New developments in the Durham probe
Attorney General William Barr confirms that John Durham is looking at 'private actors,' agencies beyond the FBI.
Several key players in the origins of the Russia investigation might want to contact their lawyers following Attorney General William Barr's appearance this week on Fox News, political analyst Gregg Jarrett suggested Thursday night on "Hannity."
"I would have my criminal lawyers on speed dial," Jarrett told host Sean Hannity, "because [Barr] made it pretty much clear he is going after not just the intel agencies but private actors."
Likely Barr targets, Jarrett said, include former CIA Director John Brennan, former journalist and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former British spy Christopher Steele.
During an interview one night earlier on "The Story" with Martha MacCallum, Barr seemed to disagree with the assertions made by former FBI Director James Comey regarding the Russia probe, and asked MacCallum why the FBI hadn't ended the Russia investigation after learning the contents of the so-called "Steele dossier" couldn't be verified.
"[Barr] also said he's not really buying the [George] Papadopoulos bar talk [with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer] as [having been] the trigger for the Trump-Russia investigation," Jarrett told Hannity.
Barr told MacCallum that by the time President Trump took office in January 2017, it had become clear that allegations raised against Papadopoulos as a result of the FBI's Russia investigation were largely baseless.
Papadopoulos – who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017 and served 12 days in jail last year – has said he still questions the series of events that led to him meeting with Downer in London in 2016. Papadopoulos allegedly told Downer that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, prompting the diplomat to alert the FBI and triggering the counterintelligence investigation.
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Papadopoulos has denied telling Downer that Russia would release "damaging" material about Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election but has said he was told by Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud weeks before meeting Downer that Moscow had "dirt" on Clinton.
In a rare public order Tuesday, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court presiding judge Rosemary M. Collyer strongly criticized the FBI over its surveillance-application process during the Russia probe, giving the bureau until Jan. 10 to come up with solutions in the wake of separate findings by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.
Barr said he disagrees with Comey's criticism that the Justice Department is "attacking the FBI" by reviewing what transpired in 2016.
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"One of the things that I object to is the tack being taken by Comey, which is to suggest that people who are criticizing or trying to get to the bottom of the misconduct are somehow attacking the FBI. I think that is nonsense," Barr said, emphasizing that U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into whether FBI officials had an "improper motive" for their actions.
"We’re criticizing and concerned about misconduct by a few actors at the top of the FBI, and they should be criticized if they engaged in serious misconduct."
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