This is BIG news, but what does it mean? I don't have the faintest idea. A thread.
Bill Barr has revealed himself as a dangerous partisan hack, so since he appointed John Durham to run this partisan hack investigation, that immediately raises red flags. That may be the end of the story: Barr knew a patsy and it was John Durham.
(WARNING: POSSIBLE ROSE COLORED GLASSES SITUATION) However, Barr and Trump have not always revealed themselves to be the most careful planners; they are on comms with each other Ghouliani committing felonies and so leave room for the idea they made a mistake.
A non-traitorous reason that you might pick John Durham is because he has a long history of going after corruption in the DOJ/FBI.
Janet Reno (Bill Clinton's AG) appointed him as a Special Prosecutor in 1999 to investigate possible mob ties in the Boston FBI/DOJ primarily related to the Whitey Bulger investigation. He put a retired FBI agent in jail for a decade. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Durh…
In that investigation, he also provided evidence for state charges against another FBI agent for helping Bulger kill a guy in Oklahoma. The agent died before trial.
He was tasked by Eric Holder (Obama's AG) with investigating CIA torture events. He declined to indict the agents, saying that their acts were in conformance with the (mthrfxn) Bush era torture memos. (This is pretty much an indictment of the torture memos).
This feels a bit more like a red flag, but it certainly indicates an independent streak. In 2000, he outed DOJ memos indicating that three guys were framed. The survivor and the other's families won a 101 Million judgment against the US Government for wrongful conviction.
Sometimes guys that get involved with mob issues are there to take down the OTHER mob, while protecting their own. That seems like what happened to Ghouliani. Durham, however, has no obvious RU ties and is viewed as non partisan. law.com/ctlawtribune/2…
He even has a history of taking on the Republican Governor of CT -- who served two prison sentences for taking bribes.
Maybe Barr has the goods on Durham and is confident he can control him. BUT MAYBE Barr believed his own hype that there were crimes committed in the RU investigation. But those crimes occurred in the NY FBI Office at the behest of Ghouliani with HRC the victim.
OR MAYBE those crimes occurred when Trump, Barr and others committed criminal obstruction of justice trying to derail the Mueller inquiry.
OR MAYBE those crimes involve leaking sensitive prosecutorial information to defendants to help them avoid prosecution or arrest.
Leaking; associating with mobsters; taking bribes; and FBI corruption - those are all things that Durham has prosecuted before. And Barr handed him broad powers to do it again. And maybe ... just maybe ... that was a terrible mistake.
Taking the Rose Coloreds off for a moment ... if that's not the case, then We The People need to find out where John Durham went over to the dark side, and we need to keep a very careful eye on this investigation.
If he does try to prosecute the honest ... Barr also made a terrible mistake starting a political investigation without probable cause. We know there was no probable cause, because the investigation did not start as a criminal one.
Finally (maybe) - if Barr has not recused since Trump named him as one of The Guys for the Ukranian President to speak to, that is another obviously biased decision that undermines the credibility of the investigation.
