Barr says Dem refusal to condemn violence cowardly, suggest liberals 'tearing down' America

Attorney General William Barr is slamming Democrats who refuse to condemn the violent riots rocking America this summer, saying far left extremists are on a mission to "tear down" U.S. institutions key to democracy.

"Many of them are just cowards and are afraid from, you know, about a challenge from the left," Barr said in an interview set to air Sunday night, referring to Democrats who haven't condemned the riots. "So for them, it's careerism."

Barr told the FoxNews show Levin, Life and Liberty hosted by Mark Levin that liberal extremists driving the riots have made politics a religion, and their mission is to destroy those who oppose them.

"They view their political opponents as evil because we stand in the way of their progressive utopia that they're trying to reach," he said. "And that's what gives the intensity to the partisan feelings that people feel today, because for them, this pilgrimage we're all on is a political pilgrimage."

He added that the far left "really represents a Rousseauian Revolutionary Party that believes in tearing down the system, that what's wrong about America today all has to do with the institutions we have, and we have to tear them down."

Barr added that the extremist -- whom he called Bolsheviks --have begun engaging in "urban guerilla warfare." 

"The way the guerrilla...hides out among the people as a fish in the ocean...what they do is they are essentially shielding themselves or shrouding themselves in First Amendment activity," he said. "They go into the demonstrations, which are exercising First Amendment activity, and they insinuate themselves in there to shield themselves. That's where they swim. And what they do is they hijack these demonstrations and they and they provoke violence."

The attorney general also commented on the hostile treatment he received last month before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee.

"I said during my hearing: 'Can any of you just come out and say it's not OK to burn down federal courthouses?' I mean, they talk about the rule of law. They talk about the importance of the federal legal system to protection of civil rights. Well, the heart of that is our court system. And they're not willing, not one of them piped up to say, 'No, it's not OK to be burning down federal courts,'" he said

As for all the times Democrats interrupted him during the hearing, Barr said: "I think they were afraid to have me speak. And so they decided to burn up all the time and not give me any time to answer. So I quickly caught on to the tactic."