John Durham Brings Home The Bacon

I think we can say definitively that the wait has been worth it. John Durham has not let us down. I’m speaking, of course, of Hillary campaign manager Robbie Mook’s testimony—obviously, under oath—at the Sussmann trial that the Alfa Bank Hoax was cleared for use by Hillary personally and was discussed within her inner circle: with John Podesta, Jake Sullivan, and Jennifer Palmieri. Maybe someday we’ll learn how Durham pulled this off—getting this Clinton insider to turn on Hillary. It’s a real coup.

Nothing else really matters. Will Sussmann be convicted? In the big scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. Take a poll and ask people whether they know who Michael Sussmann is and what he’s on trial for. I can’t believe you’d find more than a tiny minority who would be aware. Nobody’s thinking about him—not in the big scheme. The same goes for some of the other big fish, like Marc Elias. Yeah, everything we’ve learned about them is a big deal—for the inside baseball type people. It’s just not a big deal for most people.

But the situation is totally different with regard to Hillary. This story coming out of a trial that’s under a reporting blackout by the MSM will have legs. Hillary will be finished. Of course she was a known liar and cheater already, but now she’s a known liar and cheater in the specific context of the Russia Hoax, the 2016 election, and beyond—the faux impeachments of Trump, the four years of insane witchhunting after Trump. It will also rub off on the rigged 2020 election. It will rub off on the Dem party. Trump will get the word out. It will be all over social media. Even if there are no convictions, Durham has brought home the bacon.

Sundance is right. This revelation—really, confirmation, because it’s one more thing that we already knew—is “the biggest duh in political history.” Of course Hillary knew.

But …

The Reckoning 💥 @sethjlevy

On day 1 of the Democrat Convention as Wikileaks began their DNC releases Mook’s interview uses the release to begin spinning the Trump Russia tale. This was planned, prepared, purposeful and the beginning of one of the most damaging psy op disinformation campaigns in US history.

Ask yourself, could the current Russia Hoax—the narrative that claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was utterly unprovoked—and the insane sanctions regime have been pulled off without the six previous years of Russia, Russia, Russia? It’s a fair question.

Sundance quotes the Yahoo account of Mook’s testimony:

MSM – Hillary Clinton personally approved leaking to the media information alleging a connection between Donald Trump and a Russian bank in 2016, which the campaign itself had not fully confirmed, according to testimony Friday by Clinton’s campaign manager.

Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign chief, said in federal court that as the campaign against Trump heated up in the late summer and early fall of 2016, Marc Elias, who was then a lawyer with the Perkins Coie law firm and served as the campaign’s top legal adviser, told Mook that “people with expertise” in cyber activity had briefed the campaign on data alleging links between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian financial institution with ties to the Kremlin.

Mook’s testimony for the first time puts Clinton in the middle of a leak to the news media that ultimately blew up in the campaign’s face. The FBI quickly determined that the purported connection between the Russian bank and the Trump Organization was implausible and Michael Sussmann, Elias’s then law partner who brought the claims to the FBI, has since been indicted by Justice Department special counsel John Durham on charges he lied to the bureau’s general counsel to hide his connection to the Clinton campaign. (read more)

But Fox has important additional details (via Red State):

He also said he discussed whether to give the information to a reporter with senior campaign officials, including campaign chairman John Podesta, senior policy advisor, now White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and communications director Jennifer Palmieri.

“I discussed it with Hillary as well,” Mook said.

“I don’t remember the substance of the conversation, but notionally, the discussion was, hey, we have this and we want to share it with a reporter,” Mook said.

“She agreed with that,” Mook testified, directly linking Clinton to the Alfa Bank story for what I believe is the first time. While she had spread the story during the 2016 election, including on social media, she did so while pretending she had gotten the news from the media and not her campaign. We now know that framing was a lie.

The full impact may take a while to shake out, but I believe it will.

The only thing that could match this would be if Durham indicts multiple FBI officials on a conspiracy charge. The FBI is a very major institution in the American psyche. Conspiracy in a political fraud by the top FBI managers would be huge. Obviously I don’t know everything that John Durham knows. This Mook testimony is a perfect example of the extent of Durham’s knowledge—which probably extendsmuch further than we suspect. I’ve maintained all along that the elements for a conspiracy indictment of multiple to FBI managers are present.

We’ll have to wait and see. But for now, I’m saying that the political impact of today’s testimony has been well worth the wait.