In September, Barr discussed the timing of the Durham probe during an interview with Townhall.

"You need strong evidence of intent, it seems to me, before you can charge that kind of crime so developing that evidence is a time consuming process. Most of the people who are mouthing off about 'well why aren't these people already indicted,' they don't understand the criminal justice process. People get lawyers, sometimes they won't talk to you. Even if they talk to you they'll say they'll take the fifth and you have to get documents and frequently fight over documents and fight over things in court so the investigation is a cumbersome process. It's not something that can be done quickly," Barr said.

"I've said that there are sort of two missions, I see it. One is to get to the bottom of what happened and get the facts out about that and we are going to do that and you know, try to be careful about that, that we don't do anything that would unduly interfere with the election," Barr said. "And then there's the issue of whether someone crossed the line. In the course of these, in my view, unjustified and horrible abuse of power, actually cross the line and committed a federal offense and I can't really say anything about the status of that investigation except that it's continuing and we'll be careful about not bringing indictments in a way that can be viewed as interfering with the [2016] election."