William Barr Is Using the DOJ to Intimidate Ukraine Witnesses – By Alex Finley (Slate) / Nov 25 2019
Attorney General Bill Barr seems to be wrapping up his investigation of the investigation of Russian interference in 2016. Yet the whole episode, combined with Republicans’ line of questioning in the impeachment inquiry, seems like a political ploy to supply a counternarrative to the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. Instead, that “hoax” or “witch hunt” is a conspiracy developed by the so-called Deep State—namely the CIA and FBI—to delegitimize President Donald Trump’s presidency and frame his campaign as a criminal enterprise. In this parallel universe, it was the Democrats who colluded with Ukrainian officials to leak damaging information about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. And yet, despite this supposed effort to help Democrats, Ukraine, simultaneously, hacked the Democratic National Committee’s server in order to leak embarrassing emails. In this version of events, for which there is no actual evidence, Trump never could have colluded with Russia, because Russia never did anything wrong.
In order for this counternarrative to stick, however, Trump and his associates need to destroy all trust in the intelligence community. That means making false allegations and stoking suspicions about those pesky civil servants who concluded that Russia mounted a massive influence campaign in 2016 aimed at, in part, helping Trump win.
Last month, media outlets reported that Barr’s investigation had become a criminal one. Whether true or not, the claim, much like the public attacks from Trump, Republicans, and the conservative media ecosystem, seemed like a clear signal to civil servants—whether in the FBI, the CIA, or the NSA—to tread very carefully if they planned to take any actions that came anywhere near the Russia-Trump nexus again.
But, this was not the first threatening message sent to the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Trump and his supporters have already released several shots across the bow.
The original cast of characters who first began investigating the Russian interference operation in 2016, and whether Trump or his associates had any connection to it, have all faced intimidation and retribution from the president and his supporters. Former FBI Director James Comey was fired after Trump asked him to drop the investigation into Trump’s then–National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI who spent a large part of his early career fighting Russian organized crime in New York City, was fired one day before he was set to retire, putting part of his pension in jeopardy. Trump has repeatedly attacked FBI investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on Twitter and elsewhere, with particularly prurient and unsettling comments. Trump and his supporters also attacked FBI officer Bruce Ohr, who’s spent much of his career at the FBI fighting Russian organized crime, and his wife, Nellie Ohr—who works at Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Christopher Steele, and who’s done her own research on Russian organized crime. Rep. Mark Meadows even sent a criminal referral about Nellie Ohr to the Justice Department. Former general counsel at the FBI Jim Baker was also fired after Trump and others attacked him.
Continue to article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/william-barr-doj-intimidate-ukraine-witnesses.html
Donald Trump and William Barr in the East Room of the White House on May 22. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
