Attorney General Bill Barr is putting members former President Barack Obama’s administration on notice.
And he’s warning — publicly — that some very big names could find themselves in legal hot water in the coming weeks and months.
Barr’s comments to Fox News are coming as the Justice Department continues its investigation of the 2016 “spygate” scandal in which the Obama-led law enforcement officials targeted President Donald Trump’s campaign.
“For the first time in American history, police organizations and the national security organizations were used to spy on a campaign,” Barr said. “And there was no basis for it.”
In fact, he said the agencies specifically “ignored” any evidence that cleared members of the Trump campaign and focused only on the things that suited their pre-written narrative.
“There were actions taken that really appear to be efforts to sabotage his campaign,” he said. “And that has to be looked at.”
Specifically, he said his team is looking at the “very aggressive investigation” of the Trump campaign that was launched despite only a “a very thin, slender reed as a basis for it.”
And the timing was interesting.
Trump was widely considered the longest of longshots when he first entered the race in 2015. Even as he racked up primary victory after primary victory in 2016, the mainstream media and members of his own party wrote him off.
There was even talk that he could be challenged at the Republican National Convention in July of that year.
Ultimately, the only overt sign of dissent came from Sen. Ted Cruz. R-Tex., one of Trump’s vanquished primary rivals who spoke at the event to a smattering of boos as he refused to endorse him.
That moment… when the idea of a Trump presidency suddenly became very real… could’ve been when the Obama administration struck.
“It seemed that the bureau was sort of spring-loaded at the end of July to drive in there and investigate a campaign,” Barr said.
What happened next is a matter of public record at this point. The FBI used and badly abused FISA warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign as part of a relentless attempt to undermine his candidacy – and, ultimately, his presidency.
All the while, figures within the government were leaking salacious allegations to the media, which was only too happy to run with it.
“The media largely drove that,” Barr said. “And all kinds of sensational claims were being made about the president that could have affected the election.”
All from a government investigation that never should’ve took place, much of it built around a politically motivated dossier of salacious and discredited allegations.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz last year found “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the application sent to the FISA court seeking permission to surveil Trump campaign official Carter Page.
As a result, former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein admitted this month to Congress that he would not have signed off on the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign and supposed Russian interference if he had all of the information available to him.
Now, U.S. Attorney John Durham is wrapping up his own investigation.
Barr said he is “very troubled” by what has emerged so far, and that his findings will soon be made public.
He indicated that very familiar names could appear in those findings, but added that neither Obama himself nor then-Vice President Joe Biden were among them.
“We can’t discuss future charges,” Barr said. But just because someone hasn’t been charged yet doesn’t mean they’re in the clear.
“You know, there’s the old saying that that the wheels of justice grind slow and they do run slow because we have due process and we follow the process,” he said. “But people should not draw from the fact that no action has been taken yet, that that means that people or people are going to get away with wrongdoing.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”