Durham to examine Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr’s decision to select John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, for the task of examining the origins of the Russia investigation should not come as a big surprise — Durham was already investigating FBI media leaks in the probe of Moscow’s involvement in U.S. elections.
But Barr’s decision to have Durham “investigate the investigators” has thrust Connecticut’s U.S. attorney deeper into a political firestorm.
President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have long called for an investigation of the president’s perceived political enemies and the surveillance of Trump associates. But law enforcement officials, especially at the FBI, insist the surveillance was lawful, while Democrats say the administration is trying to invalidate the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller.
“It certainly is a potential ‘high-risk, low-reward’ job,” said Bill Nettles, former U.S. attorney for South Carolina, of Durham’s new appointment. “This whole issue has become highly partisan and that’s always treacherous waters.”
In January, a letter from House Republicans seeking more information about his findings revealed Durham had been investigating members of the FBI, especially former FBI general counsel James Baker, who has been accused of leaking information in 2016 to a Mother Jones reporter about the disputed “Steele Dossier,” alleging ties between Trump and the Kremlin.
Mother Jones broke the story about the dossier, a series of memos compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele on supposed contacts between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign.
Steele was hired by the research firm Fusion GPS, which had also worked for a firm representing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, so the president and his Republican allies called it a “fake dossier” that was politically motivated.
Trump and his GOP allies also assert the dossier was the genesis of Mueller’s Russia probe.