Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Clintons, corruption, Intelligence Community

The Biggest Scandal That Never Was: Russian Intelligence had Infiltrated Hillarys Campaign

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Brian Cates

After the American public spent more than five long years being relentlessly assailed with the narrative that Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign [and it’s subsequent presidency] was compromised by Russian agents, not only has the truth emerged about the vicious dirty trick operation launched by the Hillary Clinton team, the September 2020 declassification of CIA briefing notes created in July of 2016 raised very real questions about which campaign it actually was that had Russian agents embedded within it.

But none of those questions were even asked, much less answered at the time by the mainstream press or anyone in either party in Washington DC.

I have been asking the pertinent questions ever since former CIA Director John Brennan’s briefing notes were declassified and publicly released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. I wrote entire columns about the issue, both at The Epoch Times and at Uncover DC.

Now, if you haven’t heard about the Brennan briefing notes, what was in them, who he briefed and when, you’re probably not going to believe it at first when I lay this out, but this is all verified with evidence. It’s not speculation or wish-casting.

For dramatic effect, I’m going to go over the boring version of the timeline that leaves out just one crucial detail. When the briefing notes have been covered in the news media, this is the version everybody sees:

  1. On July 26, 2016, a strategy meeting of the top level of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign took place.
  2. During that strategy meeting, Clinton’s top foreign policy advisor presented her with a plan for her approval.
  3. The plan involved paying political operatives in the campaign’s employ to manufacture fake Trump/Russia collusion scandals in order to distract the American public from her ongoing email server scandal.
  4. After having the plan explained to her, Hillary Clinton gave her approval
  5. The CIA soon learned about this top-level Clinton campaign strategy meeting, and CIA Director John Brennan went to the White House to brief President Obama and several members of the National Security Counsel about both the plan to vilify President Trump with fake Russian scandals and Clinton’s approval of the plan.
  6. More than a month later, the CIA sent an investigative referral to the FBI about the Russian intelligence analysis to James Comey and Peter Strzok.

OK now I’m going go through that same timeline again. See if you **spot** what I added in.

  1. On July 26, 2016, a strategy meeting of the top level of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign took place.
  2. During that strategy meeting, Clinton’s top foreign policy advisor presented her with a plan he and others had come up with for her approval.
  3. The plan involved paying political operatives in the campaign’s employ to manufacture fake Trump/Russia collusion scandals in order to distract the American public from her ongoing email server scandal.
  4. After having the plan explained to her, Hillary Clinton gave her approval.
  5. Russian intelligence agents very quickly learned what was discussed at this Clinton campaign strategy meeting, and created their own intelligence analysis of the meeting.
  6. The CIA soon learned about this top-level Clinton campaign strategy meeting when it intercepted the Russian intelligence analysis, and CIA Director John Brennan went to the White House to brief President Obama and several members of the National Security Counsel about both the plan to vilify President Trump with fake Russian scandals and Clinton’s approval of the plan

I said none of that above is speculation. I’m going to show you the documentation that supports the claims. You’ll see every one of the 6 points above is supported with documentary evidence.

The Brennan handwritten notes from his briefing with President Obama and members of the NSC at the White House either very late in July 2016 or early August 2016:

The September 2020 investigative referral that the CIA sent to the FBI:

The Ratcliffe letter to Congress in September of 2020 announcing the declassification of both Brennan’s briefing notes and the CIA investigative referral:

Ratcliffe’s letter to the US Congress that accompanied the declassified documents when they were made public:

As you can see, all six points in the timeline are fully supported by the documentation that was declassified, even down to the fact it was Hillary Clinton’s chief foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan that presented her with the plan to target Trump with fake Russia scandals.

How Did The Russians Find Out So Fast?

The one thing **everybody avoids discussing** for the past two years is exactly how Russian intelligence agents were able to so quickly create a detailed analysis of this key Clinton campaign strategy meeting where the dirty trick operation targeting Trump with fake Russia scandals was presented to her and she approved it.

The one question nobody dares ask is: how did the Russians find out almost instantly what was discussed at this meeting and get an analysis of it created, which allowed the CIA to intercept it and then quickly go brief Obama and members of his NSC about it?

IF that Russian intelligence analysis was real, then that means the Hillary Clinton for President campaign either had a Russian agent embedded at a high level or someone at the highest level of the campaign was unwittingly handing the details to a Russian agent.

“That’s Just More Russian Disinformation!”

The one objection that’s going to be immediately raised when this question comes up of how Russian intelligence got this info so quickly is that the intelligence analysis the CIA intercepted was just Russian propaganda; it wasn’t real. The Hillary Clinton campaign never held a strategy meeting in July of 2016 where Jake Sullivan presented her with a plan to vilify Trump by manufacturing fake Russia scandals. It never happened.

The problem with this objection is that Brennan and the CIA took the Russian intelligence analysis they’d intercepted so seriously that Brennan went to the White House to brief the President and the NSC about it.

