As previously reported, AG Barr has been investigating the whole Russia debacle focusing on how it started and whether James Comey and the gang acted improperly. New report from NBC that should send shivers down certain Obama administration official’s spines claims that AG Barr is expanding his probe into what happened before Jan 20, 2017.
That was the day President Trump was sworn in and Obama left office, so going back before that day means Bill Barr is looking into the actions of the Obama administration.
If AG Barr finds malfeasance it will shake Washington to its corrupt core.
NBC reported on a review launched by Attorney General Barr into the origins of the Russia investigation has expanded significantly amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis, multiple current and former officials told the network.
The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News.
Durham has also requested to talk to CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia’s activities, prompting some of them to hire lawyers, according to three former CIA officials familiar with the matter. And there is tension between the CIA and the Justice Department over what classified documents Durham can examine, two people familiar with the matter said.
With AG Barr’s approval, Durham has expanded his staff and the time-frame under scrutiny, according to a law enforcement official directly familiar with the matter. And he is now looking into conduct past Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a Trump administration official said.
AG Barr has also said he believes an IG inquiry is not sufficient to answer the questions he has about how the investigation began. In doing so, he made comments suggesting Durham had authority only a criminal investigation could provide.
In an interview from May 31, AG Barr said Horowitz “doesn’t have the power to compel testimony, he doesn’t have the power really to investigate beyond the current cast of characters at the Department of Justice. His ability to get information from former officials or from other agencies outside the department is very limited.”
In the interview, AG Barr also said that the purpose of the Durham review is to make sure there was not inappropriate surveillance of Trump’s campaign.
“I had a lot of questions about what was going on,” he said. “Some of the facts that I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.”
“I don’t know what the legal basis for this is,” Brennan said, calling the probe “bizarre.”
