The Department of Justice has moved its two-year Russian Collusion probe from an administrative investigation to a criminal one.

The move by Attorney General Bill Barr comes as he and US Attorney John Durham returned from Italy earlier this month with startling information into Joseph Mifsud.

The change to a criminal probe will allow Durham to subpoena witnesses and documents as well as convene a grand jury. The move may be a response to uncooperating Obama administration witnesses requested to give depositions in the administrative investigation.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is reportedly close to releasing a lightly redacted report on the FISA abuses during the Obama presidency, which allowed the US intelligence agencies and the FBI to spy on Americans.

I would be remiss to not point out the New York Times story on the criminal probe designation. The headline on the web reads:

However the readout (below) defines the article and puts a spin that is unbelievable to me.

The move is likely to open the attorney general to accusations that he is trying to deliver a political victory for President Trump.

And here is the third paragraph of the Times story after laying out the news.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election.

Pinning this move on a vindictive President Trump instead of stating that the Justice Department believes that laws were broken is such a partisan take I simply can’t believe it made it into the story at all. Never mind the third paragraph.

There is no quote or comment from anyone in the story to back up this partisan take. However there is this tidbit to placate their readers in the fourth paragraph.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election.

So basically the Times reporters — Katie Benner and Adam Goldman — and their editors do not know what I told my long-time readers more than a year ago. That Citizen Trump, Candidate Trump, President-elect Trump and President Trump was spied upon by the Obama White House using a fraudulent Russian Collusion document — the Steele Dossier — to obtain FISA warrants on his campaign associates.

Lastly, the Steele Dossier is not even mentioned in the article.

It is a very interesting take on what will be the most important story on government corruption since Watergate.