A rumor that former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who served during President Donald Trump's first term, said he regretted not prosecuting former President Barack Obama spread online in May 2026.
For example, an X user wrote on May 3, "Bill Barr just admitted his biggest regret as Attorney General was not prosecuting Obama for the Russia hoax and trying to stage a coup against Trump" (archived):
The story spread after Trump repeatedly called for Obama's arrest, suggesting the Democrat was responsible for fabricating information on Trump and his presidential campaign in 2016. In January 2026, Trump shared a screenshot (archived) of a post making such claims and calling Obama's alleged actions "a coup attempt."
Some people on the internet seemed to interpret the claim that Barr regretted not prosecuting Obama as true. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
To investigate the rumor's legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. If Barr had truly said this, reputable news outlets such as The Associated Press or Reuters would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence.
That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting about Barr expressing such regret.
Meanwhile, a Facebook user who posted the story about Barr lamenting that he did not prosecute Obama identified himself as a "comedian."
Jonathan Gregory shared the rumor on May 3 (archived). The bio on his page read "Digital Content Creator for the Trump Administration," with the tag "comedian" underneath:
(Facebook user Jonathan Gregory)
He then shared the same claim again later that day.
Gregory has used the word "satire" in made-up stories multiple times on Facebook, indicating his posts originated as satire.
We reached out to Gregory for his response to the fact he did not include in the post about Barr any indication that the story was satirical and that some people mistook it as real news. We will update this story if we receive a response.
We also identified a May 2 post on X making the same claim (archived). The account appeared to having a history of sharing false, sensational stories, which were often the same stories Gregory shared on Facebook. We contacted the user and we will update this report should he reply.
In our message to Gregory, we also asked whether he had taken that false rumor from another internet user, or if he worked with the X user who first posted the story. We await a response.
Snopes has debunked similar pieces of media from Gregory before. For example, in January 2026, we alerted readers to a fake story Gregory posted in which he claimed Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had been in touch with former Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro before the U.S. military captured him on Trump's orders.
As the definiton of satire can change depending on who uses the term, we use "originated as satire" or "labeled satire" ratings based on creators' description of their work. It's your call whether you agree.