Andrea Widburg at American Thinker provides her own summary of the latest Durham revelations that have the internet—or the intelligent/conservative portion of it buzzing.
I want to be cautious about this. Yes, Obama knew Hillary was fabricating the Russia Hoax, but he may not have been in on all the details. Brennan briefed him on the generalities and then referred the matter in writing to the FBI. That is well documented. Would Obama have had a reasonable belief that the FISA just before the election was influenced by Hillary's Russia Hoax? Certainly. Could he have thought that parts of it may have been true? Possibly. The thing to keep in mind is that there was/is no love lost between Obama and Hillary. Obama, in her mind, kept her from the WH in 2008.
The difference in degree of involvement is significant. Re the Russia Hoax we can reasonably say that Hillary was the deciding force--nothing would be done but for her OK. Not so with Obama. People like Obama who may have had no influence over the operations but probably had reasonable certainty that Trump was being falsely set up still aren't going to be prosecuted without concrete involvement in decision making.
One big question is re Neustar and the EOP. That program was put in place by Obama. Dyer makes a cogent case that this program was placed in the EOP because it was the one place that could evade audit. IOW, the program was designed for political spying. We'll need to know more, but as a working theory that's reasonable. The question then becomes, what would Obama have known about Joffe's activities? Again, we run into the enmity between the two Dem camps. No doubt Durham is looking at all that.
One area of Obama's direct involvement has to do with Comey's meeting with Trump before Trump's inauguration--presenting him with the dossier. Obama appears to have approved that. Is that a chargeable offense is the question.
Thanks for the fast response. Obama appears to have been very careful what exactly he chose to know and not know. Plausible deniability. I keep thinking of Susan Rice's curious email to herself on the day of Trump's inauguration:
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book,’” Rice emailed to herself. “The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”
Rice wrote that Obama said, “he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to "stay behind," and said he "did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”
I can't go into this now, but there's another factor that I'm sure Durham is well aware of.
Lots of conservatives decry FISA, but in fact FISA was an attempt to bring traditional national security "spying" by the executive branch under more civil liberties oriented control. Well, it hasn't worked out quite that way.
OTOH, traditional national security constitutional case law pre-FISA has never been overruled nor even ruled upon since FISA. FISA recognizes the need for action in exceptional circumstances--which Bush used widely post 9/11 and pre Patriot Act. My guess is that the courts would pass on the claim by Obama that he was acting reasonably on the belief as president that the incoming guy was a foreign agent.
Hillary and Sussmann/Joffe are in a very different legal position. As private actors they don't get any of the slack that government actors might arguably get. That doesn't absolve government actors from prosecution for clear cut violations of FISA, etc. It does, however, provide likely cover for Obama as far as we can tell at this point.
Durham is walking in a legal mine field--with unresolved statutory and constitutional elements perhaps conflicting--and so is being very careful. We need to be careful because we don't have all the facts.
Let me just briefly add that the allegation that a POTUS candidate and later a POTUS was (believed to be) an actual foreign agent for a "malign foreign power" (DHS wording) is key to hampering Durham and excusing official acts outside the law. A narrow focus on False Statement prosecutions is probably a very smart move in that context. Pressure to get pleas or cooperation from government officials is also smart. But Hillary and her gang are in a very different category as non-official actors.
* 1.8 billion USD from the Clinton Foundation to Qatar Central Bank, back in 2016
* Qatar, isn't that a non-extradition country?
* The Party is in charge of the presidential pardon power
* lots of judges put in place by The Party, for eventualities such as this
* The Party owns the FBI, the DOJ, ...
In order to become the "first female POTUS", Harris has to go, before Joe inconveniently dies in office. His decline is public, and extremely obvious. Anyone with a brain cell has already drawn the logical conclusion, this guy ain't lasting the full 4 years.
So, Hillary has murder (we have all heard of Arkancide), she has fleeing the country, she has the press, she still has at least some of The Party on her side. I am not actually sure if she has the presidential pardon in her pocket. But, since I have heard of no attempts on Durham's life, have to assume either she has already tried and failed, or she has the pardon waiting (from the current POTUS).
The problem with accepting a pardon, is the implicit admission that there was wrong doing. I can feel the gravitational pull of Hillary's ego from all the way up here in Canada. She will never admit wrong doing, and she will never let go of being POTUS.
Is Durham a man of principle, to be forever remembered with Trump and others, as a great American patriot who saved the nation, or relegated to the dustbin as just another spineless co-conspirator in the attempted communist takeover of the United States?
.....Sussmann’s claims to a federal agency (the CIA) about the data are the legal issue here. It’s important not to miss that, because it reflects why no one (such as Tech Executive-1, Rodney Joffe) has been indicted for monitoring DNS data to mine it for information about Trump.
