Bill Barr appointed Durham "to investigate the officials who conducted the Trump-Russia inquiry"

[Budi]

His appointment appeared likely to create a headache for whoever Joseph R. Biden Jr. selects as attorney general.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/us/politics/john-durham-special-counsel-russia-investigation.amp.html

By Charlie Savage
Dec. 1, 2020
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr revealed on Tuesday that he had bestowed special counsel status on John H. Durham, the prosecutor he assigned to investigate the officials who conducted the Trump-Russia inquiry — setting the stage to leave him in place after the Biden administration takes over.

In a letter to Congress, Mr. Barr disclosed that he had secretly appointed Mr. Durham as a special counsel on Oct. 19, before the election. “In advance of the presidential election, I decided to appoint Mr. Durham as a special counsel to provide him and his team with the assurance that they could complete their work, without regard to the outcome of the election,” Mr. Barr wrote.


Mr. Durham never fulfilled President Trump’s and his supporters’ expectations that he would bring to light some significant wrongdoing against the president before the election.
But the step appeared likely to create a headache for whoever Mr. Biden appoints as attorney general, who would take over supervision of Mr. Durham’s continuing work.

Mr. Barr also empowered Mr. Durham to hunt for crimes not only during the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation that began in July 2016, which has been his focus, but also during the period after Mr. Mueller took over that inquiry in May 2017 — making him, in effect, a special counsel for the special counsel.

Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, defended the legitimacy of the Russia investigation and condemned Mr. Barr’s move as an abuse of the special counsel power “to continue a politically motivated investigation long after Barr leaves office ”

[Baitball Blogger]

1. Barr should be prosecuted for abuse of power.

He knew there was no fishy business, but he created a Trojan Horse that the Biden Admin. would have to deal with.

Barr should spend time in a federal prison.

[2naSalit]

2. +1

[Budi]

3. Yup. Barr appointed Durham just before he fled the scene of the crime.

The part of the article stating how Durham now hampers Biden's AG (Garland) from doing his job is concerning.

I wonder how much influence Durham actually has on keeping AG Garland from moving forward with criminal prosecutions of anything related to Trump?
How much can he actually hold up Garland's work?
Is this latest dump by Durham a sort of retaliation tactic against AG Garland's job?

[msfiddlestix]

8. Excellent questions, and it might explain a lot of questions some of us has had

regarding what *appears* to be delayed criminal proceedings/charges/indictments etc wrt to a number of known crimes committed by tfg and his cohorts.

Now more questions. Durham has always been lingering back of mind since the beginning of Biden's term, but until Durham popped up in the media with his outrageous comments yesterday, it was a bit foggy to me.

His appearance is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because now we know, or at least a great deal more than what we've might have suspected. And we've learned that it's even worse than we've thought given Barr's comments.

or at least speaking for myself. I knew it was corrupt, but didn't know the extent. Likely be worse than what has been revealed.

Waiting for the next shoe to drop, and oh yeah the ball is squarely in Garland's court now. What does he do? What can he do?

[Budi]

10. Really, THIS ➡️ .."I knew it was corrupt, but didn't know the extent."

Ugh.

[msfiddlestix]

11. really shoulda said "Still don't know how corrupt"

cuz, no doubt what was admitted by Barr and Durham is likely scratching the surface.

not sure I want to know more at this point. they're both so effin evil and yeah corrupt.

[Budi]

12. Adding the fact they were all free to do whatever they wanted, unchallenged

And Bill Barr of all rotten people!

[msfiddlestix]

14. Yeppers...

and now the question is, what if anything can/will Garland do to mitigate this harm and damage done?

Will he be firing Durham? If not, why not?

and how about bringing charges against Barr, so deserving.

[former9thward]

16. A Special Counsel has no special protections.

He can be dismissed at any time by the AG. So Garland must be satisfied with his work performance. People invested in CTs may not want to hear that.

[many a good man]

19. That's plain silly

Dismissing Durham would be politically explosive

[former9thward]

21. As I predicted people don't want to hear it.

Would it cause political problems? Yes. Can it be legally done? Yes.

[BSdetect]

9. Indeed. He is scum.

[lagomorph777]

15. Bullshit Durham

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[Pantagruel]

5. Don't get mad,get even.

MG should appoint a special counsel to carry out Trump investigations past the '24 elections, just in case.

[Budi]

6. Good move! A Spc councel to investigate Spc councel Durham!.

And prosecute sleazy coward Bill Barr too while they're at it.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. Gee. A secret special prosecutor.

That’s so gazpacho.

[brer cat]

13. trump and Barr put up every road block they could think of.

Barr is a total sleaze and deserves to be jailed.

[Bev54]

17. Durham was installed to obstruct further investigation of the Russiagate.

And it has worked but what he did not count on was Trump's new crimes which would be even worse and bring them all down.

[BlueIdaho]

18. Defund Durham's investigation

Put the DOJ dollars into something more useful - like RNCult attempts to restrict voting rights.

[kentuck]

20. Also, Barr probably appointed him at the insistence of Donald Trump.

Trump wanted to use him as a political pawn, to keep his supporters believing he was a victim of Democratic "dirty tricks".