{"id":216439,"date":"2019-05-29T02:09:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T06:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=216439"},"modified":"2019-05-29T02:09:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T06:09:43","slug":"key-senate-democrat-warns-of-barrs-expanded-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/29\/key-senate-democrat-warns-of-barrs-expanded-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Senate Democrat warns of Barr’s expanded powers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: WASHINGTON, DC, USA – NOVEMBER 12, 1991: William Barr, nominee for U.S. Attorney General, sworn in before Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Rob Crandall \/ Shutterstock.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee is sounding the alarm about the new powers that President Donald Trump has granted to Attorney General William Barr.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, said he fears Trump is giving Barr \u201cthe right to selectively declassify certain information for purposes of political gain.\u201d He asked that the leaders of the nation’s spy agencies contact lawmakers if Barr’s investigation threatens their work.<\/p>\n

Trump last week granted Barr the power to review and potentially release classified information as he analyzes the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation. Trump has said it is time to \u201cinvestigate the investigators\u201d now that special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his work, and he has directed the intelligence community to \u201cquickly and fully co-operate\u201d with Barr’s review.<\/p>\n

Warner’s letter is dated Friday, the day after Trump’s directive, and was addressed to the heads of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the director of national intelligence. It warned that \u201cpolitically driven investigations such as Barr’s\u201d could endanger sources, damage relations with foreign intelligence agencies and drive career professionals from government service.<\/p>\n

Barr’s investigation threatens to aggravate long-standing tensions between the White House and the country’s spy agencies. Trump has frequently claimed his campaign was the victim of \u201cspying,\u201d though the intelligence community has insisted it acted lawfully in following leads in the Russia investigation and conducted surveillance under court order.<\/p>\n

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has pledged to provide Barr with all the information he needs, but warned that publicly releasing highly sensitive classified information \u201cwould put our national security at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warner has worked closely with Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the intelligence panel’s chairman, on a bipartisan investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee is sounding the alarm about the new powers that President …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":208527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-mary-clare-jalonick","mauthors-susannah-george","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216441,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216439\/revisions\/216441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}