No one has been indicted for that because it wasn’t illegal. It was unethical and improper as all get-out, but it’s not illegal to monitor DNS transactions or data. DNS data isn’t privacy-protected as it pertains to an end-user (e.g., the sender of a text message). Its status in law is like the connecting transactions of old-style phone calls; they aren’t afforded privacy protection by the fact that some individual with privacy rights picked up the phone and made a phone call. The contents of the phone call are privacy-protected, but not the transaction at the switchboard.
***
Outlines the important aspects of Durham's filing and ties it to known players, i.e. Hillary, suspected players, Obama, outside entities, Georgia tech, and government entities the Dept. of Defense. Long but worth reading gives a different but detailed approach on Durham.
Wilberg's op-ed on Durham reeks of RINO let's give up because it isn't happening when I want it to happen.
I read Dyer's latest yesterday and recommended it. Whether or not there was any illegality may depend on details of what was done that Durham hasn't revealed--"other data". Lying to CIA is a definite possibility.
And if they are acts in furtherance of a conspiracy, they do not have to be illegal for there to be a conspiracy charge. That's what makes these particular acts a problem for co-conspirators.
Is it time to rehabilitate Bondo Barr? Was he playing 4d chess? Saw interview with Jon ratcliff where he stated (rather pointedly I thought) that he, Bill Barr and John Durham all looked at all the intelligence and found no predicate there. This by way of saying that he Ratcluff expects many more indictments based on the Intel he saw and which apparently he shared with Durham. AND Bill Barr. When you consider that Durham is being allowed to proceed like this it really makes me think there could be some hidden leverage being applied to fix the bad guys in place and prevent them from putting the kibosh on Durham. I know this is fanciful, but I dunno...
OTOH, what you're saying is absolutely true, OTOH you have to separate the Durham issue from the whole election issue when you're talking about Barr. Remember: It's all BS. No, it wasn't.
Adam Housley mentions:"High level non political sources telling me that the Durham investigation has a lot of names being looked at…”two names to keep an eye on…Jake Sullivan and…… Colin Kahl….. both being looked at very closely…both of em nose deep.”
American Thinkers' Widburg did an about-face this morning after reading your post above, appropriately awaiting further developments. With this cat out of the bag, it would seem more timely releases of information would be a result by Durham - or indictments would be unsealed if the conspirators mentioned fail to cooperate.
And where are those news cameras and reporters cornering Sussman, Joffe, Elias, even Clinton, for comment? I mean, look at the NYT's Haberman article on presidential records based on what?
I'm glad to hear that. I'm a bit behind this morning, and will be for a while. Normally Andrea is one of my first reads and I appreciate her insights. I wrote this in an email to a friend:
You've got to be careful with Sundance and his backers. I think the overall reaction to Durham's latest tells the story--everyone gets exactly what the implications are: it's Hillary. Ain't no coverup, but Durham can't pull rabbits out of a hat. In political terms he's one man against the Establishment, and any legal slip ups will be pounced upon to shut him down. It amazes me he's gotten this far. And he's had virtually zero backing from the GOPe--not that this should be a political thing, but some side should come out for rule of law. Durham has exposed this Russia Hoax as a Hillary coup plot for anyone who wants to see. What more can we reasonably ask for? Yet he's moving ahead.
Margot Cleveland at the Federalist has a good article on the latest reveal in the Durham investigation today, going back and linking NYT's reporting that assisted Sussman's team digging into the DNS data. She closes with quotes from former Trump administration officials weighing in on the brewing scandal.
One thing I'd like to say, and I have nothing but an average mother and housewife's lifetime love of country and occasional political opinion page reading to back it up, our government isn't going to collapse if the corruption and evil actors, whether in government right now or recently retired, are exposed and/or charged with their crimes. The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew was forced to resign, a year later the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign. The two top men. Hated by the press. Hated by the left. Hated by their own party. Nothing crumbled. Whether or not any of you despise those two men, they were no worse (actually I believe they were a lot better) than the crew working for HRC or the administration prior to Trump's. There are always good and bad public servants able and willing to keep our government creaking/running along, no matter how loudly the left's media grinds their teeth and wails.
"Vengeance is the L-rds." I have the feeling many of you will be disappointed. It could well be that this is not about 'Crime and Punishment.' As Ms. Widburg states: "I would love to see Durham expose the whole festering mess, and I’d happily eat my words, but I don’t see that happening." She previously said: "The short answer is, Durham can’t. The ramifications would collapse the U.S. government; yes, all three collaborating branches."
