Donald Trump pushes for release of report into Alexander Downer and Russia inquiry

Donald Trump is pushing hard for the release of a report that could draw Australia into the US election campaign.

Bill Barr has told Republicans that he is now unlikely to release the Durham report before the presidential election. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump is pushing hard for the release of a major report into the origins of the Russia investigation which could draw Australia into the US election campaign with just weeks to go until the November 3 poll.

The President is increasing pressure on Attorney-General Bill Barr to release the Durham report before the election, hoping it would boost his campaign by criticising the FBI’s decision to start the Russia inquiry during the 2016 election.

The wide-ranging investigation, by US attorney John Durham, has examined Australia’s role in the Russia probe, which the FBI initiated in July 2016 after learning of former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer’s meeting with then Trump adviser George Papadopoulos in London.

Mr Durham has interviewed Mr Downer who is understood to have told him that he was not part of any conspiracy to undermine the Trump campaign.

Mr Trump was hoping the report would be released before the election, but Mr Barr has told Republicans that this is now unlikely.

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

‘That’s a disgrace. I think it’s a disgrace. It’s an embarrassment.”

Mr Durham is supposed to be an independent investigator and Mr Barr has no power to force the attorney to speed up his investigation to suit a political cycle.

Mr Barr has been highly critical of the FBI’s behaviour in the Russia investigation, saying that the President was the victim of an “utterly false Russian collusion narrative”. But he has also said that former president Barack Obama and current Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden are not being criminally investigated in relation to the probe.

Mr Trump has long claimed that the FBI wrongly spied on his 2016 campaign for partisan political reasons. He also accuses Mr Obama and Mr Biden of seeking to frame his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in January 2017 and, by extension, undermine the start of Trump’s presidency. “NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY),’ Mr Trump tweeted last week. “Biden, Obama and crooked Hillary led this treasonous plot!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!

Bill Barr has said that Alexander Downer did the right thing. Picture: AAP

Mr Trump warned at the weekend that if Mr Biden wins the election, the Durham findings may never be released.

“First of all, if we don’t win this election, that whole thing’s going to end, okay?’ he said.

“That’s another thing I’m fighting for because these people have to be brought to justice, but they should have been brought to justice before the election. But if we don’t win this election, if we don’t win, that whole thing is going to be dismissed.”

Mr Trump continues to push this issue, which he calls “Obamagate”, at his election rallies, using the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian probe to portray himself as a victim of a political hit job by the Washington “swamp.

Australia said in May last year it would co-operate fully with the Durham investigation and that it had nothing to hide.

At that time Mr Trump appeared to be open to claims that Australia was involved in a broad conspiracy to undermine his 2016 campaign. “I hope he looks at the UK, and I hope he looks at Australia, and I hope he looks at Ukraine. I hope he looks at everything because there was a hoax that was perpetrated on our country,” Mr Trump said at that time.

Mr Downer’s role has been the subject of conspiracy theories after Mr Papadopoulos and others accused him of being a pro-­Clinton spy working to establish links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The FBI began the Russia investigation after Mr Downer, who was then high commissioner to London, told the US that Mr Papadopoulos told him, in a London wine bar in May 2016, that Russia had numerous emails that could damage Mr Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton. Mr Downer reported the information to Canberra within days but it was only after WikiLeaks released a flood of Russian-hacked Democratic National Committee emails in July that Mr Downer decided to report the information directly to the US.

“I want to emphasise that (Downer) did the right thing in supplying that information; (Downer) acted at all times just as we would hope a close ally would,” Mr Barr has said. “We are grateful that we have such friends. What was subsequently done with that information by the FBI presents a separate question.”