William Barr, Trump’s Sword and Shield

If Barr’s inquiry results in criminal charges, it would be a radical departure from past practice. When Durham investigated C.I.A. officers for torture, he pressed no criminal charges. Previous investigations into intelligence failures that cost American lives—such as missing warning signs before the 9/11 attacks or wrongly concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction—carried no possibility of criminal sanction. James Clapper, who was the director of National Intelligence in 2016, cautioned that the election assessment is a work of analysis. “If a prosecuting attorney is investigating analysts for their intelligence judgments, that’s not good,” Clapper said. James Baker worried that Trump’s intimidation of investigators would have consequences at the F.B.I. “It could reduce the willingness to give frank assessments or to pursue controversial cases,” he said, adding, “I’m nervous about the institution.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/william-barr-trumps-sword-and-shield