And then more than a month later, in September the CIA was still taking the Russian analysis seriously when they sent the investigative referral to both then-FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok.

While two years ago back in September/October of 2020 it was pretty darn easy to dismiss the new declassification as just ‘Russian disinformation’, a whole lot more evidence has surfaced since then about the fact that the Clinton campaign did indeed launch a dirty trick operation that targeted the Trump campaign with fake Russia scandals.

If the Russian intel analysis that the CIA intercepted and briefed Obama about is fake, it just so happens it was an amazingly accurate fake.

Two years ago several key facts about the manufacture of the fake Steele Dossier and Alfa Bank hoaxes by Clinton’s private operatives had not yet been made public. For that reason the mainstream press had to expend little effort in simply dismissing the Ratcliffe declassification as ‘mere Russian disinformation’.

John Brennan himself, when braced with the implications of his own briefing notes in October of 2020, had this to say to Jake Tapper on CNN:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ZpKWBnntPIs?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

So when asked about these notes and what they say, Brennan obfuscates and lies about his own briefing notes.

The CIA intercepted a Russian intelligence analysis of a very key top level Clinton campaign strategy meeting in which her top foreign policy advisor presented her with a plan to vilify Trump with fake Russia scandals as a way to distract the public from her own email server scandal. And Clinton approved the plan. THIS IS WHAT BRENNAN’S OWN NOTES SAY.

What the former CIA Director artfully dodges in this video above is the real reason the CIA sent an investigative referral to the FBI: they wanted to know who at the very top of the Clinton campaign was either a Russian agent or blabbing details to a Russian agent.

People miss the mark when they think what the CIA was asking the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division to do was to investigate to see if Hillary Clinton’s campaign had indeed approved and launched a dirty trick operation targeting Donald Trump. NOTHING ABOUT THAT HAS TO DO WITH COUNTERINTELLIGENCE.

No, what then-FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok were being asked to investigate and find out was **who in the Clinton campaign was compromised by Russia**. THAT is the kind of thing a counterintelligence investigation looks into.

How did a foreign intelligence service get all the details of this Clinton meeting?

And I watched 2 years ago as nobody cared to even ask these questions, much less answer them.

But I have hope that someday these important questions will be addressed. Because I suspect Special Counsel John Durham is very interested in how Russian intelligence so quickly got an analysis of the meeting.

I believe Durham’s very interested in anything having to do with the Clinton dirty trick campaign targeting Trump for fake Russia scandals, and that would include how Brennan came to the White House in mid-2016 to brief both President Obama and key members of the NSC about it.

I’ll close with this: The Vice President is a key member of the NSC. In fact, the VP is what’s referred to as a ‘statutory attendee’ when the NSC meets. He’s required to be there.

It is **extremely likely** that current President Joe Biden was in the room when CIA Director Brennan briefed Obama and other NSC members in mid-2016 about the coming Trump/Russia hoaxes that the Clinton campaign was preparing to release.

They all knew. By mid-2016. Long before any FISA warrant application was presented to spy on Carter Page.

They all knew, nobody was fooled by the Clinton private operatives coming to them with the Steele Dossier hoax or the Alfa Bank hoax.

Obama knew. Biden knew. Comey knew. Brennan knew. Strzok knew. Susan Rice knew.

THEY. ALL. KNEW.

And they played along anyway and pretended they didn’t know anything at all about a dirty trick campaign using paid operatives being sent to them by Hillary Clinton. So they could spy on and investigate and sabotage Donald J. Trump.

And Durham will 100% prove this.

And you can quote me on that.

Clintons, corruption, Durham Investigation

Durham Unmasks Alliance Between Media, Democrat Dirt Diggers That Triggered False Russia Story

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John Solomon
April 30th, 2022

Just days after Hillary Clinton emissaries Christopher Steele and Michael Sussmann approached the FBI in September 2016 with dirt that would infuse the Russia collusion probe, the campaign’s opposition research firm sent some of the same information to New York Times journalists.

“Gents good to see you yesterday,” a Fusion GPS executive wrote the reporters. “Sounded like you might be interested in some of the attached russia-related material. these are internal, open source research drafts, as agreed, pls treat this as background/not for attribution. as you’ll see it’s all easily replicated anyway.”

The invitation to further dirty up Donald Trump continued: “Can also send you a [name]/Toronto memo once i dig it out. I’m skipping over [name] and [company name]. believe your guys have done that up … leave it to you to distribute internally, or not, as you see fit. don’t believe sunny isles/hollywood or panama or toronto have been touched by brands xy or z. amazingly, don’t think anyone has done up the trump tower poker ring story either. pretty vivid color there.”

The missive is one of hundreds of emails that Special Counsel John Durham has obtained between Clinton campaign operatives and journalists that spread “unverified derogatory information” about Donald Trump, spawning the false Russia collusion narrative shortly before Election Day 2016. They’ve now been made public in court filings.

