U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia probe has expanded based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with Attorney General Bill Barr, sources told Fox News on Tuesday.
The sources said Durham was "very interested" to question former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed the idea.
The two Obama administration officials were at the helm when the unverified and largely discredited Steele dossier, written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was used to justify a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page.
In Italy, Barr reportedly told embassy officials he "needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where he could be sure no one was listening in."
A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice told The Daily Beast earlier this month that Barr and Durham were played a taped deposition made by Joseph Mifsud, the professor who allegedly told ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud reportedly was explaining to authorities in the deposition why people would want to harm him, and why he needed police protection.
Papadopoulos has suggested he was connected with Mifsud as part of a setup orchestrated by intelligence agencies.
President Trump last month informed several countries that Barr would be contacting the appropriate law enforcement entities in each country, according to a DOJ official. When Barr was in Italy that month, he spoke to law enforcement officials there about Durham's review, the source told Fox News.
Additionally, documents obtained by Fox News confirmed that Australia proactively offered support for Barr's review, and seemingly contradicted reporting that Trump was pressuring other countries to assist.
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