Monday, May 20, 2019

Scurrying for cover?


This is most interesting:

John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations emerged and spread within federal law enforcement, has already been looking into whether the FBI’s former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters.

In fact, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker. The Baker interview, at which Durham was not present, suggests that the prosecutor nevertheless has some people very worried.

There's much more at the link.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

The interesting thing is that Mr. Barr was nominated to be the next Attorney-General of the United States on December 7, 2018.  He was confirmed by the Senate and sworn into office on February 14, 2019.  If the report above is correct, it implies that Mr. Durham (the US Attorney for Connecticut) was working on this case before Mr. Barr was nominated to his present office, much less confirmed in it.  So . . . who tasked him to do so?  When?  How long has this investigation been going on?

Taken in conjunction with the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation into FBI misconduct (which started in January 2017), as well as inquiries being made by Utah US Attorney John Huber into the FBI, the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One affair (which began in November 2017), this makes one wonder just how much fire there is behind and beneath all the smoke the three are investigating.  That's an awful lot of high-powered federal legal talent turning over rocks.  Judging from the reaction of Mr. Baker's attorney, I have a feeling they're finding interesting things beneath them.

I'm not surprised that the far left, progressive, anti-Trump wing of US politics is circling the wagons and seeking to cast nasturtiums on all concerned, particularly Mr. Barr.  Can you say "running scared"?

Peter

5 comments:

John Ray said...

When I lived in an "apartment" during college years, going into the kitchen in the middle of the night and turning on the light caused all kinds of scurrying of little creatures. Today, we cal them "deep state members".

Old NFO said...

And apparently they already have Brennan on perjury...

Uncle Lar said...

I'm sure most if not all of the guilty fully expected that when Hillary won none of this would ever see the light of day.
And now their best bet is to tough it out until Trump loses in 2020 and their crimes will be forgiven or swept under the rug.
So what must be having them soil themselves is a very fast and aggressive pursuit of their malfeasance by Barr, or even worse a Trump second term with another full four years to dig up the dirt and proof of their own high crimes and misdemeanors.

Differ said...

Nasturtiums?

Peter said...

@Differ: It's an old play on words. The traditional phrase is "casting aspersions", but English punsters soon picked up on the similarity between the words. Call it horticultural freedom of expression!