Let’s face the facts here. Joe Biden and his Attorney General were not about to have a sit-down meeting and fire Durham. It was never going to happen and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. Since Durham is responsible for investigating wrongdoing that took place during the Biden/Obama administration, that would create a major conflict of interest.
Biden’s guiding principle here seems simple enough. Trump was the president that attacked all of our usual norms and Biden is going to be the man who leads us back to normalcy. By messing with a federal prosecutor who is in the process of an investigation, Biden would be behaving in the exact same manner as Trump.
Anyone who has been paying close attention knows that there is one big fish who could be snagged by Durham. James Comey is in his crosshairs but there’s just one problem with that. The Democrats are not all that worried about him anymore. While Comey did foil their chances of winning the 2016 election by bringing Emailgate to everyone’s attention, the Democrats do not view him as the big prize.
Their voters would high-five and throw a party but it doesn’t do much to help them in the present. The American people would enjoy that “unifying” moment and that’s about it. Anthony Barr is clearly wondering if the Durham arrest is still in play, too. That’s why he is taking special steps to make sure that does not happen.
The lead prosecutor has now been made a special counsel. If Joe Biden has a change of heart, he will need to take steps that his predecessor was not even willing to embark on. He can’t rid himself of Durham unless he is willing to truly stick his neck out. There was already a moment where he considered firing Robert Mueller but cooler heads prevailed.
“I decided the best thing to do would be to appoint them under the same regulation that covered Bob Muller, to provide Durham and his team some assurance that they’d be able to complete their work regardless of the outcome of the election,” said Barr during a recent interview with the Associated Press.
Barr went on to say that the investigation has narrowed in scope considerably since it began a few years ago. What was once a broader criminal investigation “really is focused on the activities of the crossfire hurricane investigation within the FBI”, says Barr. If additional prosecutions are going to be brought, Durham is responsible for detailing them.
The intelligence community and the CIA are no longer the focus. Durham’s willingness to move past these organizations and focus on the FBI seems to indicate that he is moving past the claims that are most important to Trump supporters. People wanted to know how intelligence agencies decided on the idea that Russia was responsible for any 2016 election interference that took place.
One of the more intriguing aspects of this whole story is the fact that Barr did not elevate Durham to the special counsel position recently. This happened before the election even took place and was kept a secret from the rest of the world. “I … previously determined that it was in the public interest to toll notification given the proximity to the presidential election,” said Barr in a letter that was written to Congress.
He wanted to keep this juicy piece of news to himself so that the election would not be affected. Trump probably has some strong feelings about that, if we had to guess. If he took a moment to think it through, he would probably realize that it is better for Barr to have kept his mouth closed.
An early announcement makes it look like Barr is already expecting Biden to win and that Trump has no chance. Trump also has a great deal of suspicion about “deep state” operatives so who knows how he is going to react? In the meantime, Durham will get to finish the investigation and Biden will get to collect the goodwill tokens that come from not interfering with Trump era investigations.
