John Durham for Accountability His investigation can help restore public confidence in the FBI and intelligence services.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durham-for-accountability-11557876040?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s
Attorney General William Barr has assigned U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate possible abuses by law enforcement and intelligence officials in the 2016 election campaign, and the reaction has been predictably partisan. Trumpians are demanding heads on pikes while liberals are calling it a hunt for conspiracies that didn’t exist. We see it as a necessary step toward accountability and restoring public confidence in America’s enforcement agencies.
Mr. Durham comes with more experience than even special counsel Robert Mueller in navigating U.S. law enforcement, including the FBI and intelligence services. He uncovered rogue FBI behavior in the case of Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey tasked him to look at the CIA’s destruction of videos of its terrorist interrogation program.
As a U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham will have the power to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside the government. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been looking into some of the same questions, but he lacks similar power. Mr. Durham can also pick up any criminal referrals from Mr. Horowitz’s looming report.
Mr. Durham doesn’t strike us as the type who will answer to anyone’s political agenda, and he may not bring criminal indictments. He didn’t in the CIA case. But appointing someone of his standing and experience is important to getting to the truth about the FBI counterintelligence probe of Trump campaign officials, the FBI’s apparent misleading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get a warrant against Trump adviser Carter Page, and other seeming abuses.Investigating potential FBI or CIA abuses is arguably more important to American democracy than the Russia collusion probe. Tens of millions of Americans suspect that public officials interfered in the presidential election. Especially because Mr. Mueller did not investigate the FBI he previously led, someone needs to hold abuses to account or clear the air if nothing illegal took place.
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