Ex-top FBI official explains why the Justice Department's Russia criminal counter-investigation smells fishy

Several news organizations reported Thursday that U.S. Attorney John Durham is now overseeing a criminal investigation, not an administrative review, of the DOJ's own investigation into Russian election interference and any coordination with President Trump's campaign. Attorney General William Barr assigned the review to Durham in May, and its unclear why it has been upgraded to a criminal investigation or what potential crimes Durham is investigating.

The New York Times, which was first to report the criminal inquiry, notes that "federal investigators need only a 'reasonable indication' that a crime has been committed to open an investigation, a much lower standard than the probable cause required to obtain search warrants," though "a hunch is insufficient." Katie Bennet, one of the two Times reporters with the scoop, told Brian Williams on MSNBC Thursday night that Barr is unusually and "extremely involved" in the inquiry, and his main concern appears to be whether the FBI's 2016 investigation into Trump's campaign was "lawfully predicated."

Durham's team has already questioned more than two dozen former and current FBI and intelligence officials, and Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, told Williams he thinks "we're about to witness what I call a fabricated spectacle, a manufactured spectacle. For an unpleasant time during my FBI career, I led internal investigations, I was joined at the hip with the DOJ inspector general, I reconstructed investigative results. I know a little bit about how that works, and I know you have a decision to make: You can administratively compel employees to talk to you or you can decide to go the criminal route."

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When you go the administrative route, employees can be fired for refusing to talk to you, so "you tend to get cooperation" and "you tend to get to the bottom of what you're getting at," Figliuzzi said. But when you go the criminal path, employees "lawyer up" and decline to cooperate. Now that Barr has gone this route, "you're going to see the White House and DOJ and certain media outlets come out and say 'Look at this: FBI agents and CIA employees are refusing to cooperate — they must be criminals!' That's the spectacle that's being manufactured here." Watch below. Peter Weber