NYT: Durham will ask grand jury to indict prominent Dem-connected attorney

[Valin]

Hot Air

Ed Morrissey

Sep 16, 2021

It’s still game on for special counsel John Durham after all. According to the New York Times, Durham will seek an indictment against a former federal prosecutor for lying to the FBI about the Russia-collusion probe. That former prosecutor, Michael Sussman, now works as a partner at the Democrat-connected Perkins Coie — and who represented the DNC in the 2016 campaign.

And that’s no coincidence to the indictment either:

(Snip)

If true, Sussman makes for an interesting target, albeit a heretofore low-profile one. Sussman’s name has come up at times in the Russia-collusion narrative, but not usually as a featured player. While Richard Grenell was declassifying information about the debunked conspiracy theory last year, RealClearInvestigations did a deep dive on CrowdStrike, the firm that first accused the Russians of hacking the DNC. Guess who hired them, and guess who didn’t turn the servers over to the FBI? Emphases mine:

(Snip)

If Durham wants to convict Sussman, though, he’d have to prove that Sussman knowingly lied to the FBI. It’s not enough to argue that Sussman passed along bad information, which he could have done in good faith, even if that strains credulity for a man who served as a federal prosecutor. Sussman blamed Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson for the Alfa Bank information in his 2017 testimony, and he’s likely to stick with that story since he’s already offered it under oath. Of course, the indictment might be about something else entirely, or a separate lie about the Alfa Bank theory. We’ll know when the indictment drops, but bear in mind that it’s not easy to get a conviction on this kind of charge without proving the misinformation was an intentional effort at deception.

Usually this kind of charge is leveraged by prosecutors seeking cooperation from witnesses, a strategy which has a spotty track record when it comes to special-counsel investigations. One has to wonder whether Sussman is Durham’s big target, or his bid to get to higher-level Democrats involved in the Russia-collusion smear. Stay tuned, but at least we know now that Durham’s not entirely focused on his memoirs.

 

 

[Geee]

@ValinAnd how much time and money was spent on this anemic result? So so tired of this baloney - serve me a sandwich with some real meat for a change.

[Valin]

34 minutes ago, Geee said:

@ValinAnd how much time and money was spent on this anemic result? So so tired of this baloney - serve me a sandwich with some real meat for a change.

My Very Question! You know what happened in 2016, I know what happened in 2016, Everyone knows what happened in 2016, my mother who has been dead for 20 years knows what happened in 2016!

By this stonewalling all this does is reduce truth in the federal government, and increase the likelihood of something really bad happening.

[SDwaters]

On 9/16/2021 at 9:20 AM, Valin said:

t’s still game on for special counsel John Durham after all. According to the New York Times, Durham will seek an indictment against a former federal prosecutor for lying to the FBI about the Russia-collusion probe.

Considering the source of the report, I'll keep the champaign corked for the time being. 

[Geee]

28 minutes ago, SDwaters said:

Considering the source of the report, I'll keep the champaign corked for the time being. 

Yep. No breath holding here - again.

[Valin]

 

 

[Valin]

The Sussman indictment

Scott Johnson

Sept. 19 2021

On Thursday John Hinderaker noted the indictment of the prominent — prominent in the sense of connected — Washington attorney Michael Sussman. A District of Columbia grand jury handed up the indictment on one false-statement count at the behest of Special Counsel John Durham. John H. wasn’t impressed, calling it “small potatoes.” If Sussman is the end of the road Durham is traveling on, John is correct and, whether or not that is the case, John is certainly correct to be cynical about the Durham project.

Whether or not Sussman is the end of Durham’s road, the indictment is worth reading. Durham procured the indictment last week because the five-year statute of limitations was about to run this weekend. If Durham is permitted to continue and any report he prepares allowed to come to light, this indictment may be more a preview than an ending.

