Around the same time, the Justice Department released three important bits of news.

First, the DOJ revealed that the inspector general for the intelligence community referred the matter to the Justice Department for a possible criminal campaign violation, but the DOJ judged it was not a campaign finance violation and took no action.

According the NY Times, both the Inspector General and the Director of National Intelligence made the criminal referral to the Department of Justice. And some are not sure it was just the DNI, Joseph McGuire.

This referral is problematic if AG Barr was involved in any attempts to get the Ukraine to investigate Biden. Questions will be asked….

Barr OBVIOUSLY should have been recused. Full stop. He's part of it–a fact witness at the very least. The question they should have been considering is whether anyone inside the DOJ could evaluate the issue or whether a special counsel was needed. https://t.co/l0glQJdq2v

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 25, 2019

 Second, in a particularly interesting twist, the DOJ also put out a statement in which Attorney General Bill Barr denied any involvement in the Ukraine smear campaign. The statement was clearly prepared for release coincident with the call record being released by the White House, since Trump name-checks Barr multiple times in the call, suggesting Barr will have a role to play in the smear campaign.

Finally, the Justice Department also released the OLC opinion that the DNI was not required by law to turn over to Congress the whistleblower complaint which exposed this entire scandal.

Steven Engel wrote this opinion and facilitated getting Barr his position as Attorney General.