PREZ: ‘A LOT OF BAD THINGS’
Confirms ‘origins’ probe is ongoing
President Trump all but confirmed Friday that the Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation that looked into allegations of links between his campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“It looks like it’s becoming very serious from what I’m hearing,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Investigate the investigators.” He added: “I can’t tell you what’s happening. I will tell you this, I think you’re going to see a lot of really bad things.”
Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to lead the inquiry into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The probe was previously considered to be administrative.
The change in designation gives prosecutors the ability to issue subpoenas, empanel a grand jury, compel testimony and bring federal criminal charges.
It’s unclear when Durham’s inquiry shifted to the criminal level.
It’s also unclear what led the Justice Department to open the probe or what is being examined.
Fox News reported this week that Durham was hoping to question two top Obama-administration intelligence officials — former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan.
Democratic lawmakers leading the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees said the change raises “profound new concerns” that Barr’s Justice Department “has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge.”
“If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool of political retribution, or to help the president with a political narrative for the next election, the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage,” chairmen Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff added.
The change in designation comes as Barr’s efforts to review the underpinnings of Mueller’s probe also come under scrutiny.
Trump and his Republican allies have frequently charged that US and foreign intelligence services conspired to prevent Trump’s election, though no evidence has emerged to support the theory, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte denied that his country’s intelligence services had any connection with a professor whose encounter with a
Trump campaign aide in 2016 helped spur the FBI’s counterintelligence probe of Russian meddling — undercutting a theory being probed by Barr.
The professor, Joseph Mifsud, told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in 2016 that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from hacked e-mails.
Papadopoulos then told an Australian diplomat about the e-mails over drinks in a London pub.
The Aussie, Alexander Downer, contacted his superiors, who reached out to American officials in what has been widely described as the spark for the FBI probe into Russian meddling. But Barr is reportedly looking into what role the Democratic-funded “Steele dossier” played in triggering the probe prior to Downer’s involvement.
Australian officials said they are cooperating with Barr, but dismissed allegations they acted wrongly, the Journal reported.
Team Trump tried to minimize Papadopoulos’s role, describing him as a “coffee boy.”
The first two years of Trump’s administration were overshadowed by former FBI Director Mueller’s probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
“While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges,” Mueller’s 448-page report, released in April, found.