UPDATED: What's Taking Durham So Long?
As I've indicated, I think the two recent posts on the Steele - Papadopoulos connection
take us to the heart of John Durham's investigation. Just as AG Bill Barr has been telling us all along, Durham wants to get to the origins of the Russia Hoax. The thing is, getting to the origins doesn't just take us back , it also points us forward to later events that flowed from the original Russia Hoax--like, forward to the Mueller Witchhunt. The reason for that is the realization that the FBI knew--NO LATER THAN JANUARY, 2017--that the Steele "dossier" that was key to the Russia Hoax was, not to put too fine a point on it, bullsh*t that was paid for by Hillary. If the FBI knew that--and they did, as we know from the Strzok/Page texts--then that has to mean that Rod Rosenstein and Team Mueller knew it, too. And if they knew that, exactly what was going on when Rosenstein appointed Mueller?
Senators Grassley and Johnson have done the American public the favor of pointing to some footnotes in the Horowitz Dossier--the so-called FISA abuse report. Those footnotes are almost certainly what led Bill Barr and John Durham to take very public exception to Horowitz's take on the predication for the FBI's Russia Hoax investigations.
We have also learned that there is a Steele - Papadopoulos connection that runs through Steele associate Sergei Millian. That helps explain the use of the bogus narratives about Papadopoulos' supposed chatter about the Hillary "dirt". Since the FBI has claimed that Crossfire Hurricane was predicated on the Papadopoulos narrative rather than the Steele "dossier," the discovery of the connection for this to Steele puts the FBI players on ever shakier ground. Their last line of defense may be starting to crumble.
We're just learning some of this, but there's no secret what Durham is after. He's been gathering documentary evidence, much of it already gathered by Horowitz re the FISA applications, and is now looking for human evidence--i.e., witnesses who can testify that specific persons in the US government (FBI, DoJ, DoS, CIA, DNI) knew exactly what they were doing. It's that combination of documentation plus credible witness testimony that will make or break the conspiracy case. The combination of the two, if possible, will make for a powerful case. Will Rod Rosenstein be one of those key witnesses?
Durham isn't about to rush through this. There's too much at stake. He's moving full speed ahead, but there will be no shortcuts.
UPDATE: Not entirely clear--"separate [from]" or "separate [part of]" John Durham probe?
Catherine Herridge
@CBS_Herridge
#SCOOP Source familiar with process tells @CBSNews staff assigned by AG Barr, outside Main Justice, to review Ukraine matter. CBS News told this review is separate John Durham probe into origins FBI 2016 Russia case and being handled by US Attorney Pittsburgh ...