Barr Pressed Durham to Find Flaws in the Trump Russia Investigation - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — It became a regular litany of grievances from President Donald J. Trump and his supporters: The probe into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia was a witch hunt, they maintained, that had been opened without immoderate coagulated basis, went connected excessively agelong and recovered nary impervious of collusion.

Egged connected by Mr. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr acceptable retired successful 2019 to excavation into their shared mentation that the Russia probe apt stemmed from a conspiracy by quality oregon instrumentality enforcement agencies. To pb the inquiry, Mr. Barr turned to a hard-nosed authoritative named John H. Durham, and aboriginal granted him special counsel status to transportation connected aft Mr. Trump near office.

But aft astir 4 years — acold longer than the Russia probe itself — Mr. Durham’s enactment is coming to an extremity without uncovering thing similar the heavy authorities crippled alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.

Moreover, a monthslong reappraisal by The New York Times recovered that the main thrust of the Durham enquiry was marked by immoderate of the precise aforesaid flaws — including a strained justification for opening it and its relation successful fueling partisan conspiracy theories that would ne'er beryllium charged successful tribunal — that Trump allies assertion characterized the Russia investigation.

Interviews by The Times with much than a twelve existent and erstwhile officials person revealed an array of antecedently unreported episodes that amusement however the Durham enquiry became roiled by interior dissent and ethical disputes arsenic it went unsuccessfully down 1 way aft different adjacent arsenic Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading communicative of its progress.

• Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham ne'er disclosed that their enquiry expanded successful the autumn of 2019, based connected a extremity from Italian officials, to see a transgression probe into suspicious fiscal dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the extremity and however they handled the probe stay unclear, but Mr. Durham brought nary charges implicit it.

• Mr. Durham utilized Russian quality memos — suspected by different U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to summation entree to emails of an adjutant to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is simply a favourite people of the American close and Russian authorities media. Mr. Durham utilized expansive assemblage powers to support pursuing the emails adjacent aft a justice doubly rejected his petition for entree to them. The emails yielded nary grounds that Mr. Durham has cited successful immoderate lawsuit helium pursued.

• There were deeper interior fractures connected the Durham squad than antecedently known. The publically unexplained resignation successful 2020 of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a bid of disputes betwixt them implicit prosecutorial ethics. A twelvemonth later, 2 much prosecutors powerfully objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run based connected grounds they warned was excessively flimsy, and 1 near the squad successful protestation of Mr. Durham’s determination to proceed anyway. (A assemblage swiftly acquitted the lawyer.)

Now, arsenic Mr. Durham works connected a last report, the interviews by The Times supply caller details of however helium and Mr. Barr sought to recast the scrutiny of the 2016 Trump campaign’s myriad if murky links to Russia arsenic unjustified and itself a crime.

Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and Ms. Dannehy declined to comment. The existent and erstwhile officials who discussed the probe each spoke connected the information of anonymity due to the fact that of the legal, governmental and quality sensitivities surrounding the topic.

A twelvemonth into the Durham inquiry, Mr. Barr declared that the effort “to get to the bottommost of what happened” successful 2016 “cannot be, and it volition not be, a tit-for-tat exercise. We are not going to little the standards conscionable to execute a result.”

But Robert Luskin, a transgression defence lawyer and erstwhile Justice Department authoritative who represented 2 witnesses Mr. Durham interviewed, said that helium had a hard clip squaring Mr. Durham’s anterior estimation arsenic an independent-minded consecutive shooter with his end-of-career behaviour arsenic Mr. Barr’s peculiar counsel.

An Odd Couple

A period aft Mr. Barr was confirmed arsenic lawyer wide successful February 2019, the peculiar counsel Robert S. Mueller III ended the Russia probe and turned successful his report without charging immoderate Trump associates with engaging successful a transgression conspiracy with Moscow implicit its covert cognition to assistance Mr. Trump triumph the 2016 election.

Mr. Trump would repeatedly represent the Mueller study arsenic having recovered “no collusion with Russia.” The world was much complex. In fact, the study detailed “numerous links betwixt the Russian authorities and the Trump campaign,” and it established some however Moscow had worked to assistance Mr. Trump triumph and however his run had expected to payment from the overseas interference.

