What I’m talking about here is Durham’s prosecutive theory for his Russia Hoax case. That prosecutive theory, as I’ve been maintaining since early 2019, will likely involve some form of conspiracy to defraud the government. You can refer to my numerous discussions of this topic
TL:Didn't Watch -- Patel lays out a foundation on which he concludes, or more accurately, says he has reason to "suspect" Crowdstrike played a significant role in the Alfa Bank Hoax. Some of the basis for this is material that has not been released, so he can't talk about it, but he notes that he hopes the Crowdstrike report on the DNC "hack" is made public so everyone can see what he knows about. He mentions a source who has seen some of the Crowdstrike reports on the DNC "hack," and that source told him the impression he got was that Crowdstrike put lots of effort into selling the attribution for a hack of the DNC on the Russians, when they had very little to back it up.
He does a bit of dancing, since he can't discuss things that are still being held back, but he does make it clear one thing he suspects is that Crowdstrike may have played a role in helping to fabricate the DNS data in the Alfa Bank Hoax.
This is fascinating to me, since I opined the same suspicion about Crowdstrike involvement in the Alfa Bank Hoax a few weeks ago. Patel, however, has much more information to go on that I do, so his "suspicion" carries much more significance than mine does.
Another side story he makes clear is that anything Durham is stating as a "possibility" in the Sussmann indictment is something he already can prove, otherwise he would never have put it in the indictment in the first place. So when Durham's indictment of Sussmann intimates the possibility that some or most of the DNS data could be fabricated or misrepresented intentionally, Patel says you can take it to the bank that Durham can PROVE what he's intimating.
Lots of other interesting details you do not typically hear about in the entire interview.
If true, it's the sort of thing we've been waiting for.
Wish he spilled a few more beans so we know who he's referring to.
A guess: Steele and Danchenko, perhaps among others, since they both lied about him and claimed he was both involved in The Collusion, and was a sub-source for some of the crap Danchenko shoveled to Steele for his Dossier.
I didn't notice much new in the article, mostly a rehash of what we've seen in a variety of different sources, though he does characterize the spreading of the Alfa bank Hoax across the government as a scheme that was far bigger than some may have thought, and continued after the election.
Peter Strzok is on the attack. Or at least active defense.
A remarkable piece from a real slippery character, a jaw dropping amount of self-serving half-truths and unrelated fluff. And the claim that Trump is still a national security threat!
"Late in the evening of Oct. 6, attorneys for former Department of Justice attorney and former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann filed a motion for a bill of particulars relating to his indictment by Special Counsel John Durham. The indictment charges Sussmann with one count of making a false statement to the FBI in September 2016, in conjunction with providing allegations that computer systems connected to the Russian Alfa Bank had anomalous contact with an internet domain associated with the Trump Organization.
[Full disclosure, I had a minor role in the events in question, insofar as I transferred the material Sussmann gave to Jim Baker, the FBI’s general counsel at the time, to the personnel who ultimately supervised and looked into the allegations.] "
This is a little long in examples but I think (MHO) they carry merit on the current subject...
Durham has been historically great for producing very large case reports on very big and ugly subjects. (Boston) That said he is also great at chewing mountains of evidence down into grand jury protected garbage. For that reason, but not that reason alone I'm still banking on this being a very small speed bump in the end.
I say this in the basis of what we've seen time and time again were multiple cases on bad actors just go by the wayside.
I expected Durham to shift from FBI and CIA focus to 3rd parties, NGOs, etc. It made perfect sense, the institutions are now "the victims". (I'll be damned if I'm cheering that BS no matter who around Sussmann goes down.) Also, I'll note, that's very fine, agency positive narrative creation on Durham's behalf.
That is the larger goal...
I expected Wolfe and Clinesmith to skate off into the sunset when all of the hyped legal analysis said to expect massive production of flipped actors and wide spread results to flow... And they did... With no cooperation. (We would know if they were or did, disclosure is federal law)
I expected the Clinton / Platte River Networks email scandal to fall flat despite very clear public evidence of destruction and coordinated conspiracy plastered all over the internet (plaster by the idiot actors themselves, Reddit, Bleachbit)... and it did.
Sussmann ran the EXACT same conspiracy to mislead in the DNC Russian email hacking case using many of the same actors, agencies, firms and methodologies. They've been doing this stuff for decades now. It's part of their campaign SOP of creating propaganda and using federal agencies to bolster their positions. By they are not the only ones in DC running this game.
