Why, you may wonder, is John Durham dragging his feet on the investigation of the intelligence system's criminal conspiracy to overthrow Donald Trump?
A major part of the answer may be William Barr, whose political star rose when from 1973 to 1977 he ran interference for the CIA during Congress's investigation of intelligence abuses. Congress had evidence against that agency regarding dirty tricks, mind control activities and strange doings with regard to the death of President John F. Kennedy. The agency successfully fended off most of these charges, using its typical underhanded methods.
Barr then went on to become attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, who had been Barr's CIA boss as CIA director in 1976 and 1977. Bush the Elder's CIA shenanigans were too far out for most people to even believe. But then again, the press then as now, was a notorious pet poodle of the "intelligence community."
We should not necessarily hold Barr's past associations against him. But, there is ground for suspicion the more it appears that the national security swamp gets off easy again, for the umpteenth time. Compare the lack of substantial observable progress in this matter with the Justice Department's reckless prosecutorial zeal in attempting to nail Julian Assange, a man who has angered the CIA crowd by publishing things it (supposedly) did not want published.
A major part of the answer may be William Barr, whose political star rose when from 1973 to 1977 he ran interference for the CIA during Congress's investigation of intelligence abuses. Congress had evidence against that agency regarding dirty tricks, mind control activities and strange doings with regard to the death of President John F. Kennedy. The agency successfully fended off most of these charges, using its typical underhanded methods.
Barr then went on to become attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, who had been Barr's CIA boss as CIA director in 1976 and 1977. Bush the Elder's CIA shenanigans were too far out for most people to even believe. But then again, the press then as now, was a notorious pet poodle of the "intelligence community."
We should not necessarily hold Barr's past associations against him. But, there is ground for suspicion the more it appears that the national security swamp gets off easy again, for the umpteenth time. Compare the lack of substantial observable progress in this matter with the Justice Department's reckless prosecutorial zeal in attempting to nail Julian Assange, a man who has angered the CIA crowd by publishing things it (supposedly) did not want published.
A.G. Nominee Barr Helped
Navigate CIA Through
Rocky Times With Congress
William Barr, left, and President George H.W Bush after Mr. Barr was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney General in 1991.
Wall Street Journal
Feb. 12, 2019
Feb. 12, 2019
WASHINGTON—Long before he was tapped by President Trump to be attorney general, William Barr helped the Central Intelligence Agency navigate one of the most turbulent periods in its history.
Mr. Barr has said his work in the CIA in the 1970s—as an agency liaison to a skeptical Congress—was good preparation for his rise through the Justice Department ranks in the first Bush administration. Mr. Barr will again face a skeptical Congress as he leads a Justice Department going through its own turbulent trials.
The Senate is expected to confirm Mr. Barr’s nomination later this week. The Department of Justice that he is poised to inherit is still struggling under the controversy over its handling of two politically charged investigations during the 2016 election related to Mr. Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton—having drawn the ire of Republicans and Democratic lawmakers, who are vowing aggressive oversight and investigation of department activities.
“We’ve got a lot of problems at the Department of Justice. I think morale is low and we need to change that,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told Mr. Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing last month.
Last year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein clashed with Republican lawmakers who accused the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation of hiding information from them about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Barr is likely to face similar accusations from Democrats if they are unhappy with how much of Mr. Mueller’s final report is made available upon the probe’s conclusion.
BARR'S CIA STINT IS MURKY
Public details about Mr. Barr’s years with the CIA are scant, but it was a formative time. Mr. Barr first came into the CIA in 1971 as a summer intern before obtaining a full-time position as an intelligence analyst in 1973. By the mid-1970s, the CIA and FBI were facing a growing public outcry after a series of journalistic exposés revealed highly controversial covert activities at home and abroad.
Mr. Barr transferred to the CIA’s office of legislative counsel two years later at the height of the turmoil. That liaison job put him in the center of a showdown between the agency and Congress over access to some of the intelligence community’s most closely guarded secrets.
In early 1975, Congress created two special committees to look into reports of intelligence abuses. Those committees—led by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho and Rep. Otis Pike of New York, respectively—would produce landmark reports that ushered in major changes in the ways that the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies were allowed to operate.
The panels would go on to reveal a trove of CIA, FBI and National Security Agency secrets such as domestic surveillance of activists, drug experimentation on human subjects, involvement in assassinations of foreign leaders and the disruption of the internal politics of foreign states.
Much of Mr. Barr’s work with the CIA during those years involved answering questions from Congress on an array of issues, including the Church and Pike investigations, according to declassified CIA documents and Mr. Barr’s own published recollections.
POLITICAL DUTIES FOR SPOOKS
During attorney general confirmation proceedings in 1991, Mr. Barr described his duties in the CIA as “analyzing the impact of proposed legislation on Agency operations, drafting Agency bill comments, drafting Hill testimony, carrying on liaison with Congressional committee staffs.”
For those in the agency at the time, the public scrutiny and the media headlines being generated by the investigations were deeply demoralizing. Mr. Barr, in an interview published in 2006, recalled that the agency was taking “body blows.”
“It was really wrenching. Senior CIA people involved in that likened it to being conquered by a hostile enemy and having your archives thrown open,” said Nicholas Dujmovic, a former historian at the CIA who is now a professor of intelligence studies at Catholic University.
Through it all, Mr. Barr learned his way around Congress, gained national security experience and forged an important professional relationship with George H.W. Bush, who was serving as the CIA’s director. Mr. Barr would help prepare Mr. Bush for briefings on Capitol Hill.
“During that time, there were not only investigations that required his appearance, there was a lot of legislation that curtailed the powers of the CIA that he had to go up and testify about. That brought me into some contact with him,” Mr. Barr recalled in a 2001 oral history of the Bush presidency.
