John Durham Wishes Everyone A Happy Easter!
And so do I, of course—to all readers!
Durham’s wishes come in the form of a memorandum that was submitted in opposition to Michael Sussmann’s motion to limit the evidence that Durham will be allowed to admit at trial:
Here are the specifics:
[Sussmann] moves to preclude the Government from
(i) introducing privilege logs into evidence,
(ii) showing redacted documents to the jury where information has been withheld based on assertions of attorney-client privilege, and
(iii) identifying for the jury the name of the party or parties asserting privilege over such documents.
Durham’s memorandum is being billed on the conservative interwebs as a “bombshell”. It basically is, although there’s disagreement regarding what further conclusions can be drawn from Durham’s revelations. Among those who have weighed, to one extent or another, are: Sundance, Techno Fog, and Nick Arama at Red State.
Sundance mostly refers the reader to Techno Fog’s analysis. However, he does also take a jab at Durham, claiming that Durham is—in the big picture—simply taking down Sussmann in order to protect the true malefactors: the government officials in the Intel agencies, the FBI and CIA. My own view is that that’s not where Durham is coming from. However, as a former but now, I hope, fully recovered believer in Bluto Barr I have to be careful to hedge my bets. Whether or not Sundance is correct about Durham to this extent, he (Sundance) is pointing to real questions—although he doesn’t spell them out. Presumably Durham knows the answers to those questions.
To be clear, Durham’s memorandum does make public just how strong a case he has against Sussmann—and presumably against Joffre, as well. Joffre has been designated as a “target” by Durham, but remains unindicted. To me, Durham’s case looked strong before, and it now seems overwhelming. A bit of history may be useful at this point.
Recall that the FBI opened their Full Investigation on the Trump campaign—Crossfire Hurricane—at the end of July, 2016. Formally, the focus of the investigation was on a subgroup of individuals who were claimed to be facilitating collusion between Trump and “the Russians”. We’ll call those individuals Carter Page, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Paul Manafort, and won’t concern ourselves with how many others there may have been. I’m going to assert that the FBI knew that the predication on which Crossfire Hurricane was opened was mediated through known operatives of the Clinton Campaign. At a minimum this fact should have constituted a red flag, warning the FBI to tread carefully in what would likely be a political minefield. That degree of caution would have been highly advisable even if the material the FBI used as predication had passed an investigative sniff test—which it didn’t.
What happens next—for purposes of the Durham memorandum—is that Michael Sussmann comes to the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, with a cock and bull story about Trump communicating with “the Russians” through an arrangement with the Alfa Bank. Sussmann provided Baker with his dossier on this supposed arrangement. The FBI proceeded to open a case to check this out. My recollection is that the case was handled by the New York Office, because of the physical location of Trump Tower and the Alfa Bank. The FBI’s NYO quickly concluded that Sussmann’s narrative—supported by pro-Hillary academics—was simply BS. And of course that conclusion was immediately communicated to FBIHQ.
The question that this raises for me is this. Since in both cases—Crossfire Hurricane and Alfa Bank—the predication should have been known by the FBI to have a provenance in the Hillary Campaign (which was publicly flogging the Alfa Bank story for all it was worth), should not the FBI said, Whoa! Let’s take another real close look at the predication for Crossfire Hurricane. We knew we were going out on a limb, and things are now starting to look even dicier—especially with the Carter Page FISA application. Shouldn’t they have wanted to get in touch with every person they could identify as involved in these anti-Trump narratives and really probe their stories? Not only did the FBI not call a pause to reconsider where they were headed, but they proceeded to send the FBI Director into a meeting with Trump to attempt—I’ll say it—to induce Trump to bail out of being inaugurated by confronting him with the Steele stories.
Comey’s try didn’t work. So shortly after the inauguration Sussmann took his dossier, including a claim that Trump was using some unique Russian cell phone to betray the US, to the CIA. The CIA, like the FBI before them, took a look at the dossier and very quickly concluded that it was total BS (I quote here from Techno Fog):
The CIA reviewed the Trump/YotaPhone data (and the Alfa Bank data) in early 2017. The fact that the CIA accepted this data on President Trump is its own scandal. In any event, the CIA’s findings are significant, as they concluded that the data was not “technically plausible” and was “user created and not machine/tool generated.”