The problem is how not to throw the baby out with the bath water. What may well be going on is an effort to get maximum cooperation with minimum indictments. As I previously posted here, Durham, Trump, Giuliani, Powell and others have incriminating evidence they are not in a hurry to reveal, and nobody is going to want to go down with Hillary, Obama and the ringleaders in this years-old plot against our legitimate government. I also posted reference to an article entitled "In Trump’s campaign to save the Republic, we haven’t seen the key supporting effort yet" By J.E. Dyer December 4, 2020. In it she states "The premise of the key supporting effort is that the U.S. government has been making use of tools we know it has, to gather intelligence on conditions that pose an obvious threat to U.S. national security."
We may never hear the evidence. Most of this may be buried by mutual consent, as key people influenced by self-preservation and maybe some consideration for the future of this country join in reversing the power grab we have been witnessing.
I have considered that Powell was fed dis-info to destroy her credibility - seems likely with the Frankfurt 'server raid' - but I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that Flynn is the deep cover source. His sufferings were too profound and personal to believe that they were some sort of cover, IMO.
Your last paragraph says it all, although jail is less important than maintaining the Constitution, and if the perps can by forced or sincere contrition aid in that they might skate for all I care. My point on Powell is she knows things, whatever her role was. Were I a perp I would be very concerned at all that is out there that might be revealed. I would be particularly concerned at the information President Trump has gathered, some of it using America's superspies. I would certainly not taunt him as Haberman and James are doing.
Hillary was on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Impeachment during the Watergate scandal. She saw how the deep state helped take out Nixon. And she experienced how the independent counsel Kenneth Star, and impeachment hobbled the Clinton Administration.
And the result of Watergate was huge damage the GOP.
I tend to read these blogs in chronological order. So at the risk of repeating a comment from a previous blog I'll just suggest. Who's funding Joffe? Is it DARPA and if so why no oversight of G/T, Neustart, etc...? Or is their oversight and... part of the conspiracy. Or is Joffe taking matters into his own hands to overthrow an elected President? Providing false data to DNC, P/C Crowdstrike... Seems pretty bold IMO.
Another interesting observation in circles I follow on Twitter is that everything Durham has done to date has been outside the government. Focus on P/C, DNC, HRC, Joffe, G/T, etc... He hasn't had anything come up inside the Deep State. Perhaps why Garland and DOJ have allowed him to continue. Or perhaps as Andrea suggests a way to protect the corruption internal.
Which would explain why Durham has had minimum three top former FBI officials in front of the GJ: Baker, Priestap, Strzok? Those are the names we can identify, but there are several more. I'm quite sure there have also been CIA people in front of the GJ.
Most believe Agency 2 is the CIA. I on the other hand and based on recent developments speculate that it could be the IG (Horowitz). Haven't seen others speculate on this yet but based on recent Durham filings something's up there too.
As an quick aside, I have always found this revelation that Sussmann took Joffe material to Horowitz purportedly showing someone in DOJ OIG using an foreign VPN to be a curious turn in the story. Clearly, the motive for this was to influence Horowitz's Investigation of the Russia Collusion Investigation.
My question: how would this info influence Horowitz Collusion Investigation Investigation? One person in his shop using a foreign VPN seems even less serious than one person in his shop watching kiddie porn on his government computer. Horowitz would simply investigate and turn over the evidence to DOJ to prosecute the guy. There's no real leverage in that.
The only scenario in which I can imagine this evidence would influence Horowitz is if it was Horowitz himself who used the foreign VPN.
IOW, Sussmann/Joffe were doing a bit of soft blackmail on Horowitz to be sure his investigation of the Russia Collusion Investigation didn't dig too deeply into areas that might expose the Joffe/Sussmann/Clinton Campaign connection, and the nefarious deeds they were getting up to in furtherance of their conspiracy.
That's my hypothesis du jour on this aspect of the scheme.
Plus ... what did Horowitz do with the Sussmann info? Apparently nothing. Wrote it off. Until I see something solid I say Carlson & Co. are on a wild goose chase. But Horowitz did go on to do a pretty thorough FISA investigation. He was off base on predication, but that doesn't diminish his sold FISA work which laid the groundwork for Durham.
The fact that it appears nothing was done by Horowitz with the Sussmann evidence is an observation that had escaped me. If Sussmann's evidence (actually Joffe's) pointed to wrongdoing by a OIG minion, Horowitz should have acted on it.
The three obvious explanations are:
1) the evidence was so flimsy that Horowitz rejected it out of hand, or didn't bear out under initial investigation (e.g., perhaps the OIG person was using a foreign VPN as part of an investigation into someone else in DOJ doing the same.)