That spring, Mr. Barr assigned Mr. Durham to scour the origins of the Russia probe for wrongdoing, telling Fox News that helium wanted to cognize if “officials abused their powerfulness and enactment their thumb connected the scale” successful deciding to prosecute the investigation. “A batch of the answers person been inadequate, and immoderate of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t bent together,” helium added.

While attorneys wide overseeing politically delicate inquiries thin to support their region from the investigators, Mr. Durham visited Mr. Barr successful his bureau for astatine times play updates and consultations astir his day-to-day work. They besides sometimes dined and sipped Scotch together, radical acquainted with their enactment said.

In immoderate ways, they were an unusual match. Taciturn and media-averse, the goateed Mr. Durham had spent much than 3 decades arsenic a authoritative earlier Mr. Trump appointed him the U.S. lawyer for Connecticut. Administrations of some parties had assigned him to analyse imaginable authoritative wrongdoing, similar allegations of corrupt ties betwixt mafia informants and F.B.I. agents, and the C.I.A.’s torture of coercion detainees and demolition of evidence.

By contrast, the vocal and domineering Mr. Barr has ne'er prosecuted a lawsuit and is known for using his instrumentality enforcement platform to opine connected culture-war issues and politics. He had efficaciously auditioned to beryllium Mr. Trump’s lawyer wide by asserting to a New York Times reporter that determination was much ground to analyse Mrs. Clinton than Mr. Trump’s “so-called ‘collusion’” with Russia, and by writing a memo suggesting a mode to shield Mr. Trump from scrutiny for obstruction of justice.

‘The Thinnest of Suspicions’

At the clip Mr. Barr was confirmed, helium told aides that helium already suspected that quality abuses played a relation successful igniting the Russia probe — and that unearthing immoderate wrongdoing would beryllium a priority.

In May 2019, soon aft giving Mr. Durham his assignment, Mr. Barr summoned the caput of the National Security Agency, Paul M. Nakasone, to his office. In beforehand of respective aides, Mr. Barr demanded that the N.S.A. cooperate with the Durham inquiry.

Referring to the C.I.A. and British spies, Mr. Barr besides said helium suspected that the N.S.A.’s “friends” had helped instigate the Russia probe by targeting the Trump campaign, aides briefed connected the gathering said. And repeating a intersexual vulgarity, helium warned that if the N.S.A. wronged him by not doing each it could to assistance Mr. Durham, Mr. Barr would bash the aforesaid to the agency.

Mr. Barr’s insistence astir what helium had surmised bewildered quality officials. But Mr. Durham spent his archetypal months looking for immoderate grounds that the root of the Russia probe progressive an quality cognition targeting the Trump campaign.

Mr. Durham’s squad spent agelong hours combing the C.I.A.’s files but recovered nary mode to enactment the allegation. Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham traveled overseas unneurotic to property British and Italian officials to uncover everything their agencies had gleaned astir the Trump run and relayed to the United States, but some allied governments denied they had done immoderate specified thing. Top British quality officials expressed indignation to their U.S. counterparts astir the accusation, 3 erstwhile U.S. officials said.

Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr had not yet fixed up erstwhile a caller occupation arose: In aboriginal December, the Justice Department’s autarkic inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, completed his ain report connected the origins of the Russia investigation.

The inspector wide revealed errors and omissions successful wiretap applications targeting a erstwhile Trump run advisor and determined that an F.B.I. lawyer had doctored an email successful a mode that kept 1 of those problems from coming to light. (Mr. Durham’s squad aboriginal negotiated a blameworthy plea by that lawyer.)

But the broader findings contradicted Mr. Trump’s accusations and the rationale for Mr. Durham’s inquiry. Mr. Horowitz recovered nary grounds that F.B.I. actions were politically motivated. And helium concluded that the investigation’s ground — an Australian diplomat’s tip that a Trump run advisor had seemed to disclose beforehand cognition that Russia would merchandise hacked Democratic emails — had been capable to lawfully unfastened it.

