A scary dangerous development:

The Justice Department’s review of the origins of the Russia probe has become a criminal investigation, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NPR.

It is unclear what prompted the shift from an administrative review to a formal criminal investigation, when the change took place or what potential crime is under investigation.

The change drew immediate criticism from Democrats, who have accused Attorney General William Barr of turning the Justice Department into a political weapon for President Trump.

Or to put it another way, the change is obvious and grotesque evidence that Barr is turning the Justice Department into a political weapon for Mob Boss Trump.

“These reports, if true, raise profound new concerns that the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge,” said the Democratic chairmen of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York and Adam Schiff of California.

A shift which suggests other possibilities, like Mob Boss Trump sending the military to round up dissidents, and Mob Boss Trump sending bombers to flatten rebellious cities like San Francisco and New York and Seattle. Presidents have a lot of power, and if they start using that power against nonconforming citizens then authoritarianism has arrived.

Barr told Congress earlier this year that he wants to understand how and why investigators made decisions they did in 2016 when the FBI began to investigate what it later verified was a broad campaign of “active measures” by Russia targeting the U.S. election.

Why? Why does he want that? What’s the mystery? What does he not understand? Why wouldn’t the FBI investigate a broad campaign of active measures by Russia targeting the U.S. election?

Barr, who became attorney general in this context, told Congress that he wanted to understand why there had been what he called “spying” on Trump’s campaign in 2016 and why neither the candidate nor his top aides were briefed by the FBI about its discoveries about Russian interference.

Because they were dirty, that’s why. Duh. Barr must be well aware of that.

We’re ruled by mobsters.