Trump’s list of criminal investigations is unexpectedly long

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The New York Times broke a lot of new ground in its stunning report on John Durhams investigation into the Russia investigation, and the revelations scandalized the prosecutor and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

But there is one detail from the Times’ reporting that stands out as both new and unexpected.

In one of the trips of Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham in Europe, according to people familiar with the matter, Italian officials while denying any role in the initiation of the Russian investigation unexpectedly offered a potentially explosive tip linking Mr. Trump on several alleged financial crimes. Mr. decided Barr and Mr. Durham said the tip was too serious and credible to ignore.

At that point, it would make sense for the attorney general, in the interest of expediency, to assign the matter to another prosecutor. After all, Durham was tasked with investigating the Russia investigation, not evidence of Donald Trump’s alleged financial crimes in Europe.

But Barr ignored the propriety and ordered Durham to look into it.

Soon after, news broke in the press that the Durham investigation had progressed to a stage where it opened a criminal investigation. As the Times noted, media reports in response to the leak were all framed under the false assumption that a criminal investigation must mean that Mr. Durham found evidence of potential crimes by officials involved in the Russia inquiry.

We now know better: The Durham criminal investigation is of Trump himself, not of those probing Trumps Russia scandal. All this is kept secret from the public: Barr has no qualms about chatting publicly about his various partisan theories and the merits of the White House in question, but the criminal that investigation into his boss was apparently a detail he didn’t think the American people needed to know.

Complicating matters is the fact that until this morning, we did not know what financial crimes the former president may have committed. We also have no reason to be confident that Durham, caught up in the Barrs’ pro-Trump conspiracy theories and following the pro-Trump attorney general’s directives, has thoroughly evaluated the seriousness of the potentially explosive allegations raised by our allies in the Italian government.

Finally, it seems like it’s time to update the big board of criminal investigations into the former president. In addition to the January 6 criminal investigation, the classified documents criminal investigation, the investigation into criminal interference in the Georgia election, the criminal investigation into Trump’s alleged financial crimes in New York , the criminal investigation surrounding his special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), and the criminal investigation into Trumps pre-election hush-money payments to a porn star, the Republican is also facing a criminal investigation from Durham’s special counsel probe.

All this, of course, does not include the many civil disputes that currently surround the former president, and the many people from Trumps inner circle who have already been convicted of various crimes.

Why people don’t laugh every time a Republican touts his support for law and order is one of those things I’ll never quite understand.

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