A top Republican said he doesn’t expect U.S. Attorney John Durham to come out with a report upon completing his review of the Russia investigation.
Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News last week what he believes will come out of the secretive inquiry, often called the “investigation into the investigators.”
“This is not going to be a Mueller report; there won’t be a report,” the Georgia Republican said, referring to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report.
Collins said he believes the public will hear about the progress Durham has made when there is an indictment.
“When he’s ready to charge people, he’ll charge people,” Collins said. “And that’s when we’ll know.”
Not everyone believes there will be any charges.
“Your former colleague, congressman Doug Collins, said today that he believes that the John Durham investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia hoax and the FISA abuse and so forth will lead to criminal charges. I personally doubt that very much,” Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said on Thursday while interviewing former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz.
Chaffetz, who led the House Oversight Committee from early 2015 to the summer of 2017, said he believes criminal charges are warranted “based on the information we have already seen and already know.”
Durham, the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut, was appointed last year by Attorney General William Barr to review possible misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials in the Russia investigation. The review turned into a criminal investigation in the fall, allowing Durham the power to impanel a grand jury and hand down indictments.
Only one person is publicly known to be under criminal investigation by Durham’s team: former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who altered a key document in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act filings related to onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Democrats have criticized the review as a politically motivated scheme to undermine the work of Mueller and attack President Trump’s perceived enemies. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler seeks an interview with Durham and more than a dozen other DOJ officials as part of an inquiry into “recent actions that smack of political interference.”
While onstage at CPAC, Collins criticized Mueller’s investigation, which Trump long called a “witch hunt.”
The congressman said the report, which showed Mueller’s investigators were unable to obtain sufficient evidence to charge anyone on the Trump campaign with criminally conspiring with Russia, was a “waste of time” that transitioned into a “sham” impeachment effort related to the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
