WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General William Barr expressed skepticism that the prosecution of Igor Danchenko by special counsel John Durham will result in a conviction, saying the jury pool was likely hostile to any initiative seen as helping former President Donald Trump.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, Barr noted that Durham had failed to secure a conviction against former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann on charges of lying to the FBI and expressed skepticism that Danchenko would ultimately be convicted, even though he hoped the Russian national would be.
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“What these cases show is that these are difficult cases to win,” Barr said. “There’s a reason it takes so long, and you have to build up the evidence because at the end of the day, you’re going before these juries that aren’t going to be disposed to side with the people they view as supporting Trump.”
Danchenko is slated to go on trial next month on charges of lying to the FBI about the Steele dossier, for which he was the main source. The dossier claimed that Trump and members of his campaign and company had established extensive ties to the Russian government and had colluded during the 2016 election.
The trial is widely expected to be the final criminal prosecution from Durham’s investigation before he submits a report of his findings to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
But despite Durham’s limited success in the courtroom, Barr defended the investigation he ordered, saying the courtroom was allowing Durham to establish a record of what had occurred with the so-called Russiagate investigation.
“I think Durham got out a lot of important facts that fill in a lot of the blanks as to what was really happening,” Barr said. “My expectation is … the Danchenko trial will also allow for a lot of this story to be told, whether or not he’s ultimately convicted. I hope he’s convicted, but if he isn’t, I still think it provides an avenue to tell the story of what happened.”
In the wide-ranging interview at the Federalist Society and Defense of Freedom Institute’s inaugural Education Law and Policy Conference, Barr also acknowledged claims by Republicans that the FBI and the Department of Justice had become politicized but defended FBI Director Christopher Wray as having done “a good job” and criticized Republicans for “going overboard” in their criticisms of the agency.
“I think that the bureau clearly needs some reform, and I think a lot of the agents there believe that. But I do think when the FBI does something that looks like it’s playing games or hiding the ball or has engaged in potentially partisan activity, I have no trouble calling them out,” Barr said. “But I do think that recently, Republicans are going overboard. They’re seizing on things that don’t really illustrate a rogue agency.”
Barr added, “I don’t want to imitate the Left, which is to disregard the truth, and try to fit everything into our narrative. I think the FBI has problems like all agencies have serious problems — most of our institutions are becoming politicized today. And it’s bad that that’s happening in the Department of Justice and the FBI, and it has to be dealt with. But I think we also have to remember that the FBI still has preponderantly very committed good professional agents that are doing a good job generally.”
Barr said Republicans need to “be more balanced” in their criticisms of the agency and that the work was “not all evil.”
“Not everything they do is wrong,” he said of the FBI, “and to listen to some Republicans, you would think that was the truth.”
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The former attorney general also reiterated recent calls he made for the DOJ to appoint U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a special prosecutor in the investigation into the business affairs of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, although he declined to speculate on whether the president’s son would be criminally charged.
“I think it might be time to give Weiss the protections of a special prosecutor and the extra independence it has because he’s not handling the case alone. … There are other divisions in the department that have part of it, and they’re not in Weiss’s position,” Barr said.