File: gov.uscourts.dcd_.235638.97.0.pdf

Durham recently disclosed several communications with reporters in a filing designed to reject the Clinton campaign’s claim that its Steele dossier and other research should be shielded from public view at an upcoming trial because it was covered by attorney client privilege.

Durham’s argument is straightforward: Attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply to materials the campaign distributed widely to third parties.

But his filing also puts the traditional media on notice that when Sussmann’s trial on a charge of lying to the FBI begins next month, the unholy alliance between traditional media reporters and the Democrat machine will be laid bare for the world to see.

And it is clear prosecutors have a clear theory that much of the information spread and then reported by the news media was glaringly weak if not outright false. Durham’s filings refer to the Clinton opposition research alternately as a “red herring,” “unverified” “too obvious” to be true, or containing a “very weak link.” In some cases, those were words used by the very researchers helping assemble the materials.

Yet the traditional media reported it and re-reported it for nearly two years before Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy to hijack the 2016 election.

“One of the famous fake news outlets likes to say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ They’re exactly right,” former Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican House Intelligence Committee chairman who helped uravel the Russia collusion narrative, told Just the News. “They’re the ones who have created the darkness, and democracy does die. It just happens to be the fake news media that’s actually creating this.”

Kash Patel, Nunes’ former chief counsel on the committee, said traditional news media outlets are ignoring or downplaying much of the bombshell revelations in Durham’s filings because “the mainstream media, the fake news media, cannot stand how right we were and how wrong they are.”

Whatever the coverage, Durham’s filings make abundantly clear the Clinton campaign used the media to spread uncorroborated Russia allegations to dirty up Trump at the same time its emissaries were trying to get the FBI, the CIA and the State Department to investigate the same dirt.

The Clinton campaign and its opposition research team “triggered a sizeable outflow of unverified derogatory information into the media, the government, and the public,” Durham wrote in one filing.

In another he added: “The documents produced by Fusion GPS to date reflect hundreds of emails in which Fusion GPS employees shared raw, unverified, and uncorroborated information — including their own draft research and work product — with reporters. And they appear to have done so as part of a (largely successful) effort to trigger negative news stories about” Trump.

Durham said the flooding of the news media was so egregious that it obliterated any claim by the Clinton campaign that Fusion’s work was attorney-client privileged work designed to advise on libel issues.

“One would expect contemporaneous emails and documents to reflect that Fusion GPS and/or its clients exercised some degree of caution and care before publicizing unverified or potentially inflammatory materials,” but they did not, Durham noted.

The most recent Durham filing lays out several contacts Fusion GPS and the Clinton team had with news media, including The New York Times, ABC News and Slate magazine.

The first media contact noted by Durham dates to May 2016, well before the Steele dossier was crafted or the FBI contacted.

“On May 14, 2016, a Fusion GPS employee emailed a Slate reporter who would publish an article about the Russian Bank-1 allegations several months later,” the court fling noted. “In the exchange and subsequent emails, the employee shared portions of research that Fusion GPS was conducting regarding a Trump advisor.”

By July, the campaign research team expanded its contacts, including to the Wall Street Journal, to which it “conveyed information Fusion GPS had gathered regarding, among other things, Trump Advisor-1, Russian Bank-1, and a purported board member of Russian Bank-1 who later would appear in the Fusion GPS white paper that the defendant provided to the FBI.”

Some of Durham’s newly released information shows how the Clinton campaign pointed reporters to elected officials who would confirm or react to the Russia information.

For instance, the prosecutor noted that a Fusion GPS executive urged a reporter at the Wall Street Journal to “call [a named U.S. Representative] or [a named U.S. Senator],” stating, “I bet they are concerned about what [Trump Advisor-1] was doing other than giving a speech over 3 days in Moscow.”

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, told Just the News on Friday that Durham is showing just how closely the media, the Democratic establishment and some rogue elements in U.S intelligence worked together to perpetrate the false Russia story in 2016 — a pattern he said was repeated when the same forces falsely portrayed the Hunter Biden laptop as disinformation in 2020.

“What we all suspected all along is that the Clinton campaign was really pushing this,” he said. “And we didn’t know that they just made it up out of whole cloth. But that looks like exactly what they did.”

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Clinton Campaign Last-Minute Bid To Block Evidence in Durham Case Likely to Fail

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Jon Dougherty
April 25, 2022

OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.

Lawyers for former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign filed a last-minute plea last week to block special counsel John Durham from introducing certain evidence during the trial of Michael Sussmann, claiming “attorney-client privilege.”

But the bid to bar the evidence from being admitted is likely to fail, Just the News reported, citing several experts who are observing the case.

“[T]he sweeping requests for confidentiality — including research from former MI6 agent and opposition researcher Christopher Steele — face a high hurdle,” experts said, the outlet reported.