The week earlier Mr. Horowitz released the report, helium and aides came to Mr. Durham’s offices — nondescript suites connected 2 floors of a gathering successful northeast Washington — to spell implicit it.

Mr. Durham lobbied Mr. Horowitz to driblet his uncovering that the diplomat’s extremity had been capable for the F.B.I. to unfastened its “full” counterintelligence investigation, arguing that it was capable astatine astir for a “preliminary” inquiry, according to officials. But Mr. Horowitz did not alteration his mind.

That weekend, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham decided to measurement successful publically to signifier the communicative connected their terms.

Minutes earlier the inspector general’s study went online, Mr. Barr issued a connection contradicting Mr. Horowitz’s large finding, declaring that the F.B.I. opened the probe “on the thinnest of suspicions that, successful my view, were insufficient.” He would aboriginal archer Fox News that the probe began “without immoderate basis,” arsenic if the diplomat’s extremity ne'er happened.

Mr. Trump besides weighed in, telling reporters that the details of the inspector general’s study were “far worse than thing I would person adjacent imagined,” adding: “I look guardant to the Durham report, which is coming retired successful the not-too-distant future. It’s got its ain information, which is this accusation plus, plus, plus.”

And the Justice Department sent reporters a statement from Mr. Durham that clashed with some Justice Department principles astir not discussing ongoing investigations and his idiosyncratic estimation arsenic peculiarly tight-lipped. He said helium disagreed with Mr. Horowitz’s conclusions astir the Russia investigation’s origins, citing his ain entree to much accusation and “evidence collected to date.”

But arsenic Mr. Durham’s enquiry proceeded, helium ne'er presented immoderate grounds contradicting Mr. Horowitz’s factual findings astir the ground connected which F.B.I. officials opened the investigation.

By summertime 2020, it was wide that the hunt for grounds supporting Mr. Barr’s hunch astir quality abuses had failed. But helium waited until aft the 2020 predetermination to publically concede that determination had turned retired to beryllium nary motion of “foreign authorities activity” and that the C.I.A. had “stayed successful its lane” aft all.

An Awkward Tip

On 1 of Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham’s trips to Europe, according to radical acquainted with the matter, Italian officials — portion denying immoderate relation successful mounting disconnected the Russia probe — unexpectedly offered a perchance explosive extremity linking Mr. Trump to definite suspected fiscal crimes.

Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham decided that the extremity was excessively superior and credible to ignore. But alternatively than delegate it to different prosecutor, Mr. Barr had Mr. Durham analyse the substance himself — giving him transgression prosecution powers for the archetypal clip — adjacent though the imaginable wrongdoing by Mr. Trump did not autumn squarely wrong Mr. Durham’s duty to scrutinize the origins of the Russia inquiry, the radical said.

Mr. Durham ne'er filed charges, and it remains unclear what level of an probe it was, what steps helium took, what helium learned and whether anyone astatine the White House ever recovered out. The bonzer information that Mr. Durham opened a transgression probe that included scrutinizing Mr. Trump has remained secret.

But successful October 2019, a garbled echo became public. The Times reported that Mr. Durham’s administrative reappraisal of the Russia enquiry had evolved to see a transgression investigation, portion saying it was not wide what the suspected transgression was. Citing their ain sources, many other news outlets confirmed the development.

The quality reports, however, were each framed astir the erroneous presumption that the transgression probe indispensable mean Mr. Durham had recovered grounds of imaginable crimes by officials progressive successful the Russia inquiry. Mr. Barr, who weighed successful publically astir the Durham enquiry astatine regular intervals successful ways that precocious a pro-Trump narrative, chose successful this lawsuit not to clarify what was truly happening.

By the outpouring and summertime of 2020, with Mr. Trump’s re-election run successful afloat swing, the Durham investigation’s “failure to present scalps successful clip for the election” began to erode Mr. Barr’s narration with Mr. Trump, Mr. Barr wrote successful his memoir.