What happened next? Wouldn’t you expect the CIA to inform the FBI, since the FBI handles Counterintelligence matters? Shouldn’t the CIA have asked Sussmann whether he had presented this nonsense to any other government agency? Shouldn’t the two agencies have put their heads together and gone to whoever was running DoJ at the time (Sally Yates?)? Maybe even clue Trump in to what the Hillary Campaign was up to—because please don’t anyone suggest that Sussmann’s real affiliations were somehow a mystery to official DC.
Instead, what happened next was that Trump was set up for removal in a series of back stabbing attacks, starting with the beheading of Michael Flynn, continuing with the Andy McCabe accusations that Trump was obstructing justice by firing the insubordinate Comey. It all came to a head with the unconscionable appointment of Robert “Bob” Mueller, whose job, it seems, was to cover up all the malfeasance in the agencies and force Trump out of office. Doc Shipwrecked paints the picture of these hectic months for the Washington ruling elites:
I assume Durham has had long conversations with all the tech people at the FBI and CIA who handled this Sussmann dossier. They’ll have confirmed everything Durham says in his memorandum, and they’ll be testifying at the trial. It will be compelling evidence. But, bad as this will be for Sussmann, it only gets worse.
It turns out that Durham has key witnesses who have been granted immunity. These appear to be actual witnesses to the wrongdoing of persons who were above them in their organizational chain of command. One of these persons was employed at Fusion GPS (Chris Steele, Glenn Simpson, et alios), another was associated with Joffre’s merry band of DNS bandits. Nick Arama cites from the memorandum to give us an idea of just how explosive the testimony could prove, especially that coming from Fusion GPS:
Durham went on at length in the filing about the Clinton campaign connection, and the evidence that Sussmann was working for them when he allegedly lied to the FBI and said he wasn’t.
All of this evidence is highly probative, insofar as it establishes that the defendant (i) represented and worked for the Clinton Campaign in connection with its broader opposition research efforts, (ii) took steps to integrate the Russian Bank-1 allegations into those opposition research efforts, (iii) coordinated with U.K. Person-1, the U.S. Investigative Firm, and Tech Executive-1 in connection with the Russian Bank-1 allegations, and (iv) carried out his September 19, 2016 meeting with the FBI in order to, among other things, further the interests of the Clinton Campaign with assistance from the U.S. Investigative Firm.
This next part is legally a bit technical, but it’s important. What the testimony Durham wants to introduce will do will be to specifically tie the Hillary Campaign in to Sussmann’s activities at the trial. What this is about is the fact that the Hillary Campaign and Joffre are attempting to assert attorney client privilege to prevent evidence being turned over to Durham. Durham wants to introduce testimony about those claims of privilege, and he explains why that will be relevant:
Durham points out how the Clinton campaign and Tech Executive-1 claimed privilege over the information [as set out in the previous quoted paragraph], which would seem to prove the point that Durham was making.
Finally, the defendant’s argument that the Court should bar the Government from offering evidence that the Clinton Campaign and Tech Executive-1 have asserted the privilege over particular documents is similarly without merit. It is manifestly relevant to the charged offense that both the Clinton Campaign and Tech Executive-1 have asserted attorney-client privilege over documents involving the defendant that concern or relate to the Russian Bank-1 allegations. Such information is inherently probative because – as alleged in the Indictment – the defendant claimed he did not assemble those allegations on behalf of any client. For this reason, the Clinton Campaign’s and Tech Executive-1’s privilege claims over documents relating to the Russian Bank-1 allegations naturally undermine, and tend to refute, the defendant’s assertion to the FBI General Counsel. They are therefore highly probative.
