A pair of top Republican senators are calling for the fullest possible level of transparency in the Justice Department’s examination of the origins of the Russia investigation, urging Attorney General William Barr to eschew how the Obama administration dealt with controversy.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sent a letter to Barr on Wednesday after it was revealed last week that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s administrative review of the DOJ’s and FBI’s conduct during the 2016 campaign and the first part of 2017 had become a criminal review.
“Regardless of whether or not Mr. Durham decides to file indictments, in order to restore public confidence in the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, and the Intelligence Community (IC), the findings of his investigation must be made public to the fullest extent possible,” the senators wrote.
“If wrongdoing occurred within government agencies that targeted a presidential candidate and campaign, or subsequent to the election sought to undermine a duly elected president resulting in the appointment of a special counsel, the public has a right to know as much of the detail of what transpired as possible,” they added. “If no, or minimal, wrongdoing occurred, the public needs to know that as well.”
The Republican senators said that under President Barack Obama, there were “far too many incidents of suspected malfeasance” in the government that “have not been fully explained to the American public.” They listed out such controversies as the gun-running “Fast and Furious operation,” the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative nonprofit groups, and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state and the resulting mishandling of classified information.
Democrats are openly concerned about whether the Durham investigation, which is being overseen by Barr, has become “tainted” by politics. During a Fox News interview, Barr denied he is attempting to shield President Trump and said Durham will be “thorough and fair.”
Acknowledging that the United States is “deeply divided,” Grassley and Johnson argued that mending cannot begin until the American public is no longer “kept in the dark about suspected actors within the bureaucracy having used their powers of office to affect the outcome of a presidential election and/or sabotage a duly elected president.”