Mr. Trump was stoking a content among his supporters that Mr. Durham mightiness complaint erstwhile President Barack Obama and erstwhile Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. That proved excessively overmuch for Mr. Barr, who in May 2020 clarified that “our interest of imaginable criminality is focused connected others.”

Even so, successful August, Mr. Trump lashed out successful a Fox interview, asserting that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, on with apical F.B.I. and quality officials, had been caught successful “the azygous biggest governmental transgression successful the past of our country” and the lone happening stopping charges would beryllium if Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham wanted to beryllium “politically correct.”

Against that backdrop, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham did not unopen down their enquiry erstwhile the hunt for quality abuses deed a dormant end. With the inspector general’s enquiry complete, they turned to a caller rationale: a hunt for a ground to impeach the Clinton run of conspiring to defraud the authorities by manufacturing the suspicions that the Trump run had colluded with Russia, on with scrutinizing what the F.B.I. and quality officials knew astir the Clinton campaign’s actions.

Mr. Durham besides developed an indirect method to impute governmental bias to instrumentality enforcement officials: comparing the Justice Department’s assertive effect to suspicions of links betwixt Mr. Trump and Russia with its much cautious and skeptical absorption to assorted Clinton-related suspicions.

He examined an probe into the Clinton Foundation’s finances successful which the F.B.I.’s repeated requests for a subpoena were denied. He besides scrutinized however the F.B.I. gave Mrs. Clinton a “defensive briefing” astir suspicions that a overseas authorities mightiness beryllium trying to power her run done donations, but did not pass Mr. Trump astir suspicions that Russia mightiness beryllium conspiring with radical associated with his campaign.

Dubious Intelligence

During the Russia investigation, the F.B.I. utilized claims from what turned retired to beryllium a dubious source, the Steele dossier — absorption probe indirectly funded by the Clinton run — successful its botched applications to wiretap a erstwhile Trump run aide.

The Durham probe did thing with parallels to that incident.

In Mr. Durham’s case, the dubious sources were memos, whose credibility the quality assemblage doubted, written by Russian quality analysts and discussing purported conversations involving American victims of Russian hacking, according to radical acquainted with the matter.

The memos were portion of a trove provided to the C.I.A. by a Dutch spy agency, which had infiltrated the servers of its Russian counterpart. The memos were said to marque demonstrably inconsistent, inaccurate oregon exaggerated claims, and immoderate U.S. analysts believed Russia whitethorn person deliberately seeded them with disinformation.

Mr. Durham wanted to usage the memos, which included descriptions of Americans discussing a purported program by Mrs. Clinton to onslaught Mr. Trump by linking him to Russia’s hacking and releasing successful 2016 of Democratic emails, to prosecute the mentation that the Clinton run conspired to framework Mr. Trump. And successful doing so, Mr. Durham sought to usage the memos arsenic justification to get entree to the backstage communications of an American citizen.

One purported hacking unfortunate identified successful the memos was Leonard Benardo, the enforcement vice president of the Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy enactment whose Hungarian-born founder, Mr. Soros, has been vilified by the acold right.

In 2017, The Washington Post reported that the Russian memos included a assertion that Mr. Benardo and a Democratic subordinate of Congress, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, had discussed however Loretta E. Lynch, the Obama-era lawyer general, had supposedly promised to keep the probe into Mrs. Clinton’s emails from going excessively far.

But Mr. Benardo and Ms. Wasserman Schultz said they had ne'er adjacent met, fto unsocial communicated astir Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

Mr. Durham acceptable retired to beryllium that the memos described existent conversations, according to radical acquainted with the matter. He sent a authoritative connected his team, Andrew DeFilippis, to inquire Judge Beryl A. Howell, the main justice of the Federal District Court successful Washington, for an bid allowing them to prehend accusation astir Mr. Benardo’s emails.

But Judge Howell decided that the Russian memo was excessively anemic a ground to intrude connected Mr. Benardo’s privacy, they said. Mr. Durham past personally appeared earlier her and urged her to reconsider, but she again ruled against him.