Reread that slowly. Now, I’ll repeat Arama’s words: the claim of privilege by the Clinton campaign and Joffre “would seem to prove the point that Durham was making.” Sure looks like it. If Durham wins on this, as seems legally likely, Sussmann doesn’t have a chance. Hey—I’m entitled to that opinion. People can talk about DC juries and all, but IMO Sussmann is going to end up being a very unlikable defendant. Whatever.
If you want even more detail, I recommend both Techno Fog and Arama, both linked above.
Now, just to reaffirm the even bigger picture stuff.
A few days ago I linked a brief video of an interview of the late Stephen Cohen. Cohen, toward the end, asks the question that really sheds light on all of these goings on, and on why Trump had to go. At the end, discussing the Ukraine Hoax and the faux impeachment, Cohen references the supposedly out of bounds call Trump made to Zelensky. Bear in mind, at this time Zelensky had just won an overwhelming victory to become President of Ukraine. That victory had come from a platform of making peace with Russia. Cohen says, ya know what? I’d sure like to see a transcript of that entire call. Is it possible that in that call Trump gave the go ahead to Zelensky to continue with his program of peace with Russia? Think about that. During Trump’s own campaign he had been accused of being Putin’s puppet because he wanted to come to some new understanding with Russia based on mutual strategic interests shared by Russia and the US. That’s absolutely not what the Deep State—Alexander Vindman’s “Interagency” of Neocons—wanted. They wanted Russia to be destroyed. Was that the policy of the Interagency that Vindman said President Trump had no right to alter? That’s what Cohen is getting at:
Here’s how Aaron Maté puts it in a compelling new article:
Siding with Ukraine's far-right, US sabotaged Zelensky's historic mandate for peace
In 2019, Zelensky was elected on an overwhelming mandate to make peace with Russia. As Stephen F. Cohen warned that year, the US chose to side with Ukraine's far-right and fuel war.
…
The subsequent impeachment trial, and bipartisan US policy since, has made clear that Washington has had no interest in having Zelensky's back, and every interest in fueling the Donbas war that he had been elected to end. The overwhelming message from Congress, fervently amplified across the US media (including progressive outlets) with next to no dissent, was that when it comes to Ukraine's civil war, the US saw Ukraine's far-right as allies, and its civilians as cannon fodder.
The Ukrainian battle against Russian-backed rebels, State Department official and opening impeachment witness George Kent testified, was being waged by the "Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen of 1776." In his opening statement at Trump's trial, Democratic impeachment manager Adam Schiff approvingly quoted another Kent line: "The United States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here."
…
Although Trump's impeachment failed to remove him from office, it succeeded in cementing the proxy war aims of its chief proponents: rather than support Zelensky's peace mandate, Ukraine would instead be used to "fight Russia over there."
There it is in black and white—could it be any more clear? The massive effort to end Trump’s presidency by hook or crook was because of the fear that he would short circuit the Neocon drive for a war in Ukraine that would drain Russia as a power. Trump’s presidency was, for them, four years lost from their agenda. They’re now trying to make up for that lost time. As for the risk of nuclear war, Victoria Nuland’s husband says the risk is “extraordinarily tiny,” so, what the hell, let’s roll the dice! If we win we’re the global hegemon!
This is the big picture within which the Sussmann trial is playing out.
My guess is that Durham is applying maximum pressure on Sussmann to make a deal. It’s clear that Durham must think that Sussmann—perhaps in conjunction with Marc Elias and a few others—is key to rounding up the Clinton Cabal. In response to Sundance, I suggest that such a result could be far more important that convicting even such players as Comey and Brennan—although neither should be breathing easily. Rounding up the Clinton Cabal could take down a part of the true Deep State, the true Ruling Class.
Michael Tracey
@mtracey
BBC Radio warns this morning to expect use of tactical nuclear weapons. With their governments as co-combatants, “Western” audiences are being conditioned to have greater expectations for nuclear war than a diplomatic accord
I have thought “Okay, finally this is it, justice is actually going to be served!”, so many times, that I’m overcome with cynicism to the point that my response is, yeh, right. I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation. The Session’s and Barr show s really did a number on me.