Barr Assigns U.S. Attorney in Connecticut to Review Origins of Russia Inquiry

Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that President Trump has long called for but that could anger law enforcement officials who insist that scrutiny of the Trump campaign was lawful.

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.

His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates.

The department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is separately examining investigators’ use of wiretap applications and informants and whether any political bias against Mr. Trump influenced investigative decisions. And John W. Huber, the United States attorney in Utah, has been reviewing aspects of the Russia investigation. His findings have not been announced.

Additionally on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he, too, intends to review aspects of law enforcement’s work in the coming months. And Republicans conducted their own inquiries when they controlled the House, including publicizing details of the F.B.I.’s wiretap use.

John Henry Durham Sworn in as United States Attorney

Thursday, February 22, 2018

John H. Durham, 67, of Groton, was sworn in today as the presidentially appointed United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut by Chief U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven.

Mr. Durham has served as the interim U.S. Attorney since October 28, 2017, after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed an order appointing him to the position. President Donald Trump nominated Mr. Durham to serve as U.S. Attorney on November 1, 2017, and the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination on February 16, 2018.

“I am very honored to serve as Connecticut’s U.S. Attorney and deeply appreciative of all who have supported my nomination,” said U.S. Attorney Durham. “I look forward to continuing to work with the dedicated and skilled people in our office and the brave men and women of our partner law enforcement agencies in the cause of justice for the people of our state and nation.”

Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in various positions in the District of Connecticut for 35 years, prosecuting complex organized crime, violent crime, public corruption and financial fraud matters.

From 2008 to 2017, Mr. Durham served as Counsel to the U.S. Attorney; from 1994 to 2008, he served as the Deputy U.S. Attorney, and served as the U.S. Attorney in an acting and interim capacity in 1997 and 1998; from 1989 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Office’s Criminal Division, and from 1982 to 1989, he served as an attorney and then supervisor in the New Haven Field Office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section.

From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Durham also served as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where he investigated matters relating to the destruction of certain videotapes by the CIA and the treatment of detainees by the CIA. From 1998 to 2008, Mr. Durham served as a Special Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and Head of the Justice Task Force, where he reviewed alleged criminal conduct by FBI personnel and other law enforcement corruption in Boston, led the prosecution of a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent and a former Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant, and handled direct appeals and related proceedings following convictions after trial.

From 1978 to 1982, Mr. Durham served as an Assistant State’s Attorney in the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office headed by Arnold Markle, and from 1977 to 1978, he served as a Deputy Assistant State’s Attorney in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney.

From 1975 to 1977, Mr. Durham worked as a Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.

Mr. Durham graduated, with honors, from Colgate University in 1972 and the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is charged with enforcing federal criminal laws in Connecticut and representing the federal government in civil litigation. As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham supervises a staff of approximately 68 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and approximately 57 staff members at offices in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport.

Mr. Durham is the 52nd U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, an office that was established in 1789.

The article is biased because it contains many half-truths and because on those occasions when it makes excursion to explain or amplify an issue it is always done in defense of the Russian investigation.

For fellow travelers on the left the article will reassure them that there is no there, there. To us conservatives the article is useful, despite its omissions and excursions, when read in Pari materia with the interview of former FBI Council Baker, to layout in advance the pattern of the defense.

Every inference that can be drawn favorable to the FBI will be drawn, every inference unfavorable to the FBI will be labeled a partisan conspiracy, every unprecedented breach of FBI protocol will be justified by supposed need, and every bad motive, even though articulated in a written document by an FBI agent or Obama appointee, will be rehabilitated extending the benefit of the doubt, that is, demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt even when the matter is considered in a political but not a legal context.

Much emphasis will be placed on the need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any crimes alleged by the FBI, but when the question of the initiation of the Russian investigation is considered, the standard will be entirely relaxed, it will be whether there was reason at all to investigate.

In this fashion the political and the legal will be conflated making it difficult for the public to disentangle these matters or properly apply legal presumptions. We see that in real time as the standard of impeachment which the Constitution confines to treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors is being perverted by leading Democrats to whatever Congress says it is. So the legal or constitutional definitional requirement for impeachment is cast aside in favor of a political result but, in contrast, in the matter of the political judgment of the actions and motives of the FBI, more stringent legal standards will no doubt be applied by the likes of The New York Times.

Legal reasoning should apply to legal matters, political judgments to political questions. When legal rubs up against political, the difference should be made crystal clear so the judgment of the public will not manipulated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-fed-sentenced-for-tipping-mobsters/

A former FBI agent, John Joseph Connolly, who had been credited with helping to cripple the New England Mafia was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison Monday for protecting his top mob informants, including tipping them off to their indictments.

Special U.S. Attorney John Durham had urged the judge Monday to impose a sentence that would show the public “there are no special rules for those people who are well connected.”

“It should tell the public that there is no person who is above the law,” he said.

Durham scoffed at Connolly’s claims that he didn’t realize while he was the FBI’s handler for Flemmi and Bulger that they were committing serious crimes, including murder.

Here's a quote from Durham's Wiki entry:

John Henry Durham (born 1950)[1][2] is the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. He is best known for leading an inquiry into allegations that FBI agents and Boston police had ties with the mob[3] and his appointment as special prosecutor regarding the 2005 CIA interrogation tapes destruction.[1] On November 1, 2017, he was nominated by President Donald Trump to be Connecticut's next U.S. Attorney.[4] On February 15, 2018, his nomination to be the United States Attorney was confirmed by voice vote. He was sworn in on February 22, 2018.

Might be a good guy. At least not apparently involved in the Russian thing. Stay tuned.

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