2) the evidence was compelling and Horowitz ignored it anyway (???? -- hard to believe he'd do that)
3) the evidence was about Horowitz personally, and he suppressed it, and steered the OIG investigation into the Russia Collusion Investigation as necessary to avoid discovery of evidence of the Joffe/Sussmann/Hillary campaign malign acts in furtherance of a conspiracy that could have involved people in FBI/DOJ/Foggy Bottom/CIA/WH.
That third possibility doesn't require wholesale sell-out by Horowitz; but rather, subtle guidance/nudging of the investigation to avoid revelations about Joffe/Sussmann/Hillary campaign. That explains why, on the whole the OIG report on FISA Abuse related to the Page FISA warrant in the CH investigation was relatively thorough.
Thus, there's no glaring evidence of a thumb on the scales, other than perhaps the OIG studiously avoiding conclusions supported by circumstantial evidence, but lacking direct documentary or testimonial evidence from within DOJ (but that may well be the standard by which all IGs are supposed to operate.)
Good write up. I was one of the few on the independent thinking people that had always leaned Left (I don't think it even matters at this point in time.) that was calling out this Russiagate BS in real time. It was beyond ridiculous, and the propaganda was ubiquitous, which is always a red flag. I think you're right, literally everyone thought Hillary was going to win and none of this clean-up was planned, which is why it's so easy to see, with even a moment of honest reflection. Something the Left has completely forgotten since covid turned them into a cult ("The Branch Covidians" has been my favorite name for them.) The tribalism we have seen over the last five years has been the clearest example of what is really going on... We are being intentionally divided by oligarchs and the media. I think once you accept that, true growth can begin to happen, I do not care which side of the isle you feel you reside, we all must come together and fight against the technocrats, as are on the cusp of technocratic totalitarianism consuming our lives and future.
Lots of questions out there... My latest has been, how was the CEO of Moderna Stephan Bancel the CEO of the company BioMerioux (2007-11) that designed the level 4 biolab in Wuhan from which this chimera virus originated? I wrote a piece about it on my substack if anyone is interested.
Great breakdown MIH. Definitely have a new reader, my friend.
Hillary Clinton is as spiteful and vengeful as they get. That alone would be enough for her to be all in on either getting Trump out or at least being all in on destroying his presidency and keeping the pre-election operations under wraps. And everyone here knows she was quoted, and has not denied the quote as far as I know, shortly after the election as saying something to the effect of "I guess we'll just have to pursue the Russian angle" in order to deal with the fact of Trump's victory. That doesn't mean automatically that she worked to get him ousted, but it seems to suggest she was ordering the dogs - HER dogs - be unleashed to attack Trump viciously - something that would for sure be relevant to Durham's investigation and most worthy of his trying to uncover and eventually reveal to the public.
As for Pence, he is and was a uniparty member of excellent standing. Hillary, et al knew that and so it seems to me they felt they could handle a Pence presidency, especially coming on the heels of a would-be disgraced and driven from office Donald Trump. Nutjob Hillary probably even fantasized they could get Pence out at the same time, and her in, if they could convince enough of the public the "Putin-assisted" election itself was illegitimate.
Bottom line is I'd bet quite a lot that Clinton was very much a post-Nov 3 player, however many layers of middlemen she may have put between herself and the hacks, cronies and criminals carrying out the orders at the ground level.
Only after I posted the above comment did I see Mark's comment below suggesting the plotters would have seen a Pence presidency as extremely threatening to them. I didn't mean to suggest above that the plotters would've been full-on okey dokey with a Pence presidency, but that once it became clear the election would not be overturned, it sure seems like they had one target in mind, not two, and so they seemed to have accepted the probability of a Pence presidency as their best-case scenario and decided the perfect (getting both of them out) would not be the enemy of the good - getting just Trump out. And I do think they calculated they could deal with a Pence presidency, otherwise (and this is just my own reasoning) they would've gone after him right along as they went after Trump.
Is the person higher up the ladder not Barack Obama? Was he unaware of what was going on?
I want to be cautious about this. Yes, Obama knew Hillary was fabricating the Russia Hoax, but he may not have been in on all the details. Brennan briefed him on the generalities and then referred the matter in writing to the FBI. That is well documented. Would Obama have had a reasonable belief that the FISA just before the election was influenced by Hillary's Russia Hoax? Certainly. Could he have thought that parts of it may have been true? Possibly. The thing to keep in mind is that there was/is no love lost between Obama and Hillary. Obama, in her mind, kept her from the WH in 2008.
The difference in degree of involvement is significant. Re the Russia Hoax we can reasonably say that Hillary was the deciding force--nothing would be done but for her OK. Not so with Obama. People like Obama who may have had no influence over the operations but probably had reasonable certainty that Trump was being falsely set up still aren't going to be prosecuted without concrete involvement in decision making.
