Texas Tribune: “U.S. Attorney John Bash, who serves the Western District of Texas, will resign at the end of the week to take a position in the private sector, according to a Monday statement from the Department of Justice. Bash was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump at the end of 2017. Bash previously worked in the department as an assistant to the solicitor general and served as associate counsel to the president.
“‘I tendered formal letters of resignation to both the President and the Attorney General this morning,’ Bash wrote in a statement. Bash said he accepted his new job last month. Earlier this summer, Attorney General William Barr tapped Bash to investigate the Obama administration for allegations of ‘unmasking’ before and after the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence routinely conceals the identities of Americans whose communications are intercepted in the course of monitoring foreigners. Those names are anonymous in intelligence reports, but can be “unmasked” to provide more information for intelligence. Trump allies in Congress pledged to investigated the practice which led to the unmaking of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s identity in certain intelligence documents related to the investigation into Russian election interference.”