"I thought we were heading into a constitutional crisis. I think whatever you think of Trump, the fact is that the whole Russiagate thing was a grave injustice. It appears to be a dirty political trick that was used first to hobble him and then potentially to drive him from office", Barr told Glenn Beck, as quoted by conservative news outlet Blaze Media.
Barr's interview was recorded amid the trial of ex-Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who was charged by Special Counsel John Durham on 16 September 2021 with lying to the FBI. In September 2016, Sussmann, a then-Perkins Coie partner, provided the bureau with research into supposed "secret communications" between the Trump Organisation and Russia's Alfa Bank. The lawyer insisted that he came as a concerned citizen. However, Durham alleges that Sussmann "assembled and conveyed the [Russia] allegations" on behalf of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe.
Durham's lengthy indictment of Sussmann describes how researchers tasked with digging up dirt on Donald Trump struggled to find suspicious communications between the Trump Organisation and Alfa Bank. They even discussed "faking" it.
The research concerning Trump's "collusion" with Russia raised concerns about its accuracy even within the Hillary Clinton campaign, according to former campaign manager Robert Mook. Mook testified on 20 May that regardless of these doubts, Hillary Clinton personally greenlit the dissemination of the controversial allegations, which were later rubbished by the FBI.
Michael Sussmann provided the research to the FBI in September 2016, while in February 2017, he sent an "updated set of allegations" concerning Alfa Bank and YotaPhone communications to the CIA. Having analysed the materials, the CIA concluded that the data was not "technically plausible" and was "user created and not machine/tool generated".
Sussmann's contacts with the FBI and the CIA occurred in the midst of the bureau's investigation, codenamed "Crossfire Hurricane", into the allegations of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, which were later proven false. One of the FBI's sources was ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who worked at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, hired by Clinton campaign-linked Perkins Coie. The "Russia allegations" created unceasing controversy for Donald Trump throughout his presidency.
"It was a gross injustice, and it hurt the United States in many ways, including what we're seeing in Ukraine these days. It distorted our foreign policy, and so forth", Barr told Beck.
Judging from John Durham's indictments of Sussmann and Igor Danchenko (Steele's source), Hillary Clinton campaign operatives played a crucial role in disseminating the allegations against Trump.
According to Barr, the Biden administration and AG Merrick Garland had no real interest in protecting Hillary Clinton.
"[A]t the end of the day, for them to lose the capital and appear to be covering something up that would then never get resolved, I didn't think was in their interest. And I think institutionally that would've destroyed the new AG if he had tried that", said Barr.