One big question is re Neustar and the EOP. That program was put in place by Obama. Dyer makes a cogent case that this program was placed in the EOP because it was the one place that could evade audit. IOW, the program was designed for political spying. We'll need to know more, but as a working theory that's reasonable. The question then becomes, what would Obama have known about Joffe's activities? Again, we run into the enmity between the two Dem camps. No doubt Durham is looking at all that.
One area of Obama's direct involvement has to do with Comey's meeting with Trump before Trump's inauguration--presenting him with the dossier. Obama appears to have approved that. Is that a chargeable offense is the question.
Thanks for the fast response. Obama appears to have been very careful what exactly he chose to know and not know. Plausible deniability. I keep thinking of Susan Rice's curious email to herself on the day of Trump's inauguration:
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book,’” Rice emailed to herself. “The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”
Rice wrote that Obama said, “he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to "stay behind," and said he "did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”
I can't go into this now, but there's another factor that I'm sure Durham is well aware of.
Lots of conservatives decry FISA, but in fact FISA was an attempt to bring traditional national security "spying" by the executive branch under more civil liberties oriented control. Well, it hasn't worked out quite that way.
OTOH, traditional national security constitutional case law pre-FISA has never been overruled nor even ruled upon since FISA. FISA recognizes the need for action in exceptional circumstances--which Bush used widely post 9/11 and pre Patriot Act. My guess is that the courts would pass on the claim by Obama that he was acting reasonably on the belief as president that the incoming guy was a foreign agent.
Hillary and Sussmann/Joffe are in a very different legal position. As private actors they don't get any of the slack that government actors might arguably get. That doesn't absolve government actors from prosecution for clear cut violations of FISA, etc. It does, however, provide likely cover for Obama as far as we can tell at this point.
Durham is walking in a legal mine field--with unresolved statutory and constitutional elements perhaps conflicting--and so is being very careful. We need to be careful because we don't have all the facts.
Let me just briefly add that the allegation that a POTUS candidate and later a POTUS was (believed to be) an actual foreign agent for a "malign foreign power" (DHS wording) is key to hampering Durham and excusing official acts outside the law. A narrow focus on False Statement prosecutions is probably a very smart move in that context. Pressure to get pleas or cooperation from government officials is also smart. But Hillary and her gang are in a very different category as non-official actors.
Thanks Mark. Very valuable insights and analysis! Keep 'em coming!
Hillary has all her bases covered.
* 1.8 billion USD from the Clinton Foundation to Qatar Central Bank, back in 2016
* Qatar, isn't that a non-extradition country?
* The Party is in charge of the presidential pardon power
* lots of judges put in place by The Party, for eventualities such as this
* The Party owns the FBI, the DOJ, ...
In order to become the "first female POTUS", Harris has to go, before Joe inconveniently dies in office. His decline is public, and extremely obvious. Anyone with a brain cell has already drawn the logical conclusion, this guy ain't lasting the full 4 years.
So, Hillary has murder (we have all heard of Arkancide), she has fleeing the country, she has the press, she still has at least some of The Party on her side. I am not actually sure if she has the presidential pardon in her pocket. But, since I have heard of no attempts on Durham's life, have to assume either she has already tried and failed, or she has the pardon waiting (from the current POTUS).
The problem with accepting a pardon, is the implicit admission that there was wrong doing. I can feel the gravitational pull of Hillary's ego from all the way up here in Canada. She will never admit wrong doing, and she will never let go of being POTUS.
Is Durham a man of principle, to be forever remembered with Trump and others, as a great American patriot who saved the nation, or relegated to the dustbin as just another spineless co-conspirator in the attempted communist takeover of the United States?
There's an entirely different theory here:
New Durham filing in Sussmann case hits paydirt at home plate (although not the way you may think)
New details validate old analysis: it had to go to the Oval Office.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/new-durham-filing-in-sussmann-case-hits-paydirt-at-home-plate-although-not-the-way-you-may-think/#more-6009
Excerpt:
.....Sussmann’s claims to a federal agency (the CIA) about the data are the legal issue here. It’s important not to miss that, because it reflects why no one (such as Tech Executive-1, Rodney Joffe) has been indicted for monitoring DNS data to mine it for information about Trump.
No one has been indicted for that because it wasn’t illegal. It was unethical and improper as all get-out, but it’s not illegal to monitor DNS transactions or data. DNS data isn’t privacy-protected as it pertains to an end-user (e.g., the sender of a text message). Its status in law is like the connecting transactions of old-style phone calls; they aren’t afforded privacy protection by the fact that some individual with privacy rights picked up the phone and made a phone call. The contents of the phone call are privacy-protected, but not the transaction at the switchboard.