Rather than dropping the idea, Mr. Durham sidestepped Judge Howell’s ruling by invoking grand-jury powerfulness to request documents and grounds straight from Mr. Soros’s instauration and Mr. Benardo astir his emails, the radical said. (It is unclear whether Mr. Durham served them with a subpoena oregon alternatively threatened to bash truthful if they did not cooperate.)

Rather than warring successful court, the instauration and Mr. Benardo softly complied, according to radical acquainted with the matter. But for Mr. Durham, the effect appears to person been different dormant end.

In a connection provided to The Times by Mr. Soros’s foundation, Mr. Benardo reiterated that helium ne'er met oregon corresponded with Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and said that “if specified documentation exists, it’s of people made up.”

Internal Strife

As the absorption of the Durham probe shifted, cracks formed wrong the team. Mr. Durham’s deputy, Ms. Dannehy, a longtime adjacent colleague, progressively argued with him successful beforehand of different prosecutors and F.B.I. agents astir ineligible ethics.

Ms. Dannehy had autarkic lasting arsenic a respected prosecutor. In 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey assigned her to analyse whether to complaint elder Bush medication officials with crimes related to a ungraded implicit the firing of U.S. attorneys; she decided successful 2010 that nary charges were warranted.

Now, Ms. Dannehy complained to Mr. Durham astir however Mr. Barr kept hinting darkly successful nationalist astir the absorption of their investigation. In April 2020, for example, helium suggested to Fox News that officials could beryllium prosecuted, saying that “the grounds shows that we are not dealing with conscionable mistakes oregon sloppiness. There is thing acold much troubling here.”

Ms. Dannehy urged Mr. Durham to inquire the lawyer wide to adhere to Justice Department argumentation and not sermon the probe publicly. But Mr. Durham proved unwilling to situation him.

The strains grew erstwhile Mr. Durham utilized expansive assemblage powers to spell aft Mr. Benardo’s emails. Ms. Dannehy opposed that maneuver and told colleagues that Mr. Durham had taken that measurement without telling her.

By summertime 2020, with Election Day approaching, Mr. Barr pressed Mr. Durham to draught a imaginable interim study centered connected the Clinton run and F.B.I. gullibility oregon willful blindness.

On Sept. 10, 2020, Ms. Dannehy discovered that different members of the squad had written a draught study that Mr. Durham had not told her about, according to radical briefed connected their ensuing argument.

Ms. Dannehy erupted, according to radical acquainted with the matter. She told Mr. Durham that nary study should beryllium issued earlier the probe was implicit and particularly not conscionable earlier an predetermination — and denounced the draught for taking disputed accusation astatine look value. She sent colleagues a memo detailing those concerns and resigned.

Two radical adjacent to Mr. Barr said helium had pressed for the draught to measure what a study connected preliminary findings would look similar and what grounds would request to beryllium declassified. But they insisted that helium intended immoderate merchandise to travel during the summertime oregon aft the Nov. 3 predetermination — not soon earlier Election Day.

In immoderate case, successful precocious September 2020, astir 2 weeks aft Ms. Dannehy quit, idiosyncratic leaked to a Fox Business personality that Mr. Durham would not contented immoderate interim report, disappointing Trump supporters hoping for a pre-Election Day bombshell.

Stymied by the determination not to contented an interim Durham report, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s nationalist quality director, tried different mode to inject immoderate of the aforesaid accusation into the campaign.

Over the objections of Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe declassified astir 1,000 pages of quality worldly earlier the predetermination for Mr. Durham to use. Notably, successful that fight, Mr. Barr sided with Ms. Haspel connected 1 substance that is said to beryllium peculiarly delicate and that remained classified, according to 2 radical acquainted with the dispute.

Mr. Ratcliffe besides disclosed successful a missive to a senator that “Russian quality analysis” claimed that connected July 26, 2016, Mrs. Clinton had approved a run program to disturbance up a ungraded tying Mr. Trump to Russia.

