Upgrade for Mueller review

The US Justice Department has shifted its review of the Russia probe to a criminal investigation. It’s a move that is likely to raise concerns that President Donald Trump and his allies may be using the powers of the Government to go after their opponents.

The revelation comes as Trump is facing scrutiny about a potential abuse of power, including a House impeachment inquiry examining whether he withheld military aid in order to pressure the President of Ukraine to launch an investigation of former Vice-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

It is not clear what potential crimes are being investigated, but the designation as a formal criminal investigation gives prosecutors the ability to issue subpoenas, potentially empanel a grand jury and compel witnesses to give testimony and bring federal criminal charges.

The Justice Department had considered it to be an administrative review, and 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. Durham is examining what led the US to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and the roles that various countries played in the US probe.

Mueller’s investigation shadowed Trump’s presidency for nearly two years and outraged the president, who cast it as a politically motivated “witch hunt”. Mueller determined that the Russian Government interfered in the 2016 election, but his investigation didn’t find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.