Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Barr last week received a letter asking for help in blocking ads from “social media”
Conservative commentator Bill Barr has revealed he was contacted by an American Fox News host to criticise an investigation into voter fraud.
Mr Barr, President Donald Trump’s counsel at the Office of Government Ethics, said Fox News host Jeanine Pirro had written to him.
She is investigating a probe in Colorado into whether a number of people improperly voted in the election of 2016.
But Mr Barr, who has previously denied illegal voting, said Mr Pirro’s tweets spoke of “calculated campaigns to convince people to commit crimes”.
Photo caption: Candidate Trump accepts results of the election on 13 November
In a statement, Mr Barr, who has said he was not paid to make the tweets, said Mr Pirro’s inquiries followed a tweet from him, that questioned whether certain counties had “serious voter fraud issues”.
His comments came in response to a Colorado judge on Tuesday blocking a request by Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams to issue subpoenas demanding the return of a previously undisclosed number of ballots.
The judge ruled that the state’s voter-data request “raises serious concerns that the Respondents have a criminal motive”.
Mr Barr said he had not been contacted by any state officials in the investigation into alleged irregularities in the election.
He added: “I doubt the Respondents intended to criminally persecute innocent citizens. Yet the American public believes the evidence is sufficient to prove their intent.”