***
Outlines the important aspects of Durham's filing and ties it to known players, i.e. Hillary, suspected players, Obama, outside entities, Georgia tech, and government entities the Dept. of Defense. Long but worth reading gives a different but detailed approach on Durham.
Wilberg's op-ed on Durham reeks of RINO let's give up because it isn't happening when I want it to happen.
Bad take on Widburg.
We're all in this together, and we all entertain doubts about how things will play out.
She is solid.
I read Dyer's latest yesterday and recommended it. Whether or not there was any illegality may depend on details of what was done that Durham hasn't revealed--"other data". Lying to CIA is a definite possibility.
And if they are acts in furtherance of a conspiracy, they do not have to be illegal for there to be a conspiracy charge. That's what makes these particular acts a problem for co-conspirators.
Yes.
Let me assure you that Donald Trump will not let this rest, in or out of office!
Is it time to rehabilitate Bondo Barr? Was he playing 4d chess? Saw interview with Jon ratcliff where he stated (rather pointedly I thought) that he, Bill Barr and John Durham all looked at all the intelligence and found no predicate there. This by way of saying that he Ratcluff expects many more indictments based on the Intel he saw and which apparently he shared with Durham. AND Bill Barr. When you consider that Durham is being allowed to proceed like this it really makes me think there could be some hidden leverage being applied to fix the bad guys in place and prevent them from putting the kibosh on Durham. I know this is fanciful, but I dunno...
OTOH, what you're saying is absolutely true, OTOH you have to separate the Durham issue from the whole election issue when you're talking about Barr. Remember: It's all BS. No, it wasn't.
Also, Barr took no real steps in re Antifa etc.
Adam Housley mentions:"High level non political sources telling me that the Durham investigation has a lot of names being looked at…”two names to keep an eye on…Jake Sullivan and…… Colin Kahl….. both being looked at very closely…both of em nose deep.”
https://twitter.com/adamhousley/status/1493257298541645827
He's got an excellent track record of reporting. I don't think he mentions those names without hearing something very specific from his sources.
When I was despairing AH was saying Durham is moving ahead making progress.
American Thinkers' Widburg did an about-face this morning after reading your post above, appropriately awaiting further developments. With this cat out of the bag, it would seem more timely releases of information would be a result by Durham - or indictments would be unsealed if the conspirators mentioned fail to cooperate.
And where are those news cameras and reporters cornering Sussman, Joffe, Elias, even Clinton, for comment? I mean, look at the NYT's Haberman article on presidential records based on what?
We need to be careful about Sundance too. He hates being contradicted or questioned.
Thanks for the tip on Widburg’s piece - it was extremely gracious, I thought. Props to her.
I'm glad to hear that. I'm a bit behind this morning, and will be for a while. Normally Andrea is one of my first reads and I appreciate her insights. I wrote this in an email to a friend:
You've got to be careful with Sundance and his backers. I think the overall reaction to Durham's latest tells the story--everyone gets exactly what the implications are: it's Hillary. Ain't no coverup, but Durham can't pull rabbits out of a hat. In political terms he's one man against the Establishment, and any legal slip ups will be pounced upon to shut him down. It amazes me he's gotten this far. And he's had virtually zero backing from the GOPe--not that this should be a political thing, but some side should come out for rule of law. Durham has exposed this Russia Hoax as a Hillary coup plot for anyone who wants to see. What more can we reasonably ask for? Yet he's moving ahead.
Margot Cleveland at the Federalist has a good article on the latest reveal in the Durham investigation today, going back and linking NYT's reporting that assisted Sussman's team digging into the DNS data. She closes with quotes from former Trump administration officials weighing in on the brewing scandal.
One thing I'd like to say, and I have nothing but an average mother and housewife's lifetime love of country and occasional political opinion page reading to back it up, our government isn't going to collapse if the corruption and evil actors, whether in government right now or recently retired, are exposed and/or charged with their crimes. The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew was forced to resign, a year later the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign. The two top men. Hated by the press. Hated by the left. Hated by their own party. Nothing crumbled. Whether or not any of you despise those two men, they were no worse (actually I believe they were a lot better) than the crew working for HRC or the administration prior to Trump's. There are always good and bad public servants able and willing to keep our government creaking/running along, no matter how loudly the left's media grinds their teeth and wails.
Just my two cents.
"Vengeance is the L-rds." I have the feeling many of you will be disappointed. It could well be that this is not about 'Crime and Punishment.' As Ms. Widburg states: "I would love to see Durham expose the whole festering mess, and I’d happily eat my words, but I don’t see that happening." She previously said: "The short answer is, Durham can’t. The ramifications would collapse the U.S. government; yes, all three collaborating branches."
