“I started off in Washington at the Central Intelligence Agency and went to law school at night while I was working at CIA,” recalled William Barr in a 2001 oral history for the University of Virginia.

Trump’s nominee to be attorney general has what Trump might call “deep state” credentials. Barr came to Langley in 1973. He was a 23-year-old graduate of Columbia with a master’s in political science and Chinese studies. His resume shows he toiled at the CIA by day and attended George Washington University law school at night. The Watergate scandal was ravaging the agency’s reputation and destroying the presidency of Richard Nixon.

A close examination of Barr’s legal career indicates a high tolerance for presidentially sanctioned law-breaking.

The Deep State: The Fa... Lofgren, Mike Best Price: $2.15 Buy New $11.01 (as of 11:20 EST - Details) Barr spent four formative years in the Intelligence Directorate and the Office of Legislative Counsel. He even made the acquaintance of CIA director George H.W. Bush. In 1977 Barr moved on to a prestigious clerkship for a federal judge and then a series of jobs in private practice and the Justice Department. In 1991, Bush, now president, appointed Barr to be attorney general.

At age 41, Barr was one of the youngest men ever to hold that office. He left after one year and went on to a long career in corporate law and public service. Barr now returns to his old job at the behest of besieged President Trump.

Barr’s confirmation hearings open this week amid questions about the legality of the president’s conduct toward Russian state agents and FBI investigators.

Will Barr protect the investigation of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller? Or will he act on a tightly argued memo in which he claimed Mueller has already exceeded his authority?

In his first turn as attorney general in 1991, Barr handled three legal issues of deep concern to the CIA. He helped resolve all three issues favorably for the agency’s leaders and the president. Barr’s decisions were unfavorable to law enforcement, Congress, and the voters.

Bank of Fear

The first deep state fiasco handled by Attorney General Barr was the mother of all scandals, known by the sibilant initials, BCCI.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a global institution, which deputy CIA director Robert Gates described, slightly more accurately, as “the Bank of Crooks and Criminals.” David Ignatius dubbed it “The Bank of Fear.”

BCCI was a shadowy but very real institution with connections to governments and intelligence services all over the world. BCCI’s owners specialized in evading regulators so that they could speculate and bribe with the depositors’ money. As the fraud mounted and spread, law enforcement officials and bank regulators the world over discovered what the CIA had been trying to hide.

Senate investigators, led by John Kerry, found the agency had numerous BCCI accounts. Kamal Adham, the former chief of Saudi intelligence and a CIA collaborator, played a leading role in the bank’s dealings.

The final report of the Kerry Committee captures the mind-boggling scale of BCCI’s corruption. It was the kind of true story that makes people believe there is a “deep state.”

In 1991, federal prosecutors in Tampa launched an investigation of money laundering at BCCI. The District Attorney of Manhattan investigated a broad array of bank activities and found itself getting zero cooperation from colleagues in the Justice Department and CIA. Barr sat on the influential deputies committee of the National Security Council, which controlled the paperwork. The Deep State: How an... Chaffetz, Jason Best Price: $5.03 Buy New $17.05 (as of 02:10 EST - Details)

“We couldn’t get records. We couldn’t get witnesses. We could barely get a meeting,” said John Moscow, the lead BCCI prosecutor in Manhattan, in a recent interview.

Barr was up for confirmation as attorney general. Moscow said he heard that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee made Barr promise to let the BCCI investigation go ahead.

“We didn’t have a problem once Barr was in there,” Moscow said. “We got cooperation. We prosecuted seventeen people here in New York. Of course, the biggest guys got away.”

Several of the BCCI ringleaders were indicted, but they got away. Barr did not press Pakistan for their extradition, nor did his successors in the Clinton administration.

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