Some percipient observers think the indictment falls into the former category rather than the latter. Among them, I think, is Andrew McCarthy, whose Ball of Collusion is in my opinion the best book on on the Russia hoax so far. Andy’s NR column (behind NR’s paywall) is “The Real Story in Durham’s Indictment of Democratic Lawyer Michael Sussmann.” Joining Andy are the Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins in the column “Durham delivers on Russiagate” and the Journal’s editors in “Durham cracks the case” (both behind the Journal’s paywall).

(Snip)

_________________________________________________________

From The Comments

SATerp • 5 minutes ago

Well, let's just look at the track record of indictments and convictions and subsequent jail time against any serious swamp dwellers...I rest my case.

 

metanoia • 7 minutes ago

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Most Special Counsel investigations are a bust. They take months and years and millions of dollars to press minimal charges on small mostly insignificant players. It's Lucy holding the football and Charlie Brown slamming to the ground on his back. I'll not hold my breath on this one either. Disappointed? Yes. When the big guys are forced to do the perp walk, I'll start tuning in again. In other words, probably never.

[Valin]

 

[Geee]

John Durham’s Vast Conspiracy

Special Counsel John Durham’s 27-page false-statement indictment of lawyer Michael Sussmann avers a thus-far uncharged conspiracy by Democrat operatives, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and others to fabricate, leak, and purvey the most successful and destructive political smear in American history.

Judging from the detailed contents of the indictment, Durham appears to be well on his way to exposing the lies and corrupt schemes that were used to kneecap Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for president and hamstring his administration for the next four years.

This article is the second in a series regarding the Sussmann indictment which, given its detailed content, strongly indicates that Durham has in hand documentary and supporting evidence to prove how Sussmann and others conspired to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful functions of the United States government by dishonest means in order to, among other goals, subvert our political and electoral processes, including the 2016 presidential election.

Later articles will discuss, among other topics, Sussmann’s alleged role in the fabrication of the eponymous Steele dossier, his involvement in the FBI’s pretend investigation of the alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer server, and the spreading of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. But, for now, this article will focus on only one element of that hoax, i.e., how the conspirators knowingly and illegally concocted the fake narrative of a secret internet communications channel between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa Bank.

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Geee said:

John Durham’s Vast Conspiracy

 

People are going to be writing books/articles (both popular & academic) for years/decades. Maybe at some point 50 years down the line the Real story and it implacations will come out. Fine..Good, in the meantime what We want to see/DEMAND someone other than some low level scapegoat doing the Perp Walk, wear orange jump suit for many Years. When is this gonna happen, or Will it happen (I have my doubts). Unless/until This happens many of us (75 million?) are not going to let this go. Combined with the 2020 election/Hunter Biden, Dear Swamp dwellers/ Deep Staters/Permanent government types, This is going to continue to be an open bleeding wound in the body politics of America. The Distrust of the institutions of government Will continue to fester.

BTW This is not a good thing Our system Depends on the citizens trusting the institutions of government.

[Geee]

37 minutes ago, Valin said:

People are going to be writing books/articles (both popular & academic) for years/decades. Maybe at some point 50 years down the line the Real story and it implacations will come out. Fine..Good, in the meantime what We want to see/DEMAND someone other than some low level scapegoat doing the Perp Walk, wear orange jump suit for many Years. When is this gonna happen, or Will it happen (I have my doubts). Unless/until This happens many of us (75 million?) are not going to let this go. Combined with the 2020 election/Hunter Biden, Dear Swamp dwellers/ Deep Staters/Permanent government types, This is going to continue to be an open bleeding wound in the body politics of America. The Distrust of the institutions of government Will continue to fester.

BTW This is not a good thing Our system Depends on the citizens trusting the institutions of government.

A would never heals until the infection is cleaned out.

[Valin]

38 minutes ago, Geee said:

A would never heals until the infection is cleaned out.

 

I really don't know how that happens.  And you know me, Mr. glass is half full, but you go to MSNBC/CNN..etc, and we live in two different solar systems, its not just two different countries anymore.

“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.“I mean this,” said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family — anything you like — at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.

From That Hideous Strength.