The problem is how not to throw the baby out with the bath water. What may well be going on is an effort to get maximum cooperation with minimum indictments. As I previously posted here, Durham, Trump, Giuliani, Powell and others have incriminating evidence they are not in a hurry to reveal, and nobody is going to want to go down with Hillary, Obama and the ringleaders in this years-old plot against our legitimate government. I also posted reference to an article entitled "In Trump’s campaign to save the Republic, we haven’t seen the key supporting effort yet" By J.E. Dyer December 4, 2020. In it she states "The premise of the key supporting effort is that the U.S. government has been making use of tools we know it has, to gather intelligence on conditions that pose an obvious threat to U.S. national security."
We may never hear the evidence. Most of this may be buried by mutual consent, as key people influenced by self-preservation and maybe some consideration for the future of this country join in reversing the power grab we have been witnessing.
I have considered that Powell was fed dis-info to destroy her credibility - seems likely with the Frankfurt 'server raid' - but I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that Flynn is the deep cover source. His sufferings were too profound and personal to believe that they were some sort of cover, IMO.
I disagree with your interpretation in its entirety.
Your last paragraph says it all, although jail is less important than maintaining the Constitution, and if the perps can by forced or sincere contrition aid in that they might skate for all I care. My point on Powell is she knows things, whatever her role was. Were I a perp I would be very concerned at all that is out there that might be revealed. I would be particularly concerned at the information President Trump has gathered, some of it using America's superspies. I would certainly not taunt him as Haberman and James are doing.
Hillary was on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Impeachment during the Watergate scandal. She saw how the deep state helped take out Nixon. And she experienced how the independent counsel Kenneth Star, and impeachment hobbled the Clinton Administration.
And the result of Watergate was huge damage the GOP.
And the Clintons do hold a grudge…
Hillary was also fired from that committee due to her ethical issues
I know, right? Think about that for a moment...
Hillary Clinton . . . too corrupt to investigate Nixon!
I tend to read these blogs in chronological order. So at the risk of repeating a comment from a previous blog I'll just suggest. Who's funding Joffe? Is it DARPA and if so why no oversight of G/T, Neustart, etc...? Or is their oversight and... part of the conspiracy. Or is Joffe taking matters into his own hands to overthrow an elected President? Providing false data to DNC, P/C Crowdstrike... Seems pretty bold IMO.
Joffe is independently wealthy, so I wouldn't look to direct financial payment as a factor.
Another interesting observation in circles I follow on Twitter is that everything Durham has done to date has been outside the government. Focus on P/C, DNC, HRC, Joffe, G/T, etc... He hasn't had anything come up inside the Deep State. Perhaps why Garland and DOJ have allowed him to continue. Or perhaps as Andrea suggests a way to protect the corruption internal.
Which would explain why Durham has had minimum three top former FBI officials in front of the GJ: Baker, Priestap, Strzok? Those are the names we can identify, but there are several more. I'm quite sure there have also been CIA people in front of the GJ.
Most believe Agency 2 is the CIA. I on the other hand and based on recent developments speculate that it could be the IG (Horowitz). Haven't seen others speculate on this yet but based on recent Durham filings something's up there too.
It's CIA.
I understand where you're getting that and, yes, Sussmann did talk to OIG after the election, but it's confirmed that he went to CIA.
As an quick aside, I have always found this revelation that Sussmann took Joffe material to Horowitz purportedly showing someone in DOJ OIG using an foreign VPN to be a curious turn in the story. Clearly, the motive for this was to influence Horowitz's Investigation of the Russia Collusion Investigation.
My question: how would this info influence Horowitz Collusion Investigation Investigation? One person in his shop using a foreign VPN seems even less serious than one person in his shop watching kiddie porn on his government computer. Horowitz would simply investigate and turn over the evidence to DOJ to prosecute the guy. There's no real leverage in that.
The only scenario in which I can imagine this evidence would influence Horowitz is if it was Horowitz himself who used the foreign VPN.
IOW, Sussmann/Joffe were doing a bit of soft blackmail on Horowitz to be sure his investigation of the Russia Collusion Investigation didn't dig too deeply into areas that might expose the Joffe/Sussmann/Clinton Campaign connection, and the nefarious deeds they were getting up to in furtherance of their conspiracy.
That's my hypothesis du jour on this aspect of the scheme.
Plus ... what did Horowitz do with the Sussmann info? Apparently nothing. Wrote it off. Until I see something solid I say Carlson & Co. are on a wild goose chase. But Horowitz did go on to do a pretty thorough FISA investigation. He was off base on predication, but that doesn't diminish his sold FISA work which laid the groundwork for Durham.
