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Hillary Clinton

Special Counsel John Durham Requests 30 New Subpoenas in Danchenko Trial

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John Durham has officially requested that a federal court send out 30 subpoenas for testimony in the approaching trial against research analyst Igor Danchenko. Danchenko is the alleged primary source of the now-debunked “Steele dossier”, an opposition research report designed to attack former President Donald Trump. 

The MSM was quick to label John Durham’s investigation a “failure” after Michael Sussman was found not guilty in a Washington DC court. The media rushed to call the verdict a “significant blow.” However, many onlookers, including former federal prosecutor and public defender Kash Patel, held little hope for an honest trial in the District of Columbia. Patel went so far as to call the verdict a “miscarriage of justice”.

Despite the establishment media’s attempts to make the Sussman verdict ring out as indicative of how Durham’s future endeavors will go, much was learned and put on the record, including the testimony of Robby Mook, the political strategist for the Clinton Campaign, who claimed that Hillary “agreed” to leak allegations that the Trump Organization had a secret communications channel with Russia’s Alfa Bank.

The Danchenko trial will be tried in a different Jurisdiction in Northern Virginia, where Patel claims the jury pool will be “dramatically different”.

Russian analyst connected to anti-Donald Trump 'Steele dossier' arrested - ABC News

Durhams Team said in a June 13 filing that “It is respectfully requested that the Clerk of said Court issue subpoenas as indicated below for appearance of said Court in Alexandria, Virginia … to testify on behalf of the United States” on Oct. 11.

The Judge who will be presiding over this case is U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush back in the late 2000s.

US judge throws out conviction against Michael Flynn's former business partner | Daily Sabah
US District Judge Anthony Trenga

Danchenko has pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of lying to the FBI. The Special Counsel alleges that Danchenko made at least five false statements to the FBI in regards to information he provided to Christopher Steele, the former UK spy who was employed by an opposition research company at the behest of Perkins Coie, the law firm working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

 

Durham’s indictment indicates that Danchenko’s alleged fabrications “were material to the FBI because… the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign relied” on the dossier to obtain secretive warrants to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

“The FBI ultimately devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and corroborate the allegations contained in” the dossier, including whether Danchenko’s sub-sources were reliable, the indictment states. The dossier and information provided by Danchenko “played a role in the FBI’s investigative decisions and in sworn representations that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court throughout the relevant time period,” according to last year’s complaint.

The Steele dossier, a collection of memos that Christopher Steele compiled, claimed that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to ensure a victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump has categorically denied these allegations, suggesting they’re part of an ongoing Democrat-created narrative specifically designed to attack his credibility.

Over the years, many of the allegations from the dossier were proven to be false, leading to criminal, congressional, and even inspector general investigations into the origins of the Steele dossier.

John Durham has said that Danchenko completely made up a conversation that he claