Tag Archives: Russiagate

The biggest loser of the Durham indictments: James Comey’s FBI, by John Solomon

Posted on November 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Russiagate demonstrated blatant corruption by the FBI. From John Solomon at justthenews.com:

Special Counsel John Durham’s latest criminal case is as much an indictment of James Comey’s FBI as it is of the primary source of the Steele dossier, whom Durham accuses of repeatedly lying to agents.

The Steele dossier was the central evidence used by the FBI to win four consecutive FISA warrants targeting Trump’s campaign — and in 39 pages of painstaking detail the indictment lays out just how flawed and fake central elements of the dossier were.

Those FISA warrants allowed the bureau to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page and his many contacts in Trump world for nearly a year.

Igor Danchenko, Steele’s primary source for the dossier, contrived an entire source for key allegations in the dossier and relied on a longtime Hillary Clinton-supporting public relations executive for other intelligence without telling the FBI, the indictment charges. That PR executive had extensive ties to Russian government officials, even as he provided Danchenko information that landed in the dossier.

For some reason, Comey’s FBI couldn’t detect these serious flaws even though a group of civil lawyers was able to locate several Russians suspected of being Danchenko’s sub-sources, interviewing each of them and securing declarations that the information attributed to them in the dossier was wrong or contrived.

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Arrest Of Steele Dossier Source A “Seismic Development”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on November 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

The arrest of Igor Danchenko is a classic prosecutorial move: arrest to smaller fish to work up to the bigger ones. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Shining further light on today’s arrest of Igor Danchenko – the primary source for the debunked Steele dossier – is constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, who calls it a “seismic development.”

More via Jonathanturley.org:

The office of Special Counsel John Durham has confirmed that Igor Danchenko, a key source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele, has been arrested. This is the third arrest by Durham who is moving toward the prosecution stage of his investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion scandal. Durham is variously described as either painfully methodical or positively glacial as a prosecutor.  But he is widely credited with being a dogged and absolutely apolitical prosecutor. Danchenko’s arrest is a seismic development and confirmed Durham is far from done with his investigation.

Washington was recently rocked by the indictment of Michael Sussman, former counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for his alleged role in spreading a false Russia conspiracy theory.

Now Danchenko is being charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Danchenko is widely referenced as the sub-source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele for his controversial dossier. That dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

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Indicted Clinton lawyer hired CrowdStrike, firm behind dubious Russian hacking claim, by Aaron Maté

Posted on October 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

Nobody has investigated the dark nooks and crannies of the Russiagate story more thoroughly than Aaron Maté. From Maté at mate.substack.com:

The indictment of Michael Sussmann raises new questions about Russiagate’s foundational Russian hacking allegation. That claim originates with CrowdStrike — a firm hired and overseen by Sussmann.

CrowdStrike’s May 2016 contract with Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann

The indictment of Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI sheds new light on the pivotal role of Democratic operatives in the Russiagate affair. The emerging picture shows Sussmann and his Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias, the chief counsel for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, proceeding on parallel, coordinated tracks to solicit and spread disinformation tying Donald Trump to the Kremlin.

In a detailed charging document last month, Special Counsel John Durham accused Sussmann of concealing his work for the Clinton campaign while trying to sell the FBI on the false claim of a secret Trump backchannel to Russia’s Alfa Bank.

But Sussmann’s alleged false statement to the FBI in September 2016 wasn’t all. Just months before, he helped generate an even more consequential Russia allegation that he also brought to the FBI. In April of that year, Sussmann hired CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that publicly triggered the Russiagate saga by lodging the still unproven claim that Russia was behind the hack of Democratic National Committee emails released by WikiLeaks.

At the time, CrowdStrike was not the only Clinton campaign contractor focusing on Russia. Just days before Sussmann hired CrowdStrike in April, his partner Elias retained the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump and the Kremlin.

These two Clinton campaign contractors, working directly for two Clinton campaign attorneys, would go on to play highly consequential roles in the ensuing multi-year Russia investigation.

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NYT Gives Russia-Gate CPR – WSJ Pronounces It Dead, by Ray McGovern

Posted on October 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

The mainstream media ceaselessly tries to revive the discredited Russiagate fabrication. From Ray McGovern at antiwar.com:

Special Council John Durham’s indictment of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met differing reactions Friday from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Those who may still think it was Russia that “interfered” with the 2016 election owe it to themselves to read the Sussmann indictment/charging document.

Spoiler: It was the very top officials of the Clinton campaign aided by a lawyer crooked as a hound’s hind leg that interfered in 2016. The tricks tried by Sussmann and associates might make even GOP “strategists” like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove blush.

One must recall that back in 2016 the Clinton campaign folks and their well-heeled coterie of attorneys were sure Mrs. Clinton would win. As the Sussmann charging document shows, there was some expectation of high-level posting in the “incoming” Clinton administration and – alas – absolutely no thought of indictment. This goes a long way to explain the brazenness of it all.