“That’s because the very subjects the Clinton campaign now seeks to protect — such as its now-discredited anti-Trump research — were widely distributed without regard to privilege for years,” the report continued.

The contents of the now-infamous Steele dossier, for instance, were shared with several news reporters, the FBI, and the State Department. Steele himself talked extensively about his 2016 conversations and dealings with the Clinton law firm, its research firm Fusion GPS and the FBI in a British court case

Sussmann shared much of a research project — which turned out to be untrue — alleging a secret communications channel at the Alfa Bank between Trump and the Kremlin.

And several of the Clinton campaign figures gave testimony to Congress that exposed who paid for the research falsely tying Trump to Russia, what was in it and why it was conducted.

Said another way, each of the disclosures to third parties amounted to a waiver of any attorney-client privilege claims, at a minimum.

Several experts and observers of the case who spoke to the outlet thought that it was outrageous, and perhaps even a little desperate, considering that the dossier was always meant to be made public.

“It is clear as a matter of law and legal ethics that legal research intended to be made public is not protected by attorney-client privilege,” Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor who supported Clinton in 2016 but dismisses her privilege claims now, told Just the News. “Even if it were, any privilege would be waived by testimony given about the research or the product.”

In addition, Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor who was instrumental in exposing the Russia collusion hoax while serving as chief investigative counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, added that Durham has several options for beating back the belated privilege claims, “including the argument it does not apply in a circumstance where lawyers were passing along false information,” Just the News reported.

“The attorney-client privilege, from my former federal prosecutor days, is eviscerated if you share with a third party,” Patel told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “But what John Durham is saying — he’s coming in over the top and saying, ‘No, no, you can’t hide behind the privilege laws. This is an attempt to block information of an ongoing fraud. You cannot use the attorney-client privilege. There’s a crime-fraud exception.’”

House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), meanwhile, remarked that the Clinton campaign’s claims of privilege were ridiculous in large part because of all of the times the Russian collusion narrative was shared with third parties. He also said the filing appears to a desperate attempt at delaying the trial of Sussmann, who served as one of the campaign’s lawyers.

“I think their attorneys missed that 15 minutes in ethics class, which tells you that you’ve waived the privilege when you start leaking it or even have somebody present while you’re discussing it,” Biggs told “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show. “That’s not part of the attorney-client relationship.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a winner. I think they’re going to lose on that. And, you know, it’s starting to unravel for them pretty quickly. And they just don’t want the truth to come out,” Biggs said.

Just the News adds: “According to Durham’s team, Sussmann shared the Alfa Bank research with at least two third parties: the FBI in September 2016 and the CIA in February 2017.”

Clintons, Durham Investigation, law

Clinton senior campaign team leaves cohort Sussmann holding the bag ahead of Durham trial

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Aaron Kliegman
April 20, 2022 

Former top Hillary Clinton presidential campaign officials are leaving onetime Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to bear the brunt of the blame for orchestrating the now-debunked claim that Donald Trump and his associates colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 race, new court filings show.

Requests to intervene in the case were filed late Tuesday by the Clinton campaign, campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign manager Robby Mook, and law firm Perkins Coie, which represented the campaign.

In his prosecution of Sussmann on a charge of lying to the FBI, special counsel John Durham has been seeking certain documents that are being withheld by the campaign and Perkins Coie under claims of attorney-client privilege and work product protection.

“Hillary for America [HFA] respectfully moves this honorable court to intervene as an interested non-party to assert privilege claims over documents and information that the government seeks to compel,” the campaign wrote.

Mook, Podesta, and Perkins Coie all similarly cited attorney-client privilege in their filings seeking to block the release of communications concerning their research on alleged Trump-Russia ties.

“At all times relevant to the government’s pending motion to compel and continuing through August 2021, Perkins Coie served as general counsel to HFA,” Podesta testified. “HFA asserts its attorney-client privilege and the attorney-work-product protection with respect to all documents and information under the control of Perkins Coie or any of its consultants, including Fusion GPS. HFA is not waiving any of its privileges.”

Fusion GPS was the opposition research firm hired by Perkins Coie to help the Clinton campaign dig up dirt on Trump.

The new filings are expected to hurt Sussmann’s defense in his trial, scheduled to begin next month, with many key players connected to the Russia collusion hoax attempting to distance themselves from Durham’s probe — and thereby putting much of the onus on Sussmann.

Legal experts told Just the News that Clinton’s former team and its allies are attempting to prevent damaging evidence that could potentially implicate them in wrongdoing in the Trump-Russia saga from coming to light.

“In effect, they are making a bogus attorney client-privilege claim to hide evidence of all their wrongdoing,” said Kash Patel, former chief investigator of the Russia investigation under then-House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes. “We knew it when I took their congressional depositions under oath. Now [Special Counsel] John Durham puts it all on display, and the world is finally paying attention.”

Patel noted that Sussmann is left in the position to take much of the blame for the Russia hoax.

