So what will Durham produce? Indictments, apparently:
Barr wouldn’t tell Ingraham how far Durham had advanced in the investigation, but said it was a "sprawling case" that "takes some time" to fully investigate.Politico comments that Trump supporters hoped for a report to use in the election, but indictments wouldn’t be a terribly disappointing substitute, I’d guess. They form a narrative as well ‐ as Robert Mueller himself employed in that farcical indictment of Concord Management that blew up in his face when they demanded discovery access. The Department of Justice had to withdraw the indictment last month in order to avoid allowing the Russian-controlled firm access to the intel on which the indictment was based.
"I think a report may be and probably will be a byproduct of his activity but his primary focus isn’t to prepare a report. He is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that they were criminal violations and that’s what the focus is on," Barr told Ingraham. ...
Barr argued that the FBI investigation into Trump’s presidential campaign was riddled with abuse of power and had no evidence to back it up. He did not mention the intelligence that prompted the investigation, including a Trump campaign adviser boasting that he knew Russia had damaging information on then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
"I think the president has every right to be frustrated because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history," Barr said. "Without any basis, they started this investigation of his campaign and even more concerning actually is what happened after the campaign, a whole pattern of events while he was president."
That outcome must have alerted John Durham to the dangers of PR-focused indictments. It’s safer just to issue reports, another lesson also learned by Mueller and his special-counsel team. If Durham is focusing on criminal violations and "bring[ing] to justice" those who committed them, that hints that Durham thinks he’s got enough to go all the way to trial ‐ assuming we see any indictments. It’s tough to imagine Barr selling this on national television at this late stage of the probe, though, without knowing what Durham plans and what he has up his sleeve.