Trump ‘Very Disappointed’ Over Barr’s Reported Comments on Durham Probe

President Donald Trump looks out from the Truman Balcony upon his return to the White House from Walter Reed Medical Center, where he underwent treatment for COVID-19, in Washington on Oct. 5, 2020. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Friday said he didn’t appreciate hearing that Attorney General William Barr reportedly told lawmakers that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s report on the counter-intelligence investigation against Trump and his campaign wouldn’t be released until after the upcoming election.

“If that’s the case, I’m very disappointed. I think it’s a terrible thing, and I’ll say it to his face,” Trump told radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Durham is conducting a criminal investigation into how the FBI and other law enforcement entities used spies and other assets to investigate Trump and his campaign in 2016.

A former FBI attorney pleaded guilty in August to altering an email from saying Trump campaign associate Carter Page was a CIA source, to saying he was not a CIA source.

The email was used to obtain a surveillance warrant in the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Apart from securing the plea, Durham’s work has been mostly invisible, leaving people to speculate on what progress he’s made and whether another big development will come at all, much less before the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Citing anonymous sources, news outlets reported on Friday that Barr had informed Republican members of Congress that the election will come and go before Durham’s report on his investigation is issued.

Trump told Limbaugh he hadn’t heard of the reported development before the radio host informed him.

“That’s a disgrace. I think it’s a disgrace. It’s an embarrassment,” he said.

“I’ve had to go through it twice now with elections. See, this is what I mean with the Republicans. They don’t play the tough game. They don’t play the tough game. If this were the other side, you would have had 25 people in jail for the rest of their lives, with what we found,” he added.

The Department of Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment.

United States Attorney John Durham (L) and Attorney General William Barr in file photos. Department of Justice; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Barr occasionally gives updates on the Durham probe. Last month, he said more charges are possible and that the investigation wouldn’t affect the presidential election. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows claimed Obama administration officials were “in real trouble,” citing documents he'd seen.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the pace of the criminal probe and related oversight from GOP lawmakers.

During a rally in Ohio in late September, he described himself as “so angry at Republicans.”

“Does anything happen? Nothing happens,” he said.

In August, Trump said he hoped Barr wouldn’t try to be “politically correct.”

“Bill Barr can go down as the great attorney general in the history of our country, or he can go down as just an average guy, it depends on what’s going to happen,” he added.

After a clip was played of the comments during an interview, Barr said, “I don’t feel any pressure.”

“I have said that the American people need to know what actually happened. We need to get the story of what happened in 2016 and ’17 now out. That will be done. The second aspect of this is, if people cross the line, if people involved in that activity violated the criminal law, they will be charged,” Barr added.