All of these things relate back to the same two issues of intent. To create propaganda for the sake of driving fake narratives while protecting those who engage in these acts.
There is a hypocrisy here of the agencies THEMSELVES doing this by leaking to the press in the same way for the same purposes of bolstering their poor claims for everything from narrative control, getting ahead of bad press, or to bolster poorly constructed FISA case evidence. (Sister agencies leaking, Page FISA)
The NIH and CDC are very busy doing this exact same thing with covid at the moment. They are not only in a conspiracy to mislead the public but also the government it's self. (Paul vs Fauci)
All of these things are about power, control and agency self justification.
It's not that I've gotten myself all amped up on TGP articles or insane legal analysis in the past and short circuited. It's just that historically speaking a government and it's agents are not capable of holding anyone accountable on such a hypocrisy.
Lastly, on Durham, he was appointed by Barr and Barr loved his precious insututions (CIA, R Ridge, Massage, and Snowden) and government engrained 3rd party cronyism dearly. There is not a chance in hell the man he entrusted to oversee the spiderweb of criminal acts committed is going to do anything but bury and limit the connections. Especially when he's already creating a narrative to protect them. (Victims)
Big picture, we are talking about dismantling DC's long standing network of top ranking movers and shakers in the propaganda machine .. Does ANYONE honestly believe that's going to happen? I personally don't.
Mark I love your analysis and writing, these subjects are vast and highly important to cover. My variation is, I just don't share the optimism of actual or meaningful results in the accountability aspect.
Buried in the filing is "exculpatory" claim that in the taxi ride to and from Sussmann's meeting with FBI's Baker, during which he claimed he was providing the Alfa Bank DNS data/analysis on behalf of no client, despite charging his time for the meeting and prep for it, to Hillary's campign account, he expensed the taxi rides against no client of the firm.
I have two comments:
1) which is the bigger expense? What Sussmann charged to Hillary's campaign to prepare the white papers, coordinate with Joffe and the researchers, FusionGPS, etc., and deliver the DNS garbage to Baker at FBI, or what he expensed for the taxi rides to and from the meeting???? Which is more indicative of who he was working on behalf of at the time?
2) his time charges and his expense report contradict each other, which means he has to be lying on one, the other, or BOTH! Expensing the taxi ride to overhead is a false charge if he's actually working on behalf of specific client(s), because overhead is charged off across all accounts. In DoD contracting, this is big no-no; its charge fraud (because it transfers legitimate charges against one contract and effectively charges them, via overhead, against all contracts. So his defense basically implies that he's a liar on either his time charges or his expense account, or both!
Pretty desperate defense, it would seem, to stipulate your client is a liar.
As Winston Churchill stated after a major victory at El Alamein in North Africa "This is not the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning".
The stunning part is that the entire Alfa Bank / Russiagate bs is the weakest reed of all the allegations.
If they have this much on Sussman hawking the DNS fabrications and the white paper , good grief, what must they have on the FISAs, Carter Page, Papadopolus, Flynn, and the Steele idiocy?
One question - the DNI said this was all done initially to cover up Hillary’s server felonies. Does that open a line of inquiry there?
Won't such a prosecution bring Bull Durham in direct conflict with the Obama Administration players Brennan, Comey, Rice, Yates et al (which means the Biden Administration)? After all didn't John Brennan advise Obama that it was all a Hillary Clinton dirty trick? What they're going to claim the US government was tricked into a Russia investigation, by Michael Sussmann?
FLASH TRAFFIC!!!
>> https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1456262178370056200 <<
Durham arrests Danchenko!!!!
The bigger question is what does this mean. Why arrest instead of indict? Was he fleeing the country? No details so far.
FYI: >> https://spectator.org/john-durham-steele-dossier/ <<
George Parry's #7 in his series on Durham-related issues
Don't know if you've covered this before;
You need to watch this interview by Aaron Mate of Cash Patel, starting at the ~16 minute point, and up through about 30+ minutes:
>> https://youtu.be/4p2rtZI1-UE?t=984 <<
TL:Didn't Watch -- Patel lays out a foundation on which he concludes, or more accurately, says he has reason to "suspect" Crowdstrike played a significant role in the Alfa Bank Hoax. Some of the basis for this is material that has not been released, so he can't talk about it, but he notes that he hopes the Crowdstrike report on the DNC "hack" is made public so everyone can see what he knows about. He mentions a source who has seen some of the Crowdstrike reports on the DNC "hack," and that source told him the impression he got was that Crowdstrike put lots of effort into selling the attribution for a hack of the DNC on the Russians, when they had very little to back it up.
