Fox’s Bartiromo called Bill Barr ‘screaming’ about election fraud: book

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo reportedly called former Attorney General William Barr irate and screamed at him for not pursuing allegations of voter fraud pushed by former President Trump and his allies following the 2020 presidential election, according to a new book.

ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl reports in the book, “Betrayal,” that Bartiromo called Barr in November of last year to “complain that the DOJ hadn’t done anything to stop the Democrats from stealing the election.”

“She called me up and she was screaming,” Barr told Karl. “I yelled back at her. She’s lost it.”

When reached for comment by The Hill, Bartiromo, through a Fox News spokesperson, denied the allegations, shooting back that “it was Barr who was aggressive with her, yelling and cursing during the call.” 

Karl, in his account of the days that followed the election, mentions a Nov. 8 episode of Bartiromo’s weekend show during which Sydney Powell, a former attorney for Trump, appeared on the program and spoke about what the journalist and author described as “the most outlandish allegations of election fraud,” noting Bartiromo “didn’t express one ounce of skepticism” toward what Powell was saying. 

“It was all a lie,” Karl wrote. “but Sidney Powell’s deranged theories would have never taken hold if there weren’t people in positions of power and influence who had promoted them — people like Maria Bartiromo.”

Fox News is one of several conservative media outlets that have been sued in recent months by Dominion Voting Systems and others for allegedly broadcasting false information about the company. Fox has moved to dismiss the lawsuits. Powell has also been sued by the company. 

In the weeks following the election, Trump made one of his first and rare media appearances on Bartiromo’s show. 

“It’s not like you’re going to change my mind. In other words, my mind will not change in six months. There was tremendous cheating here,” Trump told Bartiromo during one appearance. 

Earlier this year, Barr threw cold water on Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, calling them “bullshit.”

“It’s a counting machine, and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two,” Barr said at the time. “There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still not aware of any discrepancy.”