Durham was appointed special counsel in October 2020 to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia collusion probe. He’s prosecuting Sussmann on a charge that the high-powered attorney, who was a partner at Perkins Coie, lied to the FBI at a September 2016 meeting in which he presented the agency with information insinuating concealed Trump-Russia links.

Sussman has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Earlier this month, Durham said in a separate court filing that Sussmann texted an FBI official the night before the 2016 meeting saying, “I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the bureau.”

Durham has called Sussmann’s claims that he was not meeting with the FBI on behalf of any clients a “lie,” hiding from the bureau that the Trump-Russia claims originally came from Clinton’s 2016 campaign and a tech executive linked to the campaign.

According to Durham, the tech executive, Rodney Joffe, aided the Clinton campaign by monitoring Trump’s internet activities and mining data “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump” — and to create a “narrative” that Trump secretly communicated with the Kremlin. Joffe allegedly shared the information with Sussmann.

Sussmann’s defense has asked Durham to grant immunity to Joffe, so that he can testify about his interactions with Sussmann regarding the 2016 meeting. Durham has refused.

The Sussmann trial is part of a broader investigation by Durham, who alleges some of the dirt on Trump that the Clinton campaign shared with the government is false.

Much of the false Trump-Russia narrative was assembled after Perkins hired Fusion GPS, which went on to solicit former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to create the infamous and discredited Steele dossier, which contained several salacious and since-debunked claims about Trump.

Fusion GPS was also asked to disclose documents for the Sussmann trial and submitted a filing on Tuesday asserting attorney-client privilege in order to avoid complying.

“The documents the government seeks to compel were created as part of the work Fusion performed in support of Perkins’s legal representation of HFA and DNC [Democratic National Committee], which is protected by both work-product protection and the attorney-client privilege,” the filing read.

Fusion GPS also claimed in its motion that it was retained by then-Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, a top DNC election attorney, not to find dirt on Trump but rather to help Perkins in the event that Trump filed lawsuits against the Clinton campaign, DNC, or their allies.

Elias had a “reasonable concern about Mr. Trump’s litigiousness given his numerous threats of and actual litigation against his critics,” Fusion said in its filing. “Indeed, that concern was prescient, with Mr. Trump having recently launched litigation seeking tens of millions of dollars against every interested party here.”

However, more than $1 million flowed from the Clinton campaign and DNC to Perkins, which hired Fusion, which in turn asked Steele to use his overseas contacts to dig up dirt on Trump. The DNC and Clinton campaign were fined by the Federal Election Commission last month for lying about how they used money to fund the Steele Dossier.

Fusion said in its Tuesday filing that the government hasn’t proved the documents it seeks are relevant to its narrow indictment of Sussmann for lying to the FBI. That claim doesn’t hold water, according to Patel, a former federal prosecutor.

In trying to get his charge dismissed by a federal court, “Sussmann said his lie was immaterial” to Durham’s probe,” explained Patel. “Durham is saying no, I have this info to say why this lie is material.”

The documents Durham is seeking, added Patel, will show materiality and are therefore relevant to the trial.

Mook, Podesta, Elias, the DNC, and Perkins Coie all didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Clintons, Durham Investigation, Social-Media

Durham Wants to Use Hillary Clinton’s Tweet Accusing Trump of Having a Secret Line of Communication with Russian Alfa Bank as Evidence in Sussmann Trial

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Cristina Laila
April 19, 2022

Special Prosecutor John Durham wants to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet accusing Trump of having a secret line of communication with Russian Alfa Bank as evidence in Michael Sussmann’s trial next month.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s motion to dismiss Durham’s case was denied by a federal judge last week.

Sussmann was indicted last September for lying to the FBI.

According to the indictment, Sussmann falsely told James Baker he wasn’t doing work “for any client” when he asked for a meeting with the FBI where he presented bogus evidence the Trump Tower was secretly communicating with Kremlin-tied Alfa Bank.

Hillary Clinton fired off a tweet claiming Trump Tower was secretly communicating with Russian Alfa Bank.

The defamatory tweet is still on Twitter.

Sussmann doesn’t want Durham to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet in next month’s trial, however the special prosecutor wants it to be admitted as evidence.

The Washington Examiner reported:

The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged with concealing his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI doesn’t want special counsel John Durham to be able to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet touting the Trump-Russia collusion claims he was pushing as evidence at trial.

Michael Sussmann was indicted in September for allegedly concealing his clients — Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “Tech Executive-1,” known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe — from FBI general counsel James Baker in September 2016 when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.

Durham told the federal court last week he wanted an October 2016 tweet from the Clinton campaign promoting the Alfa-Bank claims to be admitted as evidence at the May trial.

The special counsel argued the tweet is not inadmissible hearsay “because it is not being offered for its truth” — emphasizing that the prosecutors actually believe its claims were false. Durham said he instead wanted to present the tweet to “show the existence of the defendant’s attorney-client relationship with the Clinton Campaign, which is directly relevant to the false statement charge.”

