U.S. Attorney General William Barr listens to concerns raised about public safety in rural Alaska during at a roundtable discussion at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium on Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. Barr did not take questions from reporters in his first public appearance after former special prosecutor Robert Mueller spoke to reporters after resigning at the completion of his report into Russian interference into the 2016 election. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

This is coming in the form of some hilarious spin from The New York Times, but the big news here is that my previous speculation was correct. The Barr-Durham probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia fiasco is now officially a criminal investigation.

BREAKING: DOJ has shifted its administrative review of the origins of the Russia probe into a criminal investigation The move gives John Durham the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges https://t.co/MBnARap0UO — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 25, 2019

From the link above.

WASHINGTON — For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began. Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

You can just imagine the spittle flying as they typed this. They really, really don’t want this to be looked into and by shifting it to a criminal investigation, the DOJ now has full power to compel witness testimony. That’s bad news for a lot of people who have been flailing about, insisting there’s no reason they should be investigated.

Of course, instead of just sticking to the facts, the unbiased reporters at the Times described the shift in this manner.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies.

Yes, that’s the problem here. Not that the DOJ has enough evidence to start criminally investigating people, but that it’s happening at all and some might be “alarmed.” Isn’t it weird how they had none of these reservations with the Obama administrations investigation into Trump, nor the Mueller investigation.

There’s not many more details in the article so we’ll have to wait to see what the next moves are, but a lot of people are going to be sweating a little more profusely tonight.

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