It was an effort to knock him out with a false claim. Here I think the government acted responsibly. They gave him every opportunity to return those documents.”

“They talked to him for almost a year to try to get those documents and he jerked them around,” Barr added.

Barr made the point twice during this interview that there was no conceivable circumstance under which Trump could have reasonably believed he had a right to hold onto these records. “Battle plans for an attack on another country or Defense Department documents about our capabilities are in no universe Donald J. Trump’s personal documents. They are the government’s documents,” he said.

Midway through Bream asked Barr how the former president was likely to feel about his comments. “He’s been angry with me for a while,” Barr replied. That’s certainly true. Even two years ago, Barr said that all of Trump’s election fraud claims were “bulls**t.”

It turns out we didn’t have to wait long for Trump’s response to Barr’s comments. He offered them at length on Sunday.

“He was gutless,” Trump said during a fawning interview on [Roger] Stone’s new radio show. “He wouldn’t do what you’re supposed to do. But everybody says this is a disgraceful indictment. It shouldn’t happen.”

He went in further after Stone asked whether Barr was part of the supposed “deep state,” a conservative conspiracy theory of government officials working to undermine Trump.

“I think he’s a coward who didn’t do his job,” Trump said. “He was desperately afraid of being impeached. You remember when the Democrats were saying we’re going to impeach Bill Barr. There was no reason to impeach him. But they were going to impeach Bill Barr and he was petrified of being impeached. I said, ‘I got impeached twice and my poll numbers went up.’ Not so bad. But you know, he was a coward and unfortunately we have to live with it.”

Of course this is what Trump is going to say now. What else can he say. He’ll never admit that his own poor choices put him in this position even though that’s clearly the case. Here’s the full interview with Bill Barr.