William Barr rips media as ‘collection of liars’ for framing months of riots as ‘peaceful’ protests

Attorney General William P. Barr says Americans have witnessed the unmasking of a “collection of liars” in the media during months of chaos related to Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mr. Barr spoke in-depth with the conservative website Townhall about the journalistic landscape following the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody in May.

“They’re basically a collection of liars,” he said for an exclusive interview published Friday. “Most of the mainstream media. They’re a collection of liars and they know exactly what they’re doing. A perfect example of that were the riots. Right on the street it was clear as day what was going on, anyone observing it, reporters observing it, it could not have escaped their attention that this was orchestrated violence by a hardened group of street fighting radicals and they kept on excluding from their coverage all the video of this and reporting otherwise and they were doing that for partisan reasons, and they were lying to the American people. It wasn’t until they were caught red-handed after essentially weeks of this lie that they even started feeling less timid.”

The administration has essentially argued for months that officials in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, and the nation’s capital have adopted a form of willful ignorance by describing arson fires, looting, and destruction as “peaceful” protests.

“It’s funny that you had record numbers of police being injured during ’peaceful’ protests,” Mr. Barr continued. “You know usually in protests, you have large numbers of injured rioters and a modest number of injured law enforcement. I’m talking about back in the ’90s and ’60s, ’60s to the ’90s, nowadays very few rioters get injured, very few and hundreds, even thousands of officers have been injured.”

Mr. Barr also released a statement on Friday reminding Americans that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks showed everyone the selfless nature of the vast majority of law enforcement personnel.

“On this anniversary, I extend particular gratitude to the law enforcement personnel and others who responded courageously to the attacks, many of whom gave the last full measure of devotion to save others that day and many of whom suffered from illness related to the attacks,” he wrote.