John Durham (lawyer)

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John Durham
File:John H. Durham.jpg
United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut
Assumed office
October 27, 2017
Acting: October 27, 2017 – February 22, 2018
President Donald Trump
Preceded by Deirdre M. Daly
In office
1997 – 1998
Acting
President Bill Clinton
Preceded by Christopher F. Droney[1]
Succeeded by Stephen C. Robinson
Personal details
Born John Henry Durham
1950 (age 73–74)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political party Republican[2]
Education Colgate University (BA)
University of Connecticut (JD)

John Henry Durham (born 1950)[3][4] has been the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut since February 2018. Durham had been an Assistant U.S. Attorney in various positions in the District of Connecticut for 35 years. He is known for leading an inquiry into allegations that FBI agents and Boston police had ties with the mob[5] and his role as special prosecutor in the 2005 CIA interrogation tapes destruction.[3] In May 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr tasked Durham with overseeing a review of the origins of the Russia investigation and to determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was "lawful and appropriate".[6]

Education and volunteer work

Durham received a B.A. degree with honors from Colgate University in 1972.[7] He received a J.D. degree in 1975 from the University of Connecticut School of Law.[3]

After graduation, he was a VISTA volunteer for two years (1975-1977) on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.[citation needed]

Career

Connecticut state government

After Durham's volunteer work, he became a state prosecutor in Connecticut. From 1977 to 1978, he served as a Deputy Assistant State's Attorney in the Office of the Chief State's Attorney. From 1978 to 1982, Durham served as an Assistant State's Attorney in the New Haven State's Attorney's Office.[8]

Federal government

Following those five years as a state prosecutor, Durham became a federal prosecutor, joining the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut.[7] From 1982 to 1989, he served as an attorney and then supervisor in the New Haven Field Office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. From 1989 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Office's Criminal Division. From 1994 to 2008, he served as the Deputy U.S. Attorney, and served as the U.S. Attorney in an acting and interim capacity in 1997 and 1998.[8][9]

In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of Enrico Tameleo, Joseph Salvati, Peter J. Limone and Louis Greco because they had been framed by the agency. In 2007, the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men, who had died in prison, win a $101.7 million civil judgment against the government.[10]

Durham also led a series of high-profile prosecutions in Connecticut against the New England Mafia and corrupt politicians, including former governor John G. Rowland.[10]

From 2008 to 2012, Durham also served as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.[8]

On November 1, 2017, he was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as U.S. Attorney for Connecticut.[11] On February 16, 2018, his nomination was confirmed by voice vote of the Senate. He was sworn in on February 22, 2018.[8]

Appointments as special investigator

Whitey Bulger case

Amid allegations that FBI informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi had corrupted their handlers, US Attorney General Janet Reno named Durham special prosecutor in 1999. He oversaw a task force of FBI agents brought in from other offices to investigate the Boston office's handling of informants.[10] In 2002, Durham helped secure the conviction of retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., who was sentenced to 10 years in prison on federal racketeering charges for protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution and warning Bulger to flee just before the gangster's 1995 indictment.[10] Durham's task force also gathered evidence against retired FBI agent H. Paul Rico who was indicted in Oklahoma on state charges that he helped Bulger and Flemmi kill a Tulsa businessman in 1981. Rico died in 2004 before the case went to trial.[10]

CIA interrogation tapes destruction

In 2008, Durham was appointed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations.[12][13][14] On November 8, 2010, Durham closed the investigation without recommending any criminal charges be filed.[15] Durham's final report remains secret but was the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act filed by The New York Times reporter Charlie Savage.[16]

Torture investigation

In August 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Durham to lead the Justice Department's investigation of the legality of CIA's use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" in the torture of detainees.[17] Durham's mandate was to look at only those interrogations that had gone "beyond the officially sanctioned guidelines", with Attorney General Holder saying interrogators who had acted in "good faith" based on the guidance found in the torture memos issued by the Bush Justice Department were not to be prosecuted.[18] Later in 2009, University of Toledo law professor Benjamin G. Davis attended a conference where former officials of the Bush administration had told conference participants shocking stories, and accounts of illegality on the part of more senior Bush officials.[19] Davis wrote an appeal to former Bush officials to take their accounts of illegality directly to Durham. A criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees, Gul Rahman in Afghanistan and Manadel al-Jamadi in Iraq, was opened in 2011. It was closed in 2012 with no charges filed.[20][21]

Special Counsel Investigation

In April 2019,[22] Attorney General William Barr announced that he had launched a review of the origins of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections[23] and it was reported in May that he had assigned Durham to lead it several weeks earlier.[24] Durham was given the authority "to broadly examin[e] the government's collection of intelligence involving the Trump campaign's interactions with Russians," reviewing government documents and requesting voluntary witness statements.[24]

Accolades

In November 2011, Durham was included on The New Republic's list of Washington's most powerful, least famous people.[25]

See also

References

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  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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