The missive acknowledged that officials did “not cognize the accuracy of this allegation oregon the grade to which the Russian quality investigation whitethorn bespeak exaggeration oregon fabrication.” But it did not notation that determination were galore reasons that suspicions astir the Trump run were arising successful that play — similar the diplomat’s tip, Mr. Trump’s flattery of President Vladimir V. Putin, his hiring of advisers with links to Russia, his fiscal ties to Russia and his telephone for Russia to hack Mrs. Clinton.

The disclosure infuriated Dutch quality officials, who had provided the memos nether strictest confidence.

‘Fanning the Flames’

Late successful the summertime of 2021, Mr. Durham prepared to indict Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who had represented Democrats successful their dealings with the F.B.I. astir Russia’s hacking of their emails. Two prosecutors connected Mr. Durham’s squad — Anthony Scarpelli and Neeraj N. Patel — objected, according to radical acquainted with the matter.

Five years earlier, Mr. Sussmann had relayed a extremity to the bureau astir unusual net information that a radical of information scientists contended could bespeak hidden communications betwixt the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank of Russia. The F.B.I., which by past had already launched its Russia investigation, concisely looked astatine the allegation but dismissed it.

Mr. Durham accused Mr. Sussmann of lying to an F.B.I. authoritative by saying helium was not conveying the extremity for a client; the authoritative maintained Mr. Sussmann was determination successful portion for the Clinton campaign.

Mr. Scarpelli and Mr. Patel argued to Mr. Durham that the grounds was excessively bladed to complaint Mr. Sussmann and that specified a lawsuit would not usually beryllium prosecuted, radical acquainted with the substance said. Given the aggravated scrutiny it would receive, they besides warned that an acquittal would undermine nationalist religion successful their probe and national instrumentality enforcement.

When Mr. Durham did not alteration course, Mr. Scarpelli discontinue successful protest, radical acquainted with the substance said. Mr. Patel near soon aft to instrumentality a antithetic job. Both declined to comment.

The complaint against Mr. Sussmann was narrow, but the Durham squad utilized it to marque nationalist ample amounts of accusation insinuating what Mr. Durham ne'er charged: that Clinton run associates conspired to gin up an F.B.I. probe into Mr. Trump based connected a knowingly mendacious allegation.

Trial testimony, however, showed that portion Mrs. Clinton and her run manager hoped Mr. Sussmann would transportation reporters to constitute articles astir Alfa Bank, they did not privation him to instrumentality the accusation to the F.B.I. And prosecutors presented nary grounds that helium oregon run officials had believed the information scientists’ analyzable mentation was false.

After Mr. Sussmann’s acquittal, Mr. Barr, by past retired of bureau for much than a year, suggested that utilizing the courts to beforehand a politically charged communicative was a extremity successful itself. Mr. Durham “accomplished thing acold much important” than a conviction, Mr. Barr told Fox News, asserting that the lawsuit had “crystallized the cardinal relation played by the Hillary run successful launching arsenic a soiled instrumentality the full Russiagate collusion communicative and fanning the flames of it.”

That lawsuit progressive Igor Danchenko, who had told the F.B.I. that the dossier exaggerated the credibility of gossip and speculation. Mr. Durham charged him with lying astir 2 sources. He was acquitted, too.

The 2 failed cases are apt to beryllium Mr. Durham’s past courtroom acts arsenic a prosecutor. Bringing demonstrably anemic cases stood successful opposition to however helium erstwhile talked astir his prosecutorial philosophy.

James Farmer, a retired authoritative who worked with Mr. Durham connected respective large investigations, recalled him arsenic a neutral histrion who said that if determination were thing to charge, they would not strain to prosecute. “That’s what I heard, clip and again,” Mr. Farmer said.

Delivering the closing arguments successful the Danchenko trial, Mr. Durham defended his probe to the jury, denying that his assignment by Mr. Barr had been tainted by politics.

He asserted that Mr. Mueller had concluded “there’s nary grounds of collusion present oregon conspiracy” — a formulation that echoed Mr. Trump’s distortion of the Russia investigation’s analyzable findings — and added: “Is it the incorrect question to ask, well, past however did this get started? Respectfully, that’s not the case.”

The justice interrupted him: “You should decorativeness up, Mr. Durham.”

William K. Rashbaum and Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.