Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden likely won’t be criminally investigated for their role in perpetuating the fake Russia collusion hoax, Attorney General William Barr announced on Monday.
“Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime,” Barr said in a press conference Monday in reference to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the origins of the Russian collusion conspiracy.
“Now as to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”
Barr added that what happened against President Trump was “abhorrent” and a “grave injustice.”
“Any effort to pursue an investigation of either candidate has to be approved by me. And what happened to the president and I’ve said this many times, what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent,” he said.
“It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history. The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.”
The AG went on to say that Durham’s investigation will determine what federal laws were broken and who should be “held to account” for breaking them.
“The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the department of justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result,” Barr said. “We saw two different standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President Trump and his associates and the other that applied to everybody else. We can’t allow this ever to happen again.”
“The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken. And if there were, those who broke the laws will be held to account,” he concluded.
Given what’s now known about Obama’s role in unmasking President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, some in legal circles expressed their doubts that Durham’s investigation would actually prosecute those ultimately responsible for orchestrating the years-long coup against Trump.
Deep State mission accomplished? Barr announces no criminal investigation likely into Obama/Biden crimes against @RealDonaldTrump. https://t.co/1yWOKTp8Vv
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 18, 2020
Others claim Barr is simply playing politics in the short-term to bring partisan heat off of him and Durham.
Remember, Barr didn't say Obama and Biden are innocent. He said, "based upon what he knows now, neither would be indicted."
In other words, he defused a potential Obama martyrdom for Democrats while actually committing to nothing.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) May 18, 2020
Brad from Pennsylvania says Trump needs to fire Attorney General Bill Barr.
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