Flipped! Ex-FBI general counsel now a cooperating Durham witness

Former FBI lawyer James Baker

James Baker, who was general counsel to the FBI when the agency obtained warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign, now is a cooperating witness in U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation.

That's according to former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova in an interview with the "Howie Carr Show" about the Justice Department criminal probe of the origins of the Obama administration's Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign.

"You know Baker is now working with Durham? James Baker the former general counsel," diGenova said Tuesday.

"He's flipped?" Carr asked.

DiGenova explained that Baker was a target of the investigation. But now he's "understandably cooperating because he was looking at a boat load of criminal charges."

Hear the interview:

DiGenova said Durham appears to be developing a conspiracy case against a number of Obama administration figures.

"The bottom line is this, it’s unfolding and what’s happening is, what Durham is actually doing is he’s painting a picture and not everyone of these acts is going to be a specific separate crime," he said.

"But they are going to be, what’s called overt acts in a conspiracy. One to defraud the United States government. One to deny the civil rights of Trump and Flynn and Page and a bunch of other people."

In a previous appearance on the same show, DiGenova said former CIA Director John Brennan is the primary focus of the investigation.

DiGenova, citing sources, said a number of former intelligence officers already have testified about the production of the January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

DiGenova described the document as "phony."

"It was a constructed document," he told Carr. "It was not in fact an assessment of anything. And that is very interesting, because they are looking at what Brennan did and what he asked other people to do in terms of that and some other things as well. So apparently Mr. Durham has not been deterred by the virus."

Durham previously was reported to be examining Brennan's handling of a secret source said to be close to the Kremlin and whether the CIA director was pushing for a biased result.

Carr said Durham is "clearly looking at abuse of power."

"In other words, were the resources of the CIA illegally used to undertake domestic terrorist investigations? Were the resources of the CIA used to illegally create a plot to either falsely lead FBI officials into a scheme or to conspire with FBI officials to deny certain people their civil rights," Carr said.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported Durham has been interviewing CIA officials at the National Intelligence Council, a center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The council oversaw the collaboration between the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency in compiling and finalizing the 2017 assessment.

Troubling evidence

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview that Durham is compiling troubling evidence that goes beyond "mistakes."

"My own view is that the evidence shows that we're not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There is something far more troubling here, and we're going to get to the bottom of it," he told the Fox News Channel's Laura Ingraham.

"And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted," he said.

Last fall, Durham's review was upgraded to a criminal investigation, giving the prosecutor the power to impanel a grand jury and issue indictments.

Already, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has issued a report finding at least 17 "significant errors and omissions" related to the Obama administration's applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in its investigation.

Horowitz, however, presented evidence that the problems went beyond "errors and omissions," indicating deliberate attempts to deceive the court.