Axios reports this morning that Attorney General Bill Barr has begun telling Republicans on Capitol Hill that the Department of Justice will not release the long-anticipated Durham report into the origins of the Russia investigation before the Nov. 3 election:
“This is the nightmare scenario. Essentially, the year and a half of arguably the number one issue for the Republican base is virtually meaningless if this doesn’t happen before the election,” a GOP congressional aide told Axios.
Barr has so far ignored a flurry of crazed presidential tweets demanding that he arrest and incarcerate Donald Trump’s political enemies. Barr’s slowness to comply, along with signals from other Republicans and Trump’s tanking poll numbers, could indicate Trump’s allies have calculated it is time to cut their losses.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put distance between himself and Trump on Thursday, telling reporters he has not visited the White House since August over differences in COVID-19 protocols. The Senate, he said, insists on masks and social distancing. McConnell believes Trump should be more transparent about his recent coronavirus diagnosis.
Barr also has indicated that no indictments are coming before the election. Republicans hoped indictments against Obama administration and intelligence officials over their handling of the Russia probe would undermine Democrats’ election chances in November.
Trump said of Barr in a Fox Business interview Thursday, “He’s got all the information he needs. They want to get more, more, more. They keep getting more. I said, ‘you don’t need any more.'” Trump recently has criticized both Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray for slowness in bringing charges against (in Trump’s mind) those what done him wrong.
Axios continues:
What’s next: Top Republicans are planning to pressure Barr to get ahead of Durham and temper expectations for the timing of the report’s release, as well declassify whatever remaining documents there are connected to the probe.
“Bill Barr should follow the instructions of the president to declassify and release all the documents the FBI are sitting on. There’s no good reason for him to withhold this information,” a senior White House official said.
Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe approved the release of a large binder full of documents to the DOJ to assist their review of the Durham probe.
Yeah, that could backfire on the White House too, Politico’s Kyle Cheney suggests:
Expect Covid Donny to dial up his demands on Barr to 11 after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this morning announces legislation to create a “Commission on Presidential Capacity.” Drawing on 25th Amendment powers conferred on Congress, the commission is meant “to help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership in the highest office in the Executive Branch of government,” per Pelosi’s press release.
Congress is not in session and will not be taking up the legislation, but the announcement will focus attention on the aspiring monarch’s increasingly risky and unstable behaviors since contracting the coronavirus and taking experimental treatments.
Trump coughed his way through a telephone interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity Thursday night and suggested he might hold rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania in coming days. Trump evaded questions about whether he has tested negative for COVID-19 since leaving the hospital on Monday.
He’s going to get worse before the rest of us get better.
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