John Henry Durham (born March 16, 1950)[3][4][5] is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut (D. Conn.) from 2018 to 2021.

[3] By April 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr had 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".

[11] 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.

[12][13] In December 2000, Durham revealed secret Federal Bureau of Investigation (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.

[15] He also led a series of high-profile prosecutions in Connecticut against the New England Mafia and corrupt politicians, including former Governor John G.

[21][20] 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.

[14] 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.

[14] In 2008, Durham was appointed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations.

[26] 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.

A criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees, Gul Rahman in Afghanistan and Manadel al-Jamadi in Iraq, was opened in 2011.

In April 2019, 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[32][33] and it was reported in May that he had assigned Durham to lead it several weeks earlier.

[42] The New York Times wrote that the report "largely consisted of recycled material, interlaced with conclusions like Mr. Durham's accusation that the F.B.I.