“Attorney General William Barr has asked Connecticut US Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the government’s probe into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.”
So finally we’re going to get an official investigation into the biggest domestic political spying scandal since Watergate.
“John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.”
That little Boston case featured FBI agent John Connolly feeding government information to mob boss Whitey Bulger while he was providing information as an FBI CID on rival criminal gangs.
[Durham] is best known for overseeing the federal government’s successful effort to take apart the brazenly corrupt situation in Boston, where a handful of crooked state police officers and F.B.I. agents worked with the mob headed by James Bulger. The situation, some of which was based on relationships forged during childhood in South Boston, was the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film “The Departed.”
Mr. Durham headed a task force that compiled a list of impressive accomplishments and convictions, including its disclosure that some F.B.I. officials had allowed some informants to commit murder and flourish in their racketeering enterprises in exchange for information about other mobsters.
Durham is a Catholic and someone who (to quote the Times) “does not often speak publicly and declined to be interviewed.”
Legal Insurrection also notes that “DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has already started his own investigation into ‘potential surveillance abuses by the FBI – an investigation that began last March and that Fox News is told is nearing completion.'”
One wonders what the scope of Durham’s investigation is. I suspect it will not reach all the way back to Emailgate and the uranium sale, but will probably tackle most other aspects of the Sacndularity.
Having used the power of the federal government to illegally spy on the Trump presidential campaign under false pretenses, the perpetrators will now find that same power deployed to investigate their own misdeeds.
Buckle up…