Barr taps U.S. attorney to investigate ‘unmasking’ as part of Russia probe review

Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to scrutinize episodes of the intelligence practice known as “unmasking” that took place “before and after” the 2016 election as part of the Justice Department’s broader review of the Russia investigation, department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec announced Wednesday. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Kupec said John Durham — the U.S. attorney for Connecticut whom Barr tasked last year with probing the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign — “had been looking at the issue of unmasking” as part of his review. “The attorney general determined that certain aspects of unmasking needed to be reviewed separately as a support to John Durham’s investigation,” Kupec said, “so he tapped John Bash, one of our U.S. attorneys out of Texas, to do just that.” Bash was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2017 to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. He previously served as a special assistant to the president in the Trump White House and as an associate White House counsel. Bash’s new investigative role with the Justice Department comes as the president and congressional Republicans have escalated their attacks on former senior officials within President Barack Obama’s administration who might have been involved in efforts that unmasked Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser...MORE