[Geee]

It Gets Worse: Look Who Worked Together to Frame Donald Trump With Fake Russia Hoax

How much more frightening will this conspiracy get?  Now, according to court documents reported by JusttheNews.com, we learn that The Dark Lord himself, George Soros, paid for his own investigator to work for the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee to plant the fake Trump-Russia story–and that then-Senator John McCain let him do it.

[Valin]

Related

 

[Geee]

Durham Issues New Subpoenas in Probe of FBI Russia Investigation, Targets Clinton Campaign Law Firm

Special Counsel John Durham, the attorney tapped by the Trump administration to audit the Russia investigation, has reportedly handed down a new set of subpoenas, including to a law firm with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. 

The grand jury subpoenas for documents were issued earlier this month, according to CNN, after Durham charged Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly knowingly making a false statement to the FBI.

[Valin]

 

 

[Geee]

John Durham and the Mysterious DNC Email Hack

 

This is the fourth in a series of articles analyzing the 27-page federal grand jury indictment charging lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to the FBI. Previous articles discussed the indictment’s detailed factual averments regarding how, during the 2016 presidential election campaign, Sussmann and others conspired to concoct a false but “plausible” narrative purportedly demonstrating the existence of a secret channel of internet communications between the Trump Organization, owned by Donald Trump, and the Russian Alfa Bank.

The indictment avers that Sussmann presented the false narrative to the FBI which then opened an investigation and that the conspirators used the false narrative and the fact of the FBI’s investigation to smear Donald Trump as an undercover Russian agent.

The indictment also avers that “n or about April 2016, the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) retained Sussmann to represent it in connection with the hacking of its email servers by the Russian government. In connection with his representation of the DNC as the victim of the hack, the defendant met and communicated regularly with the FBI, the DOJ, and other U.S. government agencies. In or around the same time period, Sussmann was also advising the Clinton Campaign in connection with cybersecurity issues.”

So what is the significance of that averment and why was it included in Sussmann’s false statement indictment?

Consider the following timeline of events:

On or about April 30, 2016, CrowdStrike, a California-based private cybersecurity company headed by former FBI official Shawn Henry, was retained by Sussmann to investigate the purported hack of the DNC’s email server.

On June 15, 2016, CrowdStrike  announced that it had detected Russian malware on the DNC’s server.

The next day, a self-described Romanian hacker, Guccifer 2.0, claimed he was a WikiLeaks source and had hacked the DNC’s server. He then posted online DNC computer files that contained metadata that indicated Russian involvement in the hack.

 

On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey publicly cleared Hillary Clinton of criminal charges for storing, sending and receiving “very sensitive, highly classified information” on her unclassified, private email server.

On July 22, 2016, just days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published approximately 20,000 DNC emails.

[Valin]

@Geee

Thanks...Good Stuff.

How long before CNN, The New York Times a former newspaper publishes this? 6 year...8 years...next century?

[Geee]

34 minutes ago, Valin said:

@Geee

Thanks...Good Stuff.

How long before CNN, The New York Times a former newspaper publishes this? 6 year...8 years...next century?

Nevah

[Geee]

35 minutes ago, Valin said:

@Geee

Thanks...Good Stuff.

How long before CNN, The New York Times a former newspaper publishes this? 6 year...8 years...next century?

And will we ever know who?? Be a hoot if it was Bill 

[Geee]

Durham Probes Pentagon Computer Contractors in Anti-Trump Conspiracy

Cybersecurity experts who held lucrative Pentagon and homeland security contracts and high-level security clearances are under investigation for potentially abusing their government privileges to aid a 2016 Clinton campaign plot to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia and trigger an FBI investigation of him and his campaign, according to several sources familiar with the work of Special Counsel John Durham.

Durham is investigating whether they were involved in a scheme to misuse sensitive, nonpublic Internet data, which they had access to through their government contracts, to dredge up derogatory information on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign in 2016 and again in 2017, sources say — political dirt that sent FBI investigators on a wild goose chase. Prosecutors are also investigating whether some of the data presented to the FBI was faked or forged. :snip:

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Geee said:

Durham Probes Pentagon Computer Contractors in Anti-Trump Conspiracy

 

 

Quote

Joffe’s lawyer has described his client as “apolitical.” He said Joffe brought Sussmann information about Trump he believed to be true out of concern for the nation. 

