Looks like the Inspector General set a trap and Donald Trump walked right into it
Earlier today we learned that the Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson referred a criminal complaint against Donald Trump to the Department of Justice, alleging that Trump’s Ukraine scandal was a violation of felony campaign finance laws. Now it turns out the IG did a lot more than that, and it looks like he laid a trap for Trump and Bill Barr – which they both promptly stepped in.
The Inspector General and the Director of National Intelligence didn’t just refer the criminal complaint against Donald Trump to the Department of Justice. They also separately referred the complaint to the FBI for criminal investigation, according to new reporting from CNN. Why does this make a difference?
Everyone involved knew that Attorney General Bill Barr would almost certainly step in to quash the criminal complaint that was referred to the Department of Justice. By separately referring the complaint to the FBI, the Inspector General set things up so that even if Barr quashed the DOJ complaint, the FBI complaint would live on. In fact, by doing it this way, not only did it ensure that the criminal complaint would end up surfacing, it ensured that Barr’s decision to quash the DOJ complaint would make Trump look guilty – and possibly incriminate Barr himself.
Notably, this CNN reporting says that the “Director of National Intelligence” was in on the Inspector General’s decision to make this criminal referral. Given the late August timing of the referral, this means that it was the Acting Director of National Intelligence who made that decision. In other words, if Donald Trump ran Dan Coats and Sue Gordon out of the building in the hope that their replacement would cover for him, it didn’t work.
