ATTORNEY GENERAL/FBI/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Attorney General William P. Barr said on Wednesday [4-10-19] that he would scrutinize the F.B.I.’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, including whether ‘spying’ conducted by American intelligence agencies on the campaign’s associates had been properly carried out…The remarks by the new attorney general — particularly his embrace of the term spying, which is frequently invoked by critics of the Russia investigation — are certain to please President Trump and his allies, who have accused American law enforcement officials of targeting his campaign out of political malice. Mr. Barr’s pledge, made as he prepares to make public in coming days a redacted version of the special counsel’s report on the Russia inquiry, was a sign that after nearly three years of investigating the president’s campaign and Russia, the Justice Department’s focus may begin to shift in a direction that Mr. Trump has demanded. In addition to Mr. Barr’s review of the F.B.I. investigation, the Justice Department’s inspector general, a specially tasked United States attorney and Republicans in Congress are all studying key actions taken during the course of the inquiry. Those actions include how officials opened the Trump-Russia investigation, called Crossfire Hurricane, and obtained a secret warrant to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser.”
–Nicholas Fandos and Adam Goldman, “Barr Asserts Intelligence Agencies Spied on the Trump Campaign,” The New York Times online, April 10, 2019