Barr’s comments came before a bipartisan committee that investigated last year’s attack on the US Congress during the second round of a series of public hearings. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice president, said “many credible sources close to the president” had told Trump in the months after the election that there was not enough evidence of fraud to overturn the result. The commission also heard that on election night, a drunken Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s close allies, said he “just claimed to have won” the night of the election. In some of the most damaging testimonies to Trump’s mental state since the election, Barr told the committee: “I thought, ‘My boy, if he really believes these things, he’s detached from reality.’ Members of the commission added that Trump used the false allegations of electoral fraud to raise money from supporters. “The big lie was also the big bang,” said Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California. “Donald Trump lost the election, he knew he had lost the election and as a result of his defeat, he decided to attack our democracy,” said Benny Thompson, chairman of the Democratic committee. The hearing is the second in a series of public hearings by the commission aimed at drawing public attention to Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election and his role in inciting the January 6 riots.

At the first hearing last week, a U.S. Capitol police officer described the chaotic scenes as pro-Trump protesters stormed Congress in an attempt to overturn the election results. Members of the bipartisan committee also showed evidence that the attack was carefully planned by the two far-right groups at its center: the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. The leaders of both groups have since been accused of insurgency. Members hoped to interview Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign director, on Monday. But Stepien canceled at the last minute, citing a family emergency because his wife had given birth. But his testimony in the video was detailed and damaging to his former boss. He told the committee he was a member of the “Regular Group” – a group of White House advisers who tried to dispel the president’s false allegations.