As part of William Barr’s investigation into the investigators, the Department of Justice will question the CIA analysts who first looked into Russia’s actions in the 2016 election. This isn’t a criminal investigation. It’s just an investigation into how the CIA came up with results that are so … displeasing. Trump may not like “political correctness” when it comes to showing basic respect for others, but political correctness—in the form of making sure the intelligence community returns only results that are Trump-approved—is definitely on the menu.
From its analysis of Russia’s actions in the 2016 elections, the CIA produced the most basic, and most obvious, result: Russia wasn’t just out to sow chaos; it was intent on helping Donald Trump. Considering the number of times that Russia actively reached out to the Trump campaign; the fact that it conducted a hacking operation to obtain and distribute emails from the DNC and members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign; the fact that it not only emailed Donald Trump Jr. to inform him that it was conducting a campaign on behalf of Trump Sr., but publicly expressed its support for Trump … this was not a difficult conclusion.
But it is an inconvenient conclusion, and both the White House and Republicans have continually acted as if this analysis—one made and announced before the 2016 election—did not exist. Instead, they’d prefer to pretend that Russian intervention was something that just happened. Like a hurricane. Or, wait, a tiny little rainstorm. Barely worth noticing, really, and certainly not done with any intent other that causing trouble. Minor trouble.
The New York Times reports that the review of specialists by Barr’s hand-picked team of political officials is generating “anxiety in the ranks of the C.I.A.” And given the extent to which Barr has been willing to both distort the results of the special counsel’s investigation and demean Robert Mueller and his team, there is every reason to be anxious.
After all, in a political review, just because the analysis is correct doesn’t mean it’s not very, very wrong.
The CIA has been informed that Barr’s top investigator investigator, John Durham, will be conducting interviews. But it hasn’t been given any specific dates or schedule—every inquisition is better when it’s unexpected.
The work done by the CIA was already reviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which “found no problems with their work or the origins of the Russia inquiry.” But then, the Senate Intelligence Committee has developed a reputation for working in a bipartisan manner and seeking facts.
Barr does not share those handicaps.