John Durham going deep into Russiagate - Rowan Scarborough

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Washington Times

“Russiagate” special counsel John H. Durham is signaling he’s not at the end of investigating the Democratic Party scandal of promoting fake allegations to ruin candidate and former President Donald Trump.

 

Mr. Durham’s court update on Jan. 25 says he has gained access to voluminous FBI internal affairs case files. The Inspection Division is investigating agents for misconduct in Crossfire Hurricane, as the Trump probe was dubbed. Crossfire relied on the Democratic Party’s Christopher Steele dossier, which proved to be a bundle of falsehoods.

 

The U.S. District Court filing also tells of an internal tug-of-war in which the Justice Department’s top watchdog, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, has to be prodded to turn over everything related to Mr. Durham’s wide mandate. The delay is ironic. Mr. Horowitz blew the lid on FBI Crossfire misconduct in a lengthy 2019 report that detailed FBI rule breaking.

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HUGE: Durham Investigation of Obamagate Expands

Special Counsel John Durham is not yet finished with his investigation into the Obamagate scandal, and a new report says his efforts have expanded.

According to recent court filings, Durham has gained access to a significant amount of FBI internal affairs files in his effort to uncover the Obama administration’s maneuvers to promote bogus allegations against Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Team Obama’s disingenuous investigation of the anti-Trump allegations, called Crossfire Hurricane, relied on the discredited Christopher Steele dossier, which was paid for by party activists.

 

The Washington Times reports that “Three times in his 19-page submission Mr. Durham tells the judge that his team is conducting an ‘active, ongoing criminal investigation’ not limited to the defendant, former Hillary Clinton campaign legal adviser Michael A. Sussmann.”

Related: Hmm … Is Durham Planning to Charge Team Hillary?

Durham was appointed as special counsel in December 2020 in order to protect the investigation, which began while he was a U.S. Attorney, from being quashed by the Biden administration.  Joe Biden promptly fired all Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys in his first weeks in office.

This is obviously not good news for Joe Biden, who has been implicated in the scandal. During his confirmation hearings, U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland refused to commit to protecting the Durham investigation.

Durham reportedly now has access to over 130,000 pages of new material, with 492,000 pages more expected. It is a lot harder for a president to fire a special counsel than a U.S. attorney. It will be interesting to see if Biden and Garland attempt to obstruct the investigation going forward.

 

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Durham evidence creates timeline of relentless Democrat effort to sell Russia collusion hoax

As the trial for former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann draws closer, Special Counsel John Durham is painting a picture of a relentless effort by Democrat operatives to sell the Russia collusion narrative across the U.S. government from the FBI to the State Department.

Essentially, Hillary Clinton operatives flooded the zone in the summer and fall of 2016, hoping multiple Trump collusion allegations circulating inside the government agencies might prompt an investigation and media interest.

For the first time this week, Durham called it a “joint venture” and a conspiracy to shop unproven Trump dirt.

In the case of Sussmann, Durham alleges that effort involved deceit by lying to the FBI that he did not have a client when he presented (since-discredited) evidence to the FBI that Donald Trump had a secret computer back channel at the Alfa Bank in Moscow to talk with the Kremlin.

In fact, Sussmann was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and a tech executive named Rodney Jaffe who was aligned with the campaign when he approached the FBI in September 2016 and made the anti-Trump allegations, Durham's team alleges.

A few months later, prosecutors say, Sussmann was still representing the tech executive when he approached the CIA in February 2017 to get the spy agency involved and again claimed he wasn't representing a client's interest.

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Judge denies request to dismiss Durham's case against Michael Sussmann

John Sexton

Apr 13, 2022

Back in February, Michael Sussmann’s lawyers asked Judge Christopher R. Cooper to dismiss the case against their client. They argued that even if it were true that Sussmann had lied to the FBI about not working for a client, that lie was an “ancillary matter.” Today, Judge Cooper denied the request for a dismissal, meaning the case will now proceed to trial next month.

Quote

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to dismiss Special Counsel John Durham’s case against former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI while hawking a later debunked theory linking Donald Trump to Russia.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Sussmann must make his case to a jury — declining to toss the single false statements charge against him on technical grounds…

Sussmann’s legal team urged the judge to dismiss the case by arguing that his alleged lie was immaterial to any government action.

The judge offered an explanation of his decision which noted that Sussmann’s claim that his statement to the FBI was immaterial doesn’t address all parts of the relevant law.

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Ratcliffe predicts still-classified documents will blow Durham inquiry wide open

A great deal more Russiagate intelligence remains shrouded from public view and will stun the nation, according to former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.

The Trump-era spy chief expounded upon his expectation that there will be many more indictments in special counsel John Durham's criminal inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation.

"I expect there to be a lot more indictments to be forthcoming from John Durham besides the ones that have trickled out so far. And that's based upon documents, some of which — many of which are not yet declassified," Ratcliffe said during a recent episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

 

Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman from Texas who oversaw the nation's 17 intelligence agencies in the latter part of the Trump administration, announced in October 2020 that he had handed over nearly 1,000 pages of materials to the Justice Department to assist Durham, who is revealing more secrets as he takes people to court.

Durham has two active prosecutions, including a case against the main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele's anti-Trump dossier and a case against former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month. Durham has obtained only a single guilty plea, which came from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to altering an email about a Trump campaign aide under government surveillance.

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Judge limits some Durham evidence ahead of Sussmann trial

"Circumstantial" evidence shows Sussmann is connected to the data gathering effort, the judge said.

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Judge blocks purported evidence of Clinton ties to plot linking Trump and Russia

A federal judge has blocked special counsel John Durham from introducing evidence he contends will show former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann acted as part of a “joint venture” to taint former President Trump by linking him to Russia.

Prosecutors with Mr. Durham’s office had argued that Mr. Sussman, a Perkins Coie lawyer who represented the 2016 Clinton campaign, worked in concert with pro-Clinton operatives, tech researchers and others “toward a common goal” of promoting negative stories about Mr. Trump.

 

Prosecutors said they had emails and other evidence that would have linked Mr. Sussmann to the venture.

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Strzok pushed falsehood on Trump-Russia inquiry origin in 2017, notes indicate

Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter

May 09, 2022

Notes of an FBI briefing in March 2017 indicate since-fired bureau agent Peter Strzok spread incorrect details about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Strzok incorrectly claimed in his 2020 book, Compromised, that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was spurred to inform the U.S. government about a May 2016 conversation he had in London with George Papadopoulos (in which the Trump campaign associate allegedly mentioned Russia might have dirt on Hillary Clinton) only after hearing then-candidate Donald Trump say in July 2016: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails.”

It now appears he also made that false claim in March 2017 when briefing Justice Department and FBI officials about the Trump-Russia investigation. Strzok admitted in September 2020 he had gotten that detail wrong in his book, though he downplayed it.

The mistake now seems like a pattern.

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Durham-Sussmann notes battle pulls back curtain on Trump-era FBI

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, said Michael Sussmann met with the bureau in September 2016 on behalf of a client, according to notes from March 2017 made public by the Democratic cybersecurity lawyer.

The briefing notes contradict contemporaneous FBI notes and the defendant's own text message, though the defense team thinks they could prove decisive in special counsel John Durham's case against Sussmann.

Sussmann was indicted for allegedly concealing his clients, Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and “Tech Executive-1” Rodney Joffe, from FBI general counsel James Baker in late summer 2016 when he presented internet data that suggested a now-discredited back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank.

Sussmann's lawyers argue the FBI notes they released Sunday are a game-changer.