Clintons, Durham Investigation, law

Durham: Five Hillary Clinton Associates Are Taking the Fifth in Russia Hoax Prosecution

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JOEL B. POLLAK
18 Apr 2022

Five associates of Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign are invoking their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to cooperate with Special Counsel John H. Durham, according a filing in federal court revealed later Friday in Washington, DC.

The revelation emerged in a motion filed by Durham to oppose the efforts of defendant Michael Sussmann and the Clinton campaign to withhold some documents from evidence by asserting attorney-client privilege.

Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI in 2016 when he informed the FBI about a fraudulent link between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian government via Alfa Bank. Sussmann allegedly presented himself as a concerned citizen, and hid the fact that he was working for the Clinton campaign.

In the filing, Durham noted that while one witness, identified as “Researcher-2,” was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony, “at least five other witnesses who conducted work relating to the Russian Bank-1 allegations invoked (or indicated their intent to invoke) their right against self-incrimination.”

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley noted in a commentary on the filing:

[Durham] is now moving to give immunity to a key witness while revealing that the claims made by the Clinton campaign were viewed by the CIA as “not technically plausible” and “user created.” He also revealed that at least five of the former Clinton campaign contractors/researchers have invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to cooperate in fear that they might incriminate themselves in criminal conduct.

Turley also noted that Durham’s filing “also detailed how the false Russian collusion claims related to Alfa Bank involved Clinton General Counsel Marc Elias and Christopher Steele.”

Steele is the former British spy who worked for opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce the fraudulent Russia “dossier” that triggered government surveillance of the Trump campaign and the broader “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory.

Elias is a prominent election attorney for Democrats who arranged the funding for the “dossier” and went on to lead Democrats’ efforts to force the adoption of vote-by-mail in key battleground states in the 2020 presidential election.

Durham’s filing indicates that the government wishes to introduce evidence of communications between the “Clinton Campaign leadership” and “Campaign Lawyer-1,” who is widely presumed to be Elias, about the Alfa Bank hoax.

Clintons, Durham Investigation, law

Federal Judge Denies Hillary Clinton Lawyer Michael Sussmann’s Motion to Dismiss Durham Case – Trial Begins May 16

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Cristina Laila
April 13, 2022

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s motion to dismiss Durham’s case was denied by a federal judge on Wednesday.

Sussmann was indicted last September for lying to the FBI.

According to the indictment, Sussmann falsely told James Baker he wasn’t doing work “for any client” when he asked for a meeting with the FBI where he presented bogus evidence the Trump Tower was secretly communicating with Kremlin-tied Alfa Bank.

The attorneys for Michael Sussmann in February requested the courts dismiss Durham’s case against him.

Sussmann’s lawyers absurdly argued that his false statement to the feds is protected under the First Amendment and made no impact on the FBI’s probe.

Durham blasted Sussmann in a new filing last month and revealed Hillary’s lawyer actually alleged Trump and his associates were using Russian-made phones in the vicinity of the White House.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, agreed with John Durham and denied Sussmann’s motion to dismiss.

“Specifically, Sussmann allegedly told Baker that he was not attending the meeting on behalf of any client when, in fact, he had assembled and was conveying the information on behalf of two specific clients: (1) a technology-industry executive named Rodney Joffe and (2) the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign,” Cooper wrote in a 6-page opinion.

“The FBI opened an investigation based on the information Sussmann provided, but ultimately determined that there was insufficient evidence to support the existence of a communication channel between the Trump campaign and the Russian bank. Sussmann has pled not guilty to the charge and denies lying to the FBI,” the judge added.

“The court will deny the motion,” Cooper wrote.

Trial begins May 16.

Clintons, Durham Investigation, law

Special Counsel John Durham continues his focus on the Hillary Clinton Campaign

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TECHNO FOG
April 11th, 2022

Special Counsel John Durham has asked high-ranking officials from the Clinton Campaign and Hillary for America, including the Clinton Campaign’s Chair (who we believe to be John Podesta1), about their awareness of the activities conducted by Fusion GPS on Hillary’s behalf.

This confirms an important avenue of Durham’s investigation: whether the Hillary Campaign or Hillary for America were part of a conspiracy to traffic false information to the FBI and other governmental entities.

While we reported on this development back in December, Durham’s latest filing (available here) provides context to his statement that Hillary for America, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and former employees of that campaign were involved “in matters before the Special Counsel.”

Those “matters” apparently now include the Alfa Bank data (the purported secret communications between Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization). The importance of this data was suggested in another filing (April 8, 2022), where Sussmann’s lawyers provided to the Court a March 30, 2022 letter from Special Counsel Durham to Sussmann’s attorneys.

