William Barr confronted a top White House aide over concerns that President Donald Trump wanted to “blow up” special counsel John Durham‘s criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation after the 2020 election, the former attorney general wrote in his new book.
As Barr would tell it in One Damn Thing After Another, the day it was revealed in December that he had elevated Durham, who at the time was the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, to special counsel status with extra protections, Barr had a startling realization. This came after White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed Barr that Trump was upset the attorney general had told the Associated Press that the Justice Department did not find any evidence to support the president’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
“Then it hit me,” Barr wrote. “The…
