Barr says he's 'very troubled' with what he's seen from Durham's investigation
Reaction from former independent counsel Ken Starr.
Former Independent Counsel Ken Starr told “Outnumbered Overtime” Wednesday that the beginning of the Russia investigation appears to have been “terribly politicized,” and predicted there will be “a very substantial … bill to pay on the part of the senior leadership of the FBI.”
Attorney General Bill Barr told "Special Report" in an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday that Americans will be able to recognize "some" of the names under investigation as part of Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing probe into federal surveillance abuses -- and added that he is "very troubled" by "what has been called to" his attention so far.
BARR SAYS FAMILIAR NAMES AMONG THOSE DOJ IS INVESTIGATING IN DURHAM PROBE
“What could potentially be a problem is that this was a terribly politicized beginning of the investigation,” Starr said Wednesday, adding that “there was no actual predicate or foundation that justified” the “FBI, the world’s premier law enforcement agency, conducting a counterintelligence investigation into a presidential campaign."
“And so that is on [former FBI Director] Jim Comey’s watch and [former FBI deputy director] Andrew McCabe and some of these other individuals,” Starr continued.
He then brought up the Justice Department’s inspector general’s review concerning the origins of the Russia investigation, which determined that the FBI complied with policies in launching the politically explosive probe -- but also flagged "significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised."
“We know from the inspector general’s report in December of last year, Michael Horowitz ... reported in his remarkable testimony shortly thereafter that there were not just blunders, this is not mistakes were made, this was pernicious violations of an American citizen’s rights,” Starr said.
“There is going to be a very substantial, shall I call it, bill to pay on the part of the senior leadership of the FBI.”
When host Harris Faulkner asked Starr what "familiar" names could be the focus of the Durham investigation, he answered: “I think Jim Comey has to be on the list when you look at the origins of investigation, his involvement, the searing criticism of him by Inspector General Horowitz in an earlier report.”
“What we do know," Starr added, "[is] that there is absolute wrongdoing on the part of lower levels, still senior [but] lower-level people at the FBI, but we’ll see from the Durham report whether it goes outside the FBI to other parts of the intelligence community.”
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Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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