It was Mr. Bush who nominated Mr. Barr to serve as attorney general in 1991. He worked as U.S. Attorney General until 1993.
Mr. Barr, in the 2001 oral history, said his background in the agency had given him acumen and experience that helped him at the Justice Department during the Bush presidency.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACE
Mr. Bush first appointed Mr. Barr as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the late 1980s, where then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh viewed him as skilled in national security matters. Mr. Thornburgh named Mr. Barr to the so-called deputies committee of high-ranking officials who are briefed on such affairs, even though Mr. Barr wasn’t yet the deputy attorney general.
He was appointed to the deputy post in 1990 and named acting attorney general after Mr. Thornburgh resigned to run for office.
Mr. Barr left the CIA in 1977 and was never involved in covert options, but his time with the agency wasn’t his last brush with espionage. In response to questions about his contacts with Russians, he recounted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that, through the course of his legal work in Washington, he had become acquainted with a person he understood to be a Soviet consular officer in 1980. “I subsequently had several lunches with him at the request of the FBI. I debriefed the FBI following each meeting,” Mr. Barr wrote in written answers to the Senate.
A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to elaborate on the Cold War-era encounters.
Mr. Barr has said his work in the CIA in the 1970s—as an agency liaison to a skeptical Congress—was good preparation for his rise through the Justice Department ranks in the first Bush administration. Mr. Barr will again face a skeptical Congress as he leads a Justice Department going through its own turbulent trials.
The Senate is expected to confirm Mr. Barr’s nomination later this week. The Department of Justice that he is poised to inherit is still struggling under the controversy over its handling of two politically charged investigations during the 2016 election related to Mr. Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton—having drawn the ire of Republicans and Democratic lawmakers, who are vowing aggressive oversight and investigation of department activities.
“We’ve got a lot of problems at the Department of Justice. I think morale is low and we need to change that,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told Mr. Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing last month.
Last year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein clashed with Republican lawmakers who accused the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation of hiding information from them about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Barr is likely to face similar accusations from Democrats if they are unhappy with how much of Mr. Mueller’s final report is made available upon the probe’s conclusion.
BARR'S CIA STINT IS MURKY
Public details about Mr. Barr’s years with the CIA are scant, but it was a formative time. Mr. Barr first came into the CIA in 1971 as a summer intern before obtaining a full-time position as an intelligence analyst in 1973. By the mid-1970s, the CIA and FBI were facing a growing public outcry after a series of journalistic exposés revealed highly controversial covert activities at home and abroad.
Mr. Barr transferred to the CIA’s office of legislative counsel two years later at the height of the turmoil. That liaison job put him in the center of a showdown between the agency and Congress over access to some of the intelligence community’s most closely guarded secrets.
In early 1975, Congress created two special committees to look into reports of intelligence abuses. Those committees—led by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho and Rep. Otis Pike of New York, respectively—would produce landmark reports that ushered in major changes in the ways that the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies were allowed to operate.
The panels would go on to reveal a trove of CIA, FBI and National Security Agency secrets such as domestic surveillance of activists, drug experimentation on human subjects, involvement in assassinations of foreign leaders and the disruption of the internal politics of foreign states.
Much of Mr. Barr’s work with the CIA during those years involved answering questions from Congress on an array of issues, including the Church and Pike investigations, according to declassified CIA documents and Mr. Barr’s own published recollections.
POLITICAL DUTIES FOR SPOOKS
During attorney general confirmation proceedings in 1991, Mr. Barr described his duties in the CIA as “analyzing the impact of proposed legislation on Agency operations, drafting Agency bill comments, drafting Hill testimony, carrying on liaison with Congressional committee staffs.”
For those in the agency at the time, the public scrutiny and the media headlines being generated by the investigations were deeply demoralizing. Mr. Barr, in an interview published in 2006, recalled that the agency was taking “body blows.”
“It was really wrenching. Senior CIA people involved in that likened it to being conquered by a hostile enemy and having your archives thrown open,” said Nicholas Dujmovic, a former historian at the CIA who is now a professor of intelligence studies at Catholic University.
Through it all, Mr. Barr learned his way around Congress, gained national security experience and forged an important professional relationship with George H.W. Bush, who was serving as the CIA’s director. Mr. Barr would help prepare Mr. Bush for briefings on Capitol Hill.
“During that time, there were not only investigations that required his appearance, there was a lot of legislation that curtailed the powers of the CIA that he had to go up and testify about. That brought me into some contact with him,” Mr. Barr recalled in a 2001 oral history of the Bush presidency.
It was Mr. Bush who nominated Mr. Barr to serve as attorney general in 1991. He worked as U.S. Attorney General until 1993.
Mr. Barr, in the 2001 oral history, said his background in the agency had given him acumen and experience that helped him at the Justice Department during the Bush presidency.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACE
Mr. Bush first appointed Mr. Barr as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the late 1980s, where then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh viewed him as skilled in national security matters. Mr. Thornburgh named Mr. Barr to the so-called deputies committee of high-ranking officials who are briefed on such affairs, even though Mr. Barr wasn’t yet the deputy attorney general.
He was appointed to the deputy post in 1990 and named acting attorney general after Mr. Thornburgh resigned to run for office.
Mr. Barr left the CIA in 1977 and was never involved in covert options, but his time with the agency wasn’t his last brush with espionage. In response to questions about his contacts with Russians, he recounted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that, through the course of his legal work in Washington, he had become acquainted with a person he understood to be a Soviet consular officer in 1980. “I subsequently had several lunches with him at the request of the FBI. I debriefed the FBI following each meeting,” Mr. Barr wrote in written answers to the Senate.
A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to elaborate on the Cold War-era encounters.
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