The fact that it appears nothing was done by Horowitz with the Sussmann evidence is an observation that had escaped me. If Sussmann's evidence (actually Joffe's) pointed to wrongdoing by a OIG minion, Horowitz should have acted on it.
The three obvious explanations are:
1) the evidence was so flimsy that Horowitz rejected it out of hand, or didn't bear out under initial investigation (e.g., perhaps the OIG person was using a foreign VPN as part of an investigation into someone else in DOJ doing the same.)
2) the evidence was compelling and Horowitz ignored it anyway (???? -- hard to believe he'd do that)
3) the evidence was about Horowitz personally, and he suppressed it, and steered the OIG investigation into the Russia Collusion Investigation as necessary to avoid discovery of evidence of the Joffe/Sussmann/Hillary campaign malign acts in furtherance of a conspiracy that could have involved people in FBI/DOJ/Foggy Bottom/CIA/WH.
That third possibility doesn't require wholesale sell-out by Horowitz; but rather, subtle guidance/nudging of the investigation to avoid revelations about Joffe/Sussmann/Hillary campaign. That explains why, on the whole the OIG report on FISA Abuse related to the Page FISA warrant in the CH investigation was relatively thorough.
Thus, there's no glaring evidence of a thumb on the scales, other than perhaps the OIG studiously avoiding conclusions supported by circumstantial evidence, but lacking direct documentary or testimonial evidence from within DOJ (but that may well be the standard by which all IGs are supposed to operate.)
No need to speculate. Durham says the evidence was that an OIG employee had used a VPN.
Good write up. I was one of the few on the independent thinking people that had always leaned Left (I don't think it even matters at this point in time.) that was calling out this Russiagate BS in real time. It was beyond ridiculous, and the propaganda was ubiquitous, which is always a red flag. I think you're right, literally everyone thought Hillary was going to win and none of this clean-up was planned, which is why it's so easy to see, with even a moment of honest reflection. Something the Left has completely forgotten since covid turned them into a cult ("The Branch Covidians" has been my favorite name for them.) The tribalism we have seen over the last five years has been the clearest example of what is really going on... We are being intentionally divided by oligarchs and the media. I think once you accept that, true growth can begin to happen, I do not care which side of the isle you feel you reside, we all must come together and fight against the technocrats, as are on the cusp of technocratic totalitarianism consuming our lives and future.
Lots of questions out there... My latest has been, how was the CEO of Moderna Stephan Bancel the CEO of the company BioMerioux (2007-11) that designed the level 4 biolab in Wuhan from which this chimera virus originated? I wrote a piece about it on my substack if anyone is interested.
Great breakdown MIH. Definitely have a new reader, my friend.
Didn't Bancel just delete his Twitter account and sell $400M worth of shares of stock?
Sure did. He is also an "agenda coordinator" at the world economic forum.
Thanks for the input.
You're doing great work on here.
Hillary Clinton is as spiteful and vengeful as they get. That alone would be enough for her to be all in on either getting Trump out or at least being all in on destroying his presidency and keeping the pre-election operations under wraps. And everyone here knows she was quoted, and has not denied the quote as far as I know, shortly after the election as saying something to the effect of "I guess we'll just have to pursue the Russian angle" in order to deal with the fact of Trump's victory. That doesn't mean automatically that she worked to get him ousted, but it seems to suggest she was ordering the dogs - HER dogs - be unleashed to attack Trump viciously - something that would for sure be relevant to Durham's investigation and most worthy of his trying to uncover and eventually reveal to the public.
As for Pence, he is and was a uniparty member of excellent standing. Hillary, et al knew that and so it seems to me they felt they could handle a Pence presidency, especially coming on the heels of a would-be disgraced and driven from office Donald Trump. Nutjob Hillary probably even fantasized they could get Pence out at the same time, and her in, if they could convince enough of the public the "Putin-assisted" election itself was illegitimate.
Bottom line is I'd bet quite a lot that Clinton was very much a post-Nov 3 player, however many layers of middlemen she may have put between herself and the hacks, cronies and criminals carrying out the orders at the ground level.
Only after I posted the above comment did I see Mark's comment below suggesting the plotters would have seen a Pence presidency as extremely threatening to them. I didn't mean to suggest above that the plotters would've been full-on okey dokey with a Pence presidency, but that once it became clear the election would not be overturned, it sure seems like they had one target in mind, not two, and so they seemed to have accepted the probability of a Pence presidency as their best-case scenario and decided the perfect (getting both of them out) would not be the enemy of the good - getting just Trump out. And I do think they calculated they could deal with a Pence presidency, otherwise (and this is just my own reasoning) they would've gone after him right along as they went after Trump.