As discredited former FBI Director James Comey put it in his apologia-sans-apology book, A Higher Loyalty, “I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president …” Needless to say, a Clinton presidency would confer automatic immunity on key campaign miscreants and lawyers like Sussmann. Worse still for them, it appears likely that others of their breed may also find themselves criminally referred to the Department of Justice.

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Russiagate, More Like Watergate, by Matt Taibbi

Posted on September 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

A very good argument can be made that Russiagate is far worse than Watergate. From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:

The indictment of Michael Sussmann sheds new light on the outrageous pre-election activities of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, which have a familiar ring
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan

CNN Chief Media Reporter Brian Stelter hopped on the set of his Reliable Sources show this weekend, and offered his take on Special Counsel John Durham’s recent indictment of former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann, calling Durham’s probe a “total bust.” This was in the context of accusing other networks like Fox and OAN of a pattern of “lie, rinse, repeat.”

I was sick last week and didn’t get around to reading the Sussmann case until Tuesday. I can’t imagine Stelter has read it, since the whole thing is about complicity on his side of the media aisle in years of repeat errors and lies, including multiple editorial double-downs even after a major story was publicly exposed as factually incorrect. A long list of press figures — from Stelter’s own CNN colleague and shameless intelligence community spokesclown Natasha Bertrand to reporters from The New Yorker, Time, MSNBC, Fortune, the Financial Times, and especially Slate and The Atlantic — were witting or unwitting pawns in a scheme to sell the public on a transparently moronic hoax, i.e. that Donald Trump’s campaign was communicating mysterious digital treason to Russia’s Alfa Bank via a secret computer server.

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The Indictment of Hillary’s Clint’s Lawyer Is an Indictment of the Russiagate Win of U.S. Media, by Glenn Greenwald

Posted on September 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Russiagate concoction did irreparable harm to Trump’s presidency and to the nation as a whole. From Glenn Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:

The DOJ’s new charging document, approved by Biden’s Attorney General, sheds bright light onto the Russiagate fraud and how journalistic corruption was key.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes gives credence to the fraudulent Trump/Afla-Bank story on Oct. 9, 2018, along with the two reporters who must aggressively pushed the hoax: The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer (then at Slate) and Natasha Bertrand (now at CNN).

A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign was indicted on Wednesday with one felony count of lying to the FBI about a fraudulent Russiagate story he helped propagate. Michael Sussman was charged with the crime by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Trump Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible crimes committed as part of the Russiagate investigation and whose work is now overseen and approved by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Sussman’s indictment, approved by Garland, is the second allegation of criminal impropriety regarding Russiagate’s origins. In January, Durham secured a guilty plea from an FBI agent, Kevin Clinesmith, for lying to the FISA court and submitting an altered email in order to spy on former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

The law firm where Sussman is a partner, Perkins Coie, is a major player in Democratic Party politics. One of its partners at the time of the alleged crime, Marc Elias, has become a liberal social media star after having served as General Counsel to the Clinton 2016 campaign. Elias abruptly announced that he was leaving the firm three weeks ago, and thus far no charges have been filed against him.

The lie that Sussman allegedly told the FBI occurred in the context of his mid-2016 attempt to spread a completely fictitious story: that there was a “secret server” discovered by unnamed internet experts that allowed the Trump organization to communicate with Russia-based Alfa Bank. In the context of the 2016 election, in which the Clinton campaign had elevated Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin to center stage, this secret communication channel was peddled by Sussman — both to the FBI and to Clinton-friendly journalists — as smoking-gun proof of nefarious activities between Trump and the Russians. Less than two months prior to the 2016 election, Sussman secured a meeting at the FBI’s headquarters with the Bureau’s top lawyer, James Baker, and provided him data which he claimed proved this communication channel.

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Look Ye, Shipmates – He Breaches, by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on September 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

It appears that John Durham’s long submerged investigation is finally surfacing. From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

Like the white whale of legend surfacing close to the mainland, special counsel John Durham popped up this week with one Michael Sussmann in his jaws, a smallish fish among the squamous and tentacled monsters hiding in the depths of the Deep State below the raging political seas. Who he, anyway?

Among the now well-known cast of creatures involved in the panoramic episode of perfidious sedition known as RussiaGate, Mr. Sussmann was a bit-player, an errand boy for the Perkins Coie law firm that did much of Hillary Clinton’s dirty work in the 2016 campaign and for the Democratic Party beyond. Mr. Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI in conveying campaign dirt paid-for by Mrs. Clinton to the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, Mr. Sussmann’s old colleague from the days when he worked as a cyber-security expert at the bureau. He also peddled-around the same material, cooked up by Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS company and man-of-mystery Christopher Steele, to The New York Times and other news media, who ran with it like kids with a kite.

