'There was no attempted coup': FBI's former top lawyer defends Russia probe

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

‘There was no attempted coup’: FBI’s former top lawyer defends Russia probe

By Matt Zapotosky May 10 at 3:20 PM

Former top FBI lawyer James Baker offered a robust defense Friday of the bureau’s investigation into President Trump and his 2016 campaign, taking aim at Trump’s allegation that the inquiry was tantamount to a coup and describing how he sought to ensure agents’ work was on solid legal footing.

“There was no attempted coup,” Baker said bluntly. “There was no way in hell that I was going to allow some coup or coup attempt to take place on my watch.”

The comments, which came at a taping of the Lawfare podcast in front of a live audience at the Brookings Institution, were Baker’s first public remarks on the investigation that would eventually be taken over by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Baker had addressed questions about the probe previously only in private sessions with congressional committees, though transcripts of those comments were later released.

Baker, who was interviewed by Lawfare editor in chief Ben Wittes, said he was motivated to talk because he “just became sick of all the BS that is said about the origins of the investigation,” and he wanted to “reassure the American people that it was done for lawful, legitimate reason.”

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating the handling of various aspects of the Russia case, and Attorney General William P. Barr has said he will conduct a separate review. Barr recently alleged that government “spying” occurred on the Trump campaign, and while he has insisted he did not mean to imply wrongdoing, critics note that his language mirrors the president’s attacks on the bureau and its investigation. Baker was the FBI’s general counsel when the Russia probe was initiated and when Mueller took over. He was reassigned from the top legal post in December 2017 after he got caught up in an FBI leak probe, and he confirmed Friday the case is ongoing.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/there-was-no-attempted-coup-fbis-former-top-lawyer-defends-russia-probe/2019/05/10/bff7b6a2-733b-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html

[saljr1]

1. As we knew all along Mad Cow Nunes and Dishonest Jim Jordan were spreading Bull Shit all along

Rosenstein gave them 880,000 pages of documents during the investigation which is unheard of to release while the investigation is ongoing. What assholes.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. Donny Dotard is such a snowflake

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. This pretty much tells who he really is...

He defended the Patriot Act before the House Judiciary Committee, during Bush era.

On May 4, 2018, Baker resigned the FBI and joined the Brookings Institution* as a fellow who will write for the justice-focused blog Lawfare.
In January 2019, Baker left Brookings to become the Director of National Security and Cybersecurity at the R Street Institute,
a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C.[5] He also teaches at Harvard Law School.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Baker_(government_attorney)

(*... since 1990, 96 percent of its political donations have gone to Democrats)

[Midnight Writer]

4. Obviously another one of Mueller's "16 Angry Democrats" from the coup.

I have in my life had extensive experience with Federal Law Enforcement agents, including on a personal level. I have never met a single one who was "liberal".