That letter addresses the Special Counsel’s understanding that Sussmann’s lawyers would not “offer evidence, or engage in questioning, that would imply, assert, or seek to prove the authenticity of the relevant DNS data or the actual truth of the allegations at issue concerning a secret channel of communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank.”

It also served as a warning. Should Sussmann’s attorneys try to establish the accuracy of the Alfa Bank/Trump data, the Special Counsel’s expert would be ready to testify that the data was falsified:

That statement is the strongest thus far that the Special Counsel has determined the Alfa Bank/Trump data was spoofed in order to mislead the press and the FBI. A conspiracy, if you will.

Moving on – besides Alfa Bank, what else might these “matters” referenced by Durham include?

For starters, whether the Clinton Campaign or Hillary for America knew about, or directed the activities of, Charles Dolan (the longtime Clinton ally and the “source” of Steele dossier primary subsource Igor Danchenko). As we noted back in January, we believe that Dolan has testified before a grand jury on these issues.

 Recall that Durham informed the Court that the Igor Danchenko (Steele’s primary subsource) trial might include the following issues:

  1. The Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the Fusion GPS reports sourced by Danchenko,
  2. The Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Dancehnko’s collection methods and sub-sources,
  3. Meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and/or Steele regarding or involving Danchenko
  4. Danchenko knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the Fusion GPS reports, and
  5. The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.

Let’s go with a hypothetical and assume for a moment that the Clinton Campaign was involved in conspiracies to traffic false information to the FBI/DOJ via the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank allegations. (Still an assumption at this time – beware the danger of false hope. We saw the other side get trapped and humiliated with their promises of indictments.)

Why go to those lengths – and why risk criminal exposure? Especially with polling predicting a near-certain Hillary win?

Dare I suggest it all goes back to the DNC “hack”.

Privilege Issues

One of the filings we discussed above (regarding Podesta) is Durham’s motion to compel the production of documents against the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Hillary for America, Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie. Each one of these entities has “withheld and/or redacted documents and communications” from the Special Counsel. Fusion GPS, for example has withheld 1,455 documents.

Not to be outdone, Hillary for American and the DNC have asserted privilege over communications between Rodney Joffe (“Tech Executive-1” in the Sussmann indictment) and Fusion GPS – despite the DNC or HFA not being attached to those e-mails. Rodney Joffe, according to Durham, “has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over any responsive documents within his personal possession, custody, or control.”

What exactly does Durham want from the Clinton Campaign, et al.? Here’s some examples:

  1. The unredacted contract between Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS. (View the redacted version here.)
  2. “38 emails and attachments between and among” Perkins Coie, Rodney Joffe, and/or Fusion GPS employees.
  3. Communications between Fusion GPS and Rodney Joffe relating to the Alfa Bank allegations.

The primary basis of the privilege asserted by the DNC, et al., is that the work-product from Fusion GPS or Rodney Joffe was done in anticipation of litigation. When asking whether a document is prepared “in anticipation of litigation,” courts will look to whether “the document can fairly be said to have been prepared or obtained because of the prospect of litigation.” FTC v. Boehringer, 778 F.3d 142, 147 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

 The protects afforded by the work-product doctrine are the very reason why Perkins Coie referenced “potential and/or on-going litigation” in its contract with Fusion GPS. In other words, they planned ahead for the possibility that this privilege might need to be asserted. (This is the privilege Fusion GPS was asserting when it was sued by the owners of Alfa Bank.)

The good news?

The DNC, Hillary for America, Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie will likely be compelled by the Court to produce the documents requested by Durham. Their arguments of “privilege” are weak for a number of reasons, including: (1) the work was of a political nature and did not involve legal advice; (2) the work was not done in anticipation of litigation; (3) any privilege was waived, as Fusion GPS, the DNC/HFA, and Perkins Coie all did their part to distribute the information to the press, government officials, etc.

Continue reading @ TECHNO FOG’s Substack

Clintons, Durham Investigation, law

More Damning Evidence Surfaces Against Hillary Clinton in Durham Probe

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Martin Walsh
April 8, 2022

More and more damaging evidence continues to surface against Hillary Clinton in Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

During an interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson, California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa argued that it’s time for Durham to get the ball rolling.

“Justice delayed is justice denied is not some sort of a trite statement. It’s very true,” Issa told Attkisson.

“The fact is, the time has passed. It is pretty irrelevant, except it’s a lesson to Congress that putting real-time limits and putting real meat in activities, including inspector general’s reports and so on, is more important than ever. The time it takes to complete an investigation, or the time it takes for Congress to get to the truth, impacts whether or not you’re going to get the truth and compliance in a timely fashion. If you can hold an administration accountable in real-time, they will cooperate. If they know they can run out the clock, as they often do, they won’t,” Issa said.

Last month, a federal judge rejected a bid by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to “strike” a “factual background” section of Special Counsel John Durham’s early February court filing.

Sussmann’s legal team filed a motion demanding that the court remove portions of the Feb. 11 filing that included the “Factual Background” section by claiming that it would “taint” a jury.

