By Aaron Miller-
Attorney General Bill Barr(pictured) has appointed a new special counsel to investigate the Mueller probe into the 2016 elections. The appointment of John Durham special counsel is incompatible with federal regulations, according to expert prosecutors and analysts who are already reading into the move.
The news comes after Attorney Bar publicly announced that there had been no observed election fraud which could possibly have changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S elections.
Barr appointed Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut who has been investigating the origins of the Russia investigation since May 2019, as special counsel on Oct. 19, but kept it quiet until Tuesday. Under the regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing.
Critics have attacked the appointment because federal regulations state that a special counsel is supposed to hail from outside the government but Durham appears to still be serving as the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut.
The FBI in July 2016 began investigating whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to sway the outcome of the presidential election. That probe was inherited nearly a year later by special counsel Mueller, who ultimately did not find enough evidence to charge Trump or any of his associates with conspiring with Russia.
“Following consultation with Mr. Durham, I have determined that, in light of the extraordinary circumstances relating to these matters, the public interest warrants Mr. Durham continuing this investigation pursuant to the powers and independence afforded by the Special Counsel regulations,” the order states.
Barr wrote in the letter to the congressional leaders that he expected Durham to complete the investigation by the summer of 2020 but that “the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as additional information he uncovered, prevented him from doing so.”
Barr said he waited to notify Congress of the move until more than a month later after “having previously determined that it was in the public interest to toll notification given the proximity to the presidential election.”
“I decided the best thing to do would be to appoint them under the same regulation that covered Bob Mueller, to provide Durham and his team some assurance that they’d be able to complete their work regardless of the outcome of the election,” Barr told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Barr revealed on Tuesday that he made Durham a special counsel and tasked him with investigating the origins of the Russia investigation led by another former special counsel appointed in the beginning of the Trump presidency—Robert Mueller.
President Trump has always condemned the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt.”
The current investigation, a criminal probe, had begun very broadly but has since “narrowed considerably” and now “really is focused on the activities of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation within the FBI,” Barr said. He said he expects Durham would detail whether any additional prosecutions will be brought and make public a report of the investigation’s findings.
Regulations
“On its face, this appointment appears to violate the Department’s own regulations—which stipulate, among other requirements, that ‘the Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government,’” Nadler, chairman of the influential House Judiciary Committee, wrote in a statement. “The sitting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut is simply not eligible for the job.”