Barr Taps Connecticut U.S. Attorney to Review Origins of Trump-Russia Investigation
The investigation “includes the pre-transition period — prior to Nov. 7, 2016 — including the use and initiation of informants, as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.”
Attorney General William Barr has asked Connecticut US Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the government’s probe into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.
The decision comes after we received Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which showed no collusion happened between the two parties.
In April, Barr told a Senate committee that he believes “spying did occur” and wants to know “whether it was adequately predicated.” He said the DOJ will investigate the origins of the surveillance.
That investigation has taken its first steps.
From The New York Times:
John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.
His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates.
Trump’s administration has wanted to know for years why the FBI triggered an investigation into his campaign. Fox News heard from sources that Barr is “‘serious’ and had assigned DOJ personnel to the probe.” More from Fox News:
Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period — prior to Nov. 7, 2016 — including the use and initiation of informants, as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.
An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to “seduce” him as part of the “bizarre” episode.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has already started his own investigation into “potential surveillance abuses by the FBI – an investigation that began last March and that Fox News is told is nearing completion.”
The DOJ has a biography on Durham:
Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in various positions in the District of Connecticut for 35 years, prosecuting complex organized crime, violent crime, public corruption and financial fraud matters.
From 2008 to 2017, Mr. Durham served as Counsel to the U.S. Attorney; from 1994 to 2008, he served as the Deputy U.S. Attorney, and served as the U.S. Attorney in an acting and interim capacity in 1997 and 1998; from 1989 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Office’s Criminal Division, and from 1982 to 1989, he served as an attorney and then supervisor in the New Haven Field Office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section.
From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Durham also served as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for the purpose of investigating matters relating to the destruction of certain videotapes by the CIA and the treatment of detainees by the CIA. From 1998 to 2008, Mr. Durham served as a Special Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and Head of the Justice Task Force, where he reviewed alleged criminal conduct by FBI personnel and other law enforcement corruption in Boston, led the prosecution of a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent and a former Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant, and handled direct appeals and related proceedings following convictions after trial.
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Comments
Please, sir, get this done quickly. The information is out there. Judicial Watch has done fine investigatory work. Start the indictments and perp walks before Thanksgiving 2019.
I wonder how long it will take for Congressional Dems to bring up dirt on this Attorney, John Durham? Did he inappropriately touch women in college? Was he ever at a costume party in blackface? How many people of color did he prosecute as opposed to white people? Did he ever donate money to a Christian organization? Whether the accusations are real or made up, I’m sure we’ll hear a litany of them by the end of this week.
They already started doing that, last night, even before the official announcement – by my time line……..
Release the hounds; investigate, prosecute and incarcerate these SOBs who thought they were above the law.
This is going to require LOTS of popcorn. So much in fact that I just might invest in companies which produce popcorn!
By J&J stock, they produce KY, and these people will need it in large quantities.
Given how many of long-time people in Washington D.C. are so buddy-buddy with their fellow careerist types, when William Barr was confirmed as the new AG, I was timid about just automatically assuming he’d rigorously pursue tracking down all of the wrongdoing by a bushel full of current & former FBI, intel agency types, ex-DOJ types. How much hiding behind national security was going on – that was really just CYA’ing?
Yes, his confirmation hearings he said the right things, although rather quietly and matter-of-factly. (But that’s okay. He was quite assured and did not fluster under nasty questioning by the usual Dem Party suspects.)
With the appointment of John Durham to investigate the Counter-Intel (CI) investigation conducted into the Trump administration & especially looking into how it started before the Nov. 2016 election, further allays my timidity about AG Barr aggressively tracking down the miscreants.
Attorney General William Barr has enlisted the help of the CIA to investigate whether the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was motivated by partisan bias, CNN reported Tuesday.
CIA director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI director Chris Wray are all participating in the investigation, which Barr first announced publicly during a congressional hearing last month.
Obviously there would not have been much of an investigation into the origins without covering the CIA and other foreign stuff not under the DoJ’s jurisdiction. The FBI claims to have received information through rock solid sources that simply had to be pounced on. We shall see.
More like used smoke and mirrors to make one Hillary stooge look like more than one source.
I fear that there will not be the gumption to determine how far this goes! There are indications that more than FBI informants approached the Trump campaign (CIA and other allied government agents), earlier than July 16 with Pappyd.
It look nicely easy to blame the texting lover duo as the masterminds. They affirmed in statements so the leaders just took what the dou told them. End of story. Two bad guys and one bad FBI head who didn’t supervise enough.
