U. S. Attorney General William Barr is working with top intelligence officials and a senior federal prosecutor on at least the third inquiry to date into the origins of the Mueller probe of President Donald Trump and Russian election meddling, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U. S. Attorney General William Barr is working with top intelligence officials and a senior federal prosecutor on at least the third inquiry to date into the origins of the Mueller probe of President Donald Trump and Russian election meddling, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Barr has named U. S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham to examine whether the FBI erred in seeking a special federal court warrant to conduct surveillance on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, said the person.
In addition, Barr is personally working with FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to review intelligence gathering techniques used to investigate Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Amid a broad effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI, Trump and his allies have accused law enforcement officials of spying on his campaign and called for an investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe, which started at the FBI in mid-2016.
A probe into the legality of the special warrant used to monitor Page is already under way by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is due to release his findings in coming weeks.
In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions assigned Utah’s top federal prosecutor John Huber to review a wide range of issues that Republicans had complained about, from how the FBI handled investigations related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to questions about the origins of the Russia probe.