“I’m not going to strike anything from the record,” noted U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Christopher Cooper during a status hearing. “Whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.”

“Allowing this case to go forward would risk criminalizing ordinary conduct, raise First Amendment concerns, dissuade honest citizens from coming forward with tips, and chill the advocacy of lawyers who interact with the government,” the filing stated.

Durham’s team responded by calling his claims “absurd” and asked the federal court in the District of Columbia to proceed.

“And far from being immaterial, they went on to say that ‘the defendant’s false statement was capable of influencing both the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation and its subsequent conduct of that investigation,” the filing continued.

In its response to the Sussmann filing, Durham’s team noted: “The defendant’s false statement to the FBI General Counsel was plainly material because it misled the General Counsel about, among other things, the critical fact that the defendant was disseminating highly explosive allegations about a then-Presidential candidate on behalf of two specific clients, one of which was the opposing Presidential campaign.”

“The defendant’s efforts to mislead the FBI in this manner during the height of a Presidential election season plainly could have influenced the FBI’s decision-making in any number of ways,” Durham’s team continued.

Since then, Durham’s team has uncovered a smoking gun text message to the FBI that indicates there was a “conspiracy” and “joint venture” to create a false narrative to saddle Donald Trump with a phony Russian “collusion” narrative.

Durham also revealed in a recent court filing, “revealed he has unearthed a text message showing Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann falsely told the FBI he was not working on behalf of any client when he delivered anti-Trump research.”

Durham also put “the courts on notice he is prepared to show the effort to smear Donald Trump with now-disproven Russia collusion allegations was a ‘conspiracy.’”

Clintons, Durham Investigation, Investigative Journalism

Durham Hints at a Conspiracy Involving Agents of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign to Harm Trump with Russia Collusion Hoax

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Cristina Laila
April 5, 2022 

A new filing by special prosecutor John Durham hints at a conspiracy involving agents of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in order to harm Trump’s campaign and presidency with the Russia collusion hoax.

A newly unearthed text message from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to former FBI counsel James Baker shows he deceived the FBI when he said he was not working for an official client when he delivered bogus ‘evidence’ that Trump Tower was communicating with Russian Alfa Bank.

By Techno Fog:

There was a flurry of filings in the Michael Sussmann case late yesterday. Here’s the latest.

On September 19, 2016, DNC/Clinton Campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met with FBI General Counsel James Baker, where Baker was provided with data and “white paper” purporting to show covert communications (since proven to be bogus) between Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.

Special Counsel John Durham has just provided evidence that the night before – on September 18, 2016 – Sussmann sent Baker this text:

As it turns out, Sussmann was billing the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Alfa Bank hoax. This text from Sussmann to Baker is damning for Sussmann’s case, proving Sussmann’s efforts at deceiving a top official at the FBI about his clients, and demonstrating how Sussmann tried to convince Baker he was there to supposedly do the right thing.

Notes (produced by Durham) taken by Assistant FBI Director Bill Priestap and former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson – taken in their conversation with Baker after his Sussmann meeting – help corroborate Baker’s recollection of Sussmann’s lies:

In this filing, Sussmann seeks to preclude the use of these notes, arguing they hearsay not subject to an exception. (It also confirms that Priestap has testified before a grand jury – something we posited back in January.) Durham disagrees and argues they are admissible, and Durham likely wins this dispute.

Sussmann also asks the Court to order the Special Counsel to give Rodney Joffe immunity for his testimony – or have the case dismissed.

Of course, Joffe (Tech Executive-1 in the Sussmann indictment) is the Sussmann client who helped lead the effort to manufacture the Alfa Bank/Trump hoax. Sussmann maintains that Joffe would “offer critical exculpatory testimony on behalf of Mr. Sussmann” – but cannot because Durham is “manufacturing incredible claims of continuing criminal liability for Mr. Joffe that are forcing Mr. Joffe to assert his Fifth Amendment right.”

That’s a long way of saying that Joffe faces real (and perhaps imminent) criminal exposure. Let’s talk about that for a moment. The bad news for Joffe is good reading for us.

The April 1, 2022 letter from Joffe’s attorney to Sussmann’s attorney. In this letter (available here – with my highlights), Joffe’s counsel confirmed that Joffe “remains a subject” of the Special Counsel’s investigation. According to Andrew DeFilippis (from the Office of the Special Counsel), Joffe’s “status in the investigation was sufficient to establish a good faith basis to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination.”

To this statement, Joffe’s attorney responded that the statute of limitations had run since the events described in the Sussmann indictment. The Special Counsel disagreed, stating that “certain fraud statutes have longer than a five-year limitations period,” and the Russian Yota phone-related allegations (given to the CIA in February 2017) “percolated through various branches of the government and around the private sector after that date, in various forms.”

Read Techno Fog’s full SubStack post here.