He does a bit of dancing, since he can't discuss things that are still being held back, but he does make it clear one thing he suspects is that Crowdstrike may have played a role in helping to fabricate the DNS data in the Alfa Bank Hoax.
This is fascinating to me, since I opined the same suspicion about Crowdstrike involvement in the Alfa Bank Hoax a few weeks ago. Patel, however, has much more information to go on that I do, so his "suspicion" carries much more significance than mine does.
Another side story he makes clear is that anything Durham is stating as a "possibility" in the Sussmann indictment is something he already can prove, otherwise he would never have put it in the indictment in the first place. So when Durham's indictment of Sussmann intimates the possibility that some or most of the DNS data could be fabricated or misrepresented intentionally, Patel says you can take it to the bank that Durham can PROVE what he's intimating.
Lots of other interesting details you do not typically hear about in the entire interview.
A teaser from Sergei Millian:
>> https://twitter.com/SergeiMillian/status/1454070573269721090 <<
If true, it's the sort of thing we've been waiting for.
Wish he spilled a few more beans so we know who he's referring to.
A guess: Steele and Danchenko, perhaps among others, since they both lied about him and claimed he was both involved in The Collusion, and was a sub-source for some of the crap Danchenko shoveled to Steele for his Dossier.
Paul Sperry article link:
>> https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/10/28/clinton_campaign_spread_bogus_alfa_bank_story_obama_admin-wide_to_press_trump-russia_probe_800927.html <<
I didn't notice much new in the article, mostly a rehash of what we've seen in a variety of different sources, though he does characterize the spreading of the Alfa bank Hoax across the government as a scheme that was far bigger than some may have thought, and continued after the election.
Peter Strzok is on the attack. Or at least active defense.
A remarkable piece from a real slippery character, a jaw dropping amount of self-serving half-truths and unrelated fluff. And the claim that Trump is still a national security threat!
https://www.lawfareblog.com/sussmann-indictment-human-source-handling-and-fbis-declining-fisa-numbers
"Late in the evening of Oct. 6, attorneys for former Department of Justice attorney and former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann filed a motion for a bill of particulars relating to his indictment by Special Counsel John Durham. The indictment charges Sussmann with one count of making a false statement to the FBI in September 2016, in conjunction with providing allegations that computer systems connected to the Russian Alfa Bank had anomalous contact with an internet domain associated with the Trump Organization.
[Full disclosure, I had a minor role in the events in question, insofar as I transferred the material Sussmann gave to Jim Baker, the FBI’s general counsel at the time, to the personnel who ultimately supervised and looked into the allegations.] "
😁
Podcast on the above
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.apple.com%2Fnl%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-lawfare-podcast%2Fid498897343%3Fl%3Den%26i%3D1000539611879%26fbclid%3DIwAR2nX1o_lzbJCJVj6UkdgZPpIrmHHzSxWnrGdCqxCPJoSYOI3HjEIs0794c&h=AT3v-YXsGpr0zoM76Dz4MJea8heVm_GfBkMAgUP5bDZuDgpq0ekA4xcZjfFW0oFz2z19shEBopcNyjhjSuOMrp289ECakYUbzY0paMwJStZU9ZgcqPzcpxlMlqVVEMc5yAAPnPodMv4
This is a little long in examples but I think (MHO) they carry merit on the current subject...
Durham has been historically great for producing very large case reports on very big and ugly subjects. (Boston) That said he is also great at chewing mountains of evidence down into grand jury protected garbage. For that reason, but not that reason alone I'm still banking on this being a very small speed bump in the end.
I say this in the basis of what we've seen time and time again were multiple cases on bad actors just go by the wayside.
I expected Durham to shift from FBI and CIA focus to 3rd parties, NGOs, etc. It made perfect sense, the institutions are now "the victims". (I'll be damned if I'm cheering that BS no matter who around Sussmann goes down.) Also, I'll note, that's very fine, agency positive narrative creation on Durham's behalf.
That is the larger goal...
I expected Wolfe and Clinesmith to skate off into the sunset when all of the hyped legal analysis said to expect massive production of flipped actors and wide spread results to flow... And they did... With no cooperation. (We would know if they were or did, disclosure is federal law)
I expected the Clinton / Platte River Networks email scandal to fall flat despite very clear public evidence of destruction and coordinated conspiracy plastered all over the internet (plaster by the idiot actors themselves, Reddit, Bleachbit)... and it did.
