Two new stories ramp up focus on Barr’s willingness to boost Trump before election

Let’s start with that one.

The investigation: Barr has long been skeptical that the FBI should have looked into potential Russia connections within the 2016 Trump campaign. So in May, Barr appointed a U.S. attorney, John Durham in Connecticut, to investigate how the FBI started this. Durham has a history of investigating politically sticky FBI actions. Think of what Durham is leading as the “investigation of the investigators” that Trump and his allies were clamoring for in the probe that morphed into the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The latest: Durham assembled a team of lawyers to help him. Late last week, one of them resigned. Nora Dannehy didn’t give a public reason. The Hartford Courant reports that her colleagues say she was concerned that Barr was pushing this investigation to release its findings or any charges before the Nov. 3 election. The New York Times reports that Barr wanted Durham to move quickly, and it’s possible Barr himself could release what the investigation has found so far if Durham isn’t finished before the election. That’s especially notable given that Barr framed the findings in the Mueller probe in a way that benefited Trump before releasing the whole thing.

What Barr has said about it: Nothing on Dannehy’s resignation. Barr has repeatedly said he won’t wait until after the election to share results of this investigation, if it’s done in time. That’s despite long-standing Justice Department practice not to make moves that look political right before an election.

How this could affect the presidential election: Remember how 11 days before the 2016 election, the FBI told Congress that it was looking into Hillary Clinton’s emails again based on new evidence? And that quickly went public and reinforced Trump’s damaging political attacks against Clinton?

Democrats and some legal watchers fear there could be another situation like that, only this time, the Justice Department would be pointing the fingers at FBI investigators in a way that allows Trump to try to claim vindication. Trump could also argue that the Obama administration (in which Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden served) acted inappropriately. Could it also help him try to drown out concerns over his handling of the coronavirus?

My Washington Post colleagues report that Durham has let it be known that he’s skeptical that the FBI needed to open such an investigation in the first place. The investigation already produced a guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer over altering an email in the case. Now we have another report that Barr is pushing for more before the election, raising the question of what he knows about its findings.

The court case: Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn is the highest-ranking administration official to get into legal trouble as a result of the Mueller investigation. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts. Yet Barr recommended this summer that the Justice Department drop the case entirely.

The controversial move has led to its own series of court cases, the next of which is a Sept. 29 hearing with a federal judge over whether the government can and should drop this case.

The latest: The Justice Department would normally be prosecuting the guy who pleaded guilty to lying to them, but now it’s arguing that he should be free. So the judge appointed someone to argue in favor of sentencing Flynn. That person previewed his argument Friday in a blistering court filing, saying Barr’s attempt to let Flynn go free is a “corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.”

Former New York federal judge John Gleeson writes: “In the United States, Presidents do not orchestrate pressure campaigns to get the Justice Department to drop charges against defendants who have pleaded guilty — twice, before two different judges — and whose guilt is obvious.”

What Barr has said about it: Barr hasn’t commented directly on those allegations, but he maintains that dropping the Flynn case is the right thing to do. He doesn’t deny Flynn lied, but he essentially has argued that the FBI shouldn’t have interviewed him in the first place. At least one former Justice Department official involved in interviewing Flynn says Barr “twisted” her words to make his case.

How this could affect the election: Besides giving Trump another potential legal and political win if Flynn walks free, this hearing between Gleeson and Justice Department officials is set for the day of the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, Sept. 29. That could provide weapons for both sides to use, but Trump has seemed most willing to seize on Justice Department developments to argue that the Obama administration was out to get the Trump campaign.