The investigation “includes the pre-transition period — prior to Nov. 7, 2016 — including the use and initiation of informants, as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.”

Attorney General William Barr has asked Connecticut US Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the government’s probe into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The decision comes after we received Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which showed no collusion happened between the two parties.

In April, Barr told a Senate committee that he believes “spying did occur” and wants to know “whether it was adequately predicated.” He said the DOJ will investigate the origins of the surveillance.

That investigation has taken its first steps.

From The New York Times:

John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees. His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates.

Trump’s administration has wanted to know for years why the FBI triggered an investigation into his campaign. Fox News heard from sources that Barr is “‘serious’ and had assigned DOJ personnel to the probe.” More from Fox News:

Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period — prior to Nov. 7, 2016 — including the use and initiation of informants, as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses. An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to “seduce” him as part of the “bizarre” episode.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has already started his own investigation into “potential surveillance abuses by the FBI – an investigation that began last March and that Fox News is told is nearing completion.”

The DOJ has a biography on Durham:

Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in various positions in the District of Connecticut for 35 years, prosecuting complex organized crime, violent crime, public corruption and financial fraud matters. From 2008 to 2017, Mr. Durham served as Counsel to the U.S. Attorney; from 1994 to 2008, he served as the Deputy U.S. Attorney, and served as the U.S. Attorney in an acting and interim capacity in 1997 and 1998; from 1989 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Office’s Criminal Division, and from 1982 to 1989, he served as an attorney and then supervisor in the New Haven Field Office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Durham also served as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for the purpose of investigating matters relating to the destruction of certain videotapes by the CIA and the treatment of detainees by the CIA. From 1998 to 2008, Mr. Durham served as a Special Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and Head of the Justice Task Force, where he reviewed alleged criminal conduct by FBI personnel and other law enforcement corruption in Boston, led the prosecution of a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent and a former Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant, and handled direct appeals and related proceedings following convictions after trial.

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