John Durham's 'vacuous' report dooms Bill Barr's last gasp to rehabilitate his legacy: legal expert

The final report issued by special counsel John Durham after seven years of investigating accusations that FBI wasted its time investigating the connection between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin was issued this week and landed with a thud.

With millions spent on the Durham investigation that resulted in no major revelations and contained no prosecutorial referrals, one attorney claimed the end result reflected just as badly on former Attorney General Bill Barr, who appointed Durham, as it does on the special counsel who came up empty.

Writing for Salon, attorney Joshua Raff suggested Barr's sudden desire to appear on cable TV and in legal forums to offer up his opinions about what happened during the Trump years and where to go next with investigations concerning the ex-president need not be taken seriously.

Additionally, he accused Barr of trying to "rehabilitate" his image and Raff said the stench of working for Trump will never leave the former AG.

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"The report the Durham team issued amounts to more than 300 pages of … well, not much of anything. Some criticisms of the FBI, most of which, according to FBI sources, had already been addressed. But no smoking gun, no vast Hillary Clinton-led liberal plot to undermine the Trump presidency," he wrote before adding, "What it did do, however, was to return our gaze back to Bill Barr, the instigator of this apparent waste of time and money. Back in January of this year — a lifetime in the Trump universe — revelations about Barr and his conduct as attorney general of the United States, an office he has held under two presidents, were back in the news, interrupting Barr's latest attempts to rehabilitate himself and his image."

Writing that "Barr's prior behavior, his conduct with Durham should have come as no surprise," he added that Barr has been saved from additional scrutiny after the report proved to be a nothing burger, but, fortunately for the former Trump administration official, the ex-president's legal woes have been sucking up all the media attention.

After recalling how Barr leaped to Trump's defense -- after the former president complained he was being persecuted -- by appointing Durham, Raff wrote, "Based on Barr's past behavior, I suppose his actions during and after the Durham investigation should also not be surprising. He did not even try to conceal his interference. You don't need a dictionary, an Ivy League education or a law degree to see that Barr's conduct undermines the very concept of independence and violates, in the crudest way, the entire purpose of the appointment of an independent counsel."

As a cautionary note he added, "Future attorneys general will, we must hope, once again adhere to the norms established for the office and the duties of lawyers everywhere to serve their clients without improper influence from the outside. Most importantly, they must follow the law, particularly the laws established to ensure that very independence."

"Bill Barr's legacy has been to undermine all of that, and we must also hope we have heard the last of him. Barr served two presidents, and in some sense he did so faithfully. He failed to serve his primary clients, the people of the United States," he added.

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