When a former FBI agent filed a complaint with Barr in 1992 about FBI obstruction in the Franklin child abuse case and Johnny Gosch disappearance, which implicated S&L-scandal-linked Republican
Lawrence E. King, Jr. and Republican lobbyist
Craig Spence, Barr put Mueller in charge of handling it; Mueller found there was no evidence of FBI obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, Kissinger Associates client Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) was being investigated for covert loans to Iraq (Iraqgate) run out of BNL's Atlanta office--the National Bank of Georgia also being central to BCCI:
Iraqgate has now become an extremely complicated-and almost hopelessly screwed up-criminal case with very large political overtones. It is, at bottom, a fraud investigation that involves the Atlanta branch office of a big Italian bank, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, or BNL. In recent weeks, the BNL scandal has led to more or less open warfare between the U.S. Department of Justice and the CIA, and it has touched off internecine combat within the CIA itself. It has begun to cast new doubt on the competence of former U.S. attorney general Richard Thornburgh, current Attorney General William P. Barr and CIA Director Robert Gates. It has turned the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta inside out, and it appears to involve improper conduct at the White House. . .:
Iraqgate: What Went Wrong (11/01/1992)