I have a theory about the case. It is a shot across the bow of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s ship, testing whether main DOJ will attempt to interfere with Mr. Durham’s mission to uncover the predicates of RussiaGate and the vast web of dishonest and illegal acts carried out subsequently by figures in the FBI, the DOJ, and other dark corners of a government gone rogue against its own citizens. Mr. Baker has long been suspected of acting as a cooperating witness in the RussiaGate matter, perhaps realizing early-on that he’d been played by old pal Mr. Sussmann and set up for prosecution.

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Leaks Suggest Durham Probe Is Making Progress, by Lee Smith

Posted on August 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Put this in the believe-it-when-you-see-it bucket. From Lee Smith at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:

Recent media reports point obliquely to significant developments in John Durham’s special counsel investigation. He’s using a grand jury to subpoena documents and witness testimony regarding the FBI’s illegal spying operation against Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And now stories in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post say Durham may be looking to make criminal charges against “lower-level FBI agents” as well as outside sources who passed false information to federal law enforcement.

If that’s accurate, the latter category could include political operatives, foreign spies, big-name Beltway lawyers, journalists, and computer experts. But current and former government officials say the reports seem intended to shape the narrative on behalf of those Durham may really have in his crosshairs—senior FBI officials, including former Acting Director Andrew McCabe.

Since the November election, I’ve expressed skepticism regarding Durham’s investigation. Without Durham’s former boss Attorney General William Barr holding anyone accountable before the 2020 vote, there was nothing stopping the FBI and other federal agencies from continuing to interfere in elections on behalf of their preferred candidates. There was also nothing ensuring that Durham would be allowed to continue his probe with a Trump loss.

With Durham now working under the auspices of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, his ability to make his findings public, never mind bring charges, might be limited. According to the reports, Durham’s witnesses want Attorney General Merrick Garland to shut him down. And the president likely concurs.

Biden was the number two official in an administration that spied on a presidential campaign and then Trump’s transition team. He offered advice on how to frame Trump’s national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn. Even a man in cognitive decline as Biden appears to be would see that allowing his co-conspirators to be exposed to legal risk might tempt them to detail his role in full.

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Beware the Eephus: Washington on Edge As Durham Prepares Possible Indictments and Report, by Jonathan Turley

Posted on August 17, 2021 | 1 comment

Remember John Durham? Neither does anyone else, and that might be part of Durham’s plan. He’s got a report coming out and it may be a bombshell, or bombshells. From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:

Below is my column in The Hill on recent reports of grand jury testimony in the Durham investigation. The implications of the grand jury — and the eventual report — have rattled folks in the Beltway this week . . . for good reason.

Here is the column:

This week Texas Rangers infielder Brock Holt became a baseball legend when he went to the mound and threw an “eephus,” a high-arching, off-speed pitch, in a game against the Athletics. It is believed to be the slowest pitch recorded in MLB history, and A’s batter Josh Harrison stood in disbelief as the 31 mph pitch was called a strike. Harrison just laughed in amazement.

Pirates outfielder Maurice Van Robays coined the term in the 1946 All-Star Game, explaining, “Eephus ain’t nothing, and that’s a nothing pitch.” But as Holt demonstrated, sometimes a “nothing” slow pitch can amount to a great deal.

That is equally true about the occasional criminal eephus that takes everyone by surprise. For example, U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation has been slow in coming, but on Friday, a report surfaced that he is pitching evidence to a grand jury in an investigation started back in May 2019. The Durham investigation is now longer in duration than former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and many people long forgot that Durham — made a special counsel at the end of the Trump administration — was even still in the game.

The report in The Wall Street Journal said Durham is presenting evidence against FBI agents and possibly others in the use of false information or tips at the start of the Russia investigation in 2016. Those “others” could include a virtual who’s who of Washington politics, and even if they are not indicted, Durham could implicate some of the most powerful figures in politics in his final report, expected in the coming months.

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After Russiagate, Why WOULDN’T People Be Skeptical About Covid? by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on August 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

The US government and its media arm have been lying to us for decades. How many lies do we have to catch them in before it’s okay not to believe them anymore? From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

You hardly ever hear about Russiagate anymore. The last time it made a blip in the radar was when disgraced Collusion author Luke Harding published a very thinly-sourced story in The Guardian claiming to have proof that Donald Trump was a Kremlin asset, but other mass media outlets barely touched it and it vanished as quickly as it came.

Looking at mainstream news outlets in 2021, you’d hardly know they’d recently spent years hammering the story into public consciousness that Vladimir Putin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government, day after day after day after day after day.

But they did. Vast fortunes were raked in off the public interest generated by click-friendly stories about the latest BOMBSHELL revelation involving some peripheral member of Trump’s associates perhaps maybe having some kind of contact with a Russian national at some point. Entire careers were built on this.

Then the Mueller investigation invalidated the entire claim by failing to indict a single American for conspiring with the Russian government, and the mass media who’d spent the previous few years bashing everyone in the face with that story just kind of slowly sidled away from it.

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