I at least hope that someone explodes the obvious false narrative of the Mueller Dossier. Multiple places Mueller assumes too much are switches to the informany thought and adds and implies wrong-doing where none occurred. Start by revealing who the missing agent M works for (likely a western intel agency). Mueller has him as a Russian agent and as a reason to investigate.
I hope everyone realizes that any hope of a real, honest investigation of the corrupt Russia hoax just came crashing down. Remember Huber? An “investigation” will drag on behind the scenes for a few months. Then nothing. Nothing of any real consequence will result. No real accountability for any bad actors. The matter is effectively over.
Who appointed Huber? The guy who said he thought Trump was spied on or the guy who recused himself about 5 seconds after taking the oath of office?
Former AG Sessions. Since zero has come out in public from that end, I’m not going to guess further, but that is the answer to your question.
My point exactly. Sessions was the biggest waste of humanity in Trump’s cabinet and was a coward. It should be obvious that the Huber thing was a ruse.
On the other hand, Barr has not shied away from any of this BS.
I suspect that Sessions is not just a coward, more like he is knee deep in the swamp, no more like cesspool, and he was doing their bidding.
Many have concluded Sessions was Always DEEP STATE…….
….and that Sessions was a DEEP STATE plant into the Trump campaign…….
Well Colonel, the nature of this appointment is itself an admission that the outcome is predetermined. It is being handled internally by the very agency most culpable in the abuses for the express purpose of minimizing any damage. No outside counsel or parties will review this. There will be no serious consequences for anyone. Maybe a weak charge or 2 for a couple. And an acknowledgment that, “yeah, we could have done better but no real serious improprieties.” What did the IG report on the Clinton email investigation ultimately conclude? No bias influenced the conclusions according the IG. What a joke.
Of the hundreds of outrages directed at President Trump, the production in Central Park of Julius Caesar at the beginning of the presidency stands out in my mind. Brutus and his band of progressives have Trump stand in for Caesar so they can plant their knives in his back and chest, 23 times no less. The hiphop braniacs don’t get the play. Cassius is self-serving and fueled by resentment, whereas Brutus plays a fool allowing himself to be conned by a sense of ancestral responsibility. Shakespeare knew them, as he knows all of us. The result of these traitorous actions is the rapid arrival of what they had feared. A second irony is that the boy Octavius emerges as the first Caesar Augustus and is able to make Rome great again.
Rome is saved from Antony, but he plays a critical role in turning the fickle crowd away from the conspirators. With the appointment of noble Barr’s new prosecutor, what jumps up is Antony’s soliloquy (completing one of the bard’s greatest speeches) where he calls for a swift and terrible justice:
“… Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth…”
—so many foul deeds
[ ] Tired of winning
[X] Not tired of winning
I second that emotion!!!
Barr made this appointment several weeks ago and we are only hearing about this today.
Now you know why Democrats are going even more batshit crazy!!
Hopefully the are sweating about being hammered.
First of all, there is o guarantee that Barr, Durham or even Trump will actually take this to a conclusion. The Dems have been screaming “Constitutional Crisis” over Trump’s refusal to roll over for them. Well, there is a real constitutional crisis out there, and that is the criminal enterprise known as the Obama Administration. Once the investigations begin in earnest, the fall-out will effect most of the DC establishment, as well as a significant portion of the rest of the federal bureaucracy. Not even the Congress will escape. This is a potential reality changing event.
So, will it happen? Will Barr and Durham take this path where it actually goes? Or will we watch the wheels spin and little change? Will the President and this country actually risk changing the status quo? And, will the Establishment allow it?
Not a doubt in my mind that the matter is done. Nothing will happen. Why do you think the matter is being controlled and investigated internally? Is this going to be the first agency in the history of the universe to actually freely admit its own serious wrongdoing? Wrongdoing on the level of a failed coup? Not a chance in hell.
“controlled and investigated internally”
What would an external investigation consist of? By what authority?
There simply isn’t any external investigators.
Well I disagree. There are DOJ special counsel regulations. How about using these to appoint an honest outside counsel for a change? What about the president? There is some historical precedent of president’s appointing special counsel. How about if the president just orders the AG to appoint counsel to investigate this?
Durham is the real deal. Competent and not corrupt. This should be good.
Seriously, I cannot fathom how anyone can possibly believe this “investigation” of the origins of the Russia hoax will actually amount to anything. Ask yourselves, is the DOJ, after having sponsored a 2 year, 30 plus million (more?) investigation, resulting in numerous convictions and ongoing litigation, now going to say or do anything to undermine those actions? Do you also believe in magic? Leprechauns? Santa Claus?
When will Hillary be indicted?