“I am at the end of my career,” Barr said. “Everyone dies, and I am not, you know, I don’t believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries.”

Barr, 69, who served in the George H.W. Bush administration, said he knew it would “only be a matter of time” before he was attacked for his actions, given he is serving during a “crazy, hyperpartisan period of time.”

AD

AD

“Nowadays, people don’t care about the merits and the substance,” he said. “Everything is gauged by politics. And . . . that’s antithetical to the way the department runs, and any attorney general in this period is going to end up losing a lot of political capital, and I realize that, and that’s one of the reasons that I ultimately was persuaded that I should take it on, because I think at my stage in life, it really doesn’t make any difference.”

Barr said that he had no regrets about taking the job, adding that he loves the Justice Department and FBI.

“I think it is important that we not, in this period of intense partisan feeling, destroy our institutions,” he added.

AD

Barr also defended Trump, whom critics have accused of disrespecting an array of U.S. institutions, including Congress, the courts, the FBI and Federal Reserve.

AD