(PresidentialHill.com)- Former Attorney General William Barr confirmed that he had traveled to Italy with Special Counsel John Durham and had received a tip from authorities about financial crimes committed by Donald Trump, according to Talking Points Memo. The comments reportedly came on the heels of a New York Times bombshell report that detailed the situation.
While Barr and Durham were traveling to Italy to pursue the Mueller probe, which investigated the now-falsified claims that Trump was connected to Russia, Italian authorities claimed that there was no information regarding that matter. However, they had informed them of some crimes that had allegedly implicated Trump.
Barr allegedly confirmed that there was a subsequent investigation into the financial dealings of Trump, but that Durham ultimately did not bring up any charges. Now, Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Justice Department to launch an investigation of the investigation into the former president.
In a four-page letter to the DOJ’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, the lawmakers wrote that the NYT article “reveals possible prosecutorial misconduct, abuse of power, ethical transgressions and a potential cover-up of an allegation of a financial crime committed by the former president.”
Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Richard J. Durbin, claims that the report is just another example of how the former president weaponized the DOJ. Robert Luskin, a former DOJ prosecutor who represented two witnesses interviewed by Durham, said that he could not square Durham’s reputation as an independent investigator with his time as Barr’s special counsel, suggesting that they were corrupted.
“When did these guys drink the Kool-Aid, and who served it to them?” Luskin asked.
The news comes on the heels of a lawsuit Trump and his attorneys filed against Hillary Clinton and other defendants over a conspiracy to tie him to Russia. The judge hearing the case has reportedly tossed the case out, saying that the filing was a “political manifesto” without legal standing.
