The clash in federal court in Washington, D.C., represents the biggest and most public test yet for John Durham and his special counsel investigation.
Attorney General William Barr quietly appointed Durham as special counsel in October 2020 after assigning the then-U.S. attorney to investigate the origins and conduct of the Trump-Russia inquiry in May 2019. The yearslong effort, dismissed by Democrats as being "tainted" by politics and heralded by former President Trump and his allies as pulling the curtain back on the Russia "witch hunt," appears to be affirming that many of the biggest collusion claims can be traced back to the Clinton 2016 campaign and Democratic operatives.
