May 25, 2019

Bill Barr (aka, Trump's personal attorney), has been granted the amazing power to declassify any and all information, sources and methods related to the Russia investigation/Mueller investigation and what led to it being initiated to begin with. This has led to Barr being rightly called the Administration's 'Trained Seal'. This insane investigation, ie investigating the investigators, has been the topic of news for the last few days, and it should be. Outing sources and methods will probably (definitely) lead to the deaths of innocent people worldwide - sources that have trusted us for years, if not decades. Dan Coates, the Director of National Intelligence, weighed in with a statement, which was covered on MSNBC's Deadline White House on Friday.

WALLACE: The DNI, Dan Coates has weighed in with a statement this afternoon that says this: "I'm confident the Attorney General will work with the intelligence community in accordance with the long established standards to protect highly sensitive classified information that, if publicly released would put our national security at risk." In your story is a line about how what Barr is seeking is more information about what foreign assets the CIA had in Russia in 2016 and what those informants were telling the agency about how President Vladimir Putin of Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 election. What does Barr need more access to information about what foreign assets the CIA had in Russia in 2016 than what is available through the interagency process? What is he not able to get his hands on that is part of that sort of sweep of intel?

SCHMIDT: Well, we think that what he may want to sort of get is sort of an understanding of how the intelligence community's assessment went from Russia's meddling in the election to a counterintelligence investigation on the president. Look, there are some very legitimate issues here that the inspector general is looking at. This was a very unusual situation that the FBI confronted. They were investigating a campaign, it was very delicate. There was a dossier of information that they had from one of their sources that had been paid for by the opponent of trump. And those are thorny issues that deserve a full look at by the inspector general. So the question here is would Barr's efforts like sort of overshadow that or undermine that or take away from that where there probably are some really important lessons to be learned about how investigations of this nature, big counterintelligence investigations, essentially counterintelligence sort of attack on the united states involving a campaign.

BASH: I'm sorry, Nicolle...

WALLACE: Go ahead.

BASH: Actually, I disagree a little bit. There's NO legitimate reason for the attorney general to have human sources in Russia. I can't think of a single one. The only one I can think of is he wants to somehow trot them out publicly, malign them and undermine them and then say the whole basis for the investigation was flawed. That's the only reason he would do it. To do what Michael says, which is to review whether or not the FBI had sufficient predicate to look at a presidential campaign, he doesn't need Russian human sources. Absolutely not. There's no need for that.

In an effort to distract and deflect from his own crime, how many people will need to die? Trump and Barr seem utterly unconcerned with the damage their own self preservation will lead to. Trump's actions bring us one step closer to authoritarianism and Barr is his willing henchman.

God help us all.

Editor's Note:

See how Mike Schmidt seems totally fine with Barr's reasoning for investigating the origins the Mueller Report? And how he implies AG Barr has good reason to want to know the sources and methods that led to this, including human sources here and abroad? Jeremy Bash is NOT fine with this. Not fine at all, and bit right the hell back at Schmidt for that. Good job, Jeremy Bash.

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