https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/john-durham-last-trusted-prosecutor-in-wa...The Last Trusted Prosecutor in Washington
By JIM GERAGHTY
November 4, 2019 6:30 AM
U.S. Attorney John Durham (United States Attorney's Office, District of Connecticut/Wikimedia)
John Durham is the legendary lawman digging into how the intelligence probe of Donald Trump started.
John Durham may be the most consequential and least known figure in Washington right now.
In May, U.S. attorney general William Barr selected Durham, a longtime prosecutor with a résumé so sterling it nearly glows, to investigate the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and whether it was properly predicated. Some Trump fans believe there was a vast effort by a “deep state” of high-ranking intelligence and law-enforcement officials to smear Trump or hinder his campaign by creating a perception of corrupt ties to Russia. In late October, the New York Times quoted unnamed sources who said that Durham’s probe had officially become a criminal investigation, meaning he now has the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury, and to file criminal charges.
Since he is an attorney general appointed by President Trump, almost every decision from William Barr is criticized by Democrats as a partisan abuse of law-enforcement powers. But the appointment of Durham received no backlash, and in fact received praise far and wide.
Who is Durham, this rare-as-a-unicorn figure who can reassure lawmakers, talking heads, and court-watchers on both sides of the aisle, in an era when everything seems destined to turn into a loud partisan food fight?
To say Durham is tight-lipped is an understatement; he lets his courtroom arguments speak for him and rarely talks to reporters at all. Those who have covered him for years — or, more accurately, tried to cover him — say that when he does run into reporters, he is cordial but uninformative, and almost never on the record. In Durham’s questionnaire for the Senate while awaiting confirmation to be a U.S. Attorney, he was asked to list his written work. He answered that he had never written or published any books, articles, reports, or letters to the editor. (The Senate confirmed him unanimously, with home-state senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) calling him “a fierce, fair prosecutor” who “dedicated his life to public service and the pursuit of justice.”) Durham is nicknamed, inevitably,
“the Bull,”
and his reputation makes clear he doesn’t take any of it from anyone.
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