Sussmann ran the EXACT same conspiracy to mislead in the DNC Russian email hacking case using many of the same actors, agencies, firms and methodologies. They've been doing this stuff for decades now. It's part of their campaign SOP of creating propaganda and using federal agencies to bolster their positions. By they are not the only ones in DC running this game.
All of these things relate back to the same two issues of intent. To create propaganda for the sake of driving fake narratives while protecting those who engage in these acts.
There is a hypocrisy here of the agencies THEMSELVES doing this by leaking to the press in the same way for the same purposes of bolstering their poor claims for everything from narrative control, getting ahead of bad press, or to bolster poorly constructed FISA case evidence. (Sister agencies leaking, Page FISA)
The NIH and CDC are very busy doing this exact same thing with covid at the moment. They are not only in a conspiracy to mislead the public but also the government it's self. (Paul vs Fauci)
All of these things are about power, control and agency self justification.
It's not that I've gotten myself all amped up on TGP articles or insane legal analysis in the past and short circuited. It's just that historically speaking a government and it's agents are not capable of holding anyone accountable on such a hypocrisy.
Lastly, on Durham, he was appointed by Barr and Barr loved his precious insututions (CIA, R Ridge, Massage, and Snowden) and government engrained 3rd party cronyism dearly. There is not a chance in hell the man he entrusted to oversee the spiderweb of criminal acts committed is going to do anything but bury and limit the connections. Especially when he's already creating a narrative to protect them. (Victims)
Big picture, we are talking about dismantling DC's long standing network of top ranking movers and shakers in the propaganda machine .. Does ANYONE honestly believe that's going to happen? I personally don't.
Mark I love your analysis and writing, these subjects are vast and highly important to cover. My variation is, I just don't share the optimism of actual or meaningful results in the accountability aspect.
More from the Sussmann filing:
>> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCoAw_qX0AQiPkr?format=png&name=900x900 <<
Somebody got immunity!!!!!
AFAIK, they generally don't hand those out unless the witness has something very useful to prosecutors to testify about.
Sussmann's new filing, demanding Durham reveal which specific people in the Clinton campaign he is alleged to have coordinated with:
>> https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1452829432427728898 <<
Buried in the filing is "exculpatory" claim that in the taxi ride to and from Sussmann's meeting with FBI's Baker, during which he claimed he was providing the Alfa Bank DNS data/analysis on behalf of no client, despite charging his time for the meeting and prep for it, to Hillary's campign account, he expensed the taxi rides against no client of the firm.
I have two comments:
1) which is the bigger expense? What Sussmann charged to Hillary's campaign to prepare the white papers, coordinate with Joffe and the researchers, FusionGPS, etc., and deliver the DNS garbage to Baker at FBI, or what he expensed for the taxi rides to and from the meeting???? Which is more indicative of who he was working on behalf of at the time?
2) his time charges and his expense report contradict each other, which means he has to be lying on one, the other, or BOTH! Expensing the taxi ride to overhead is a false charge if he's actually working on behalf of specific client(s), because overhead is charged off across all accounts. In DoD contracting, this is big no-no; its charge fraud (because it transfers legitimate charges against one contract and effectively charges them, via overhead, against all contracts. So his defense basically implies that he's a liar on either his time charges or his expense account, or both!
Pretty desperate defense, it would seem, to stipulate your client is a liar.
Looks like Sussmann's attorneys have been naughty:
>> https://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1452788370589904896 <<
They apparently divulged the Durham DC office location and three phone numbers in their proposed order re: Bill of Particulars.
One wonders if that was their real purpose in filing a motion that will almost surely not be granted.
As Winston Churchill stated after a major victory at El Alamein in North Africa "This is not the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning".
The stunning part is that the entire Alfa Bank / Russiagate bs is the weakest reed of all the allegations.
If they have this much on Sussman hawking the DNS fabrications and the white paper , good grief, what must they have on the FISAs, Carter Page, Papadopolus, Flynn, and the Steele idiocy?
One question - the DNI said this was all done initially to cover up Hillary’s server felonies. Does that open a line of inquiry there?
Won't such a prosecution bring Bull Durham in direct conflict with the Obama Administration players Brennan, Comey, Rice, Yates et al (which means the Biden Administration)? After all didn't John Brennan advise Obama that it was all a Hillary Clinton dirty trick? What they're going to claim the US government was tricked into a Russia investigation, by Michael Sussmann?