 

And Sussmann brought it to the FBI for completely nonpartisan reasons. 

_______________________________________

From the comments

Remember: The same people who looked you in the eye and lied to you for over two years trying to have you to believe the preposterous “Trump / Russian Collusion” narrative are the VERY SAME PEOPLE now telling you that the overwhelming (and mounting) evidence of the stolen election doesn’t exist.

[Geee]

Ratcliffe says 1,000 intel documents given to Durham support more charges

 

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said a raft of documents he provided to special counsel John Durham supports additional charges in his criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation.

A recent grand jury indictment against Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer accused of lying to the FBI, is just the tip of the iceberg, Ratcliffe teased during a Fox News interview on Sunday.

"Michael Sussmann's is the first of what I would hope would be a number, based on the fact — I provided not just those declassified documents, but I provided 1,000 intelligence community documents that I think support additional charges that I would expect John Durham to bring," he told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures .

[Valin]

43 minutes ago, Geee said:

 

"Michael Sussmann's is the first of what I would hope would be a number, based on the fact — I provided not just those declassified documents, but I provided 1,000 intelligence community documents that I think support additional charges that I would expect John Durham to bring," he told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures .

 

[Geee]

SPECIAL REPORT John Durham and the Amazing Disappearing DNC Hack

 

This is the fifth in a series of articles analyzing the 27 page federal grand jury indictment charging lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to the FBI.

As stated in the fourth article, when the FBI learned of the alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee’s (“DNC”) emails, it asked to examine the server.

In fact, at the same time as the alleged DNC hack, there were similar reports regarding the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (“DCCC”) server as well as DNC Chairman John Podesta’s personal email devices.

In testimony before the Senate, FBI Director James Comey stated the following:

 

Question (by Senator Burr): Did the FBI request access to those devices [the servers and Podesta’s devices] to perform forensics on?

A: Yes, we did.

Q: And would that access have provided intelligence or information helpful to your investigation in possibly finding … including to the Intelligence Community Assessment?

A: Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that’s involved. So, it’s the best evidence.

Q: Were you given access to do the forensics on those servers?

A: We were not. We were … a highly respected private company eventually got access and shared with us what they saw there.

 

: But is that typically the way the FBI would prefer to do the forensics or would your forensic unit rather see the servers and do the forensics themselves?

A: We always prefer to have access hands on ourselves, if that’s possible.

Q: Do you know why you were denied access to those servers?

A: I don’t know for sure. Um, I don’t know for sure.

Q: Was there one request or multiple requests?

A: Multiple requests at different levels and ultimately what was agreed to is that the private company would share with us what they saw.

So, instead of using a search warrant or some other legal process to perform a direct, hands on forensic examination of the DNC server, the FBI agreed to base its investigation on the findings of a private cybersecurity company. And, as discussed in the previous article, that company, CrowdStrike, was to do the investigation pursuant to its contract with Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Think about that. When presented with allegations of a devastating foreign cyber attack on one of the two major political parties, the FBI meekly agreed to allow CrowdStrike and Perkins Coie to do the forensic examination and, for all intents and purposes, run the investigation.

Not even the lowliest local police department would agree to such an absurd arrangement. What if this was a murder case? Would the Smallville PD allow a private investigator and lawyer hired by the murder victim’s family to process the crime scene, do the autopsy, and tell the police and district attorney what they supposedly found? Wouldn’t such findings be subject to attack in court as coming from sources that may have had an interest in shaping and tailoring the investigative results to suit the needs and desires of their client? Wouldn’t there be legal problems with the evidence’s provenance, chain of custody, and the reliability and comprehensiveness of the investigative work that supposedly produced it? Would the police and district attorney ever allow themselves to get roped into such a bizarre, ridiculous, nightmarish, and self-defeating arrangement?

Of course not. No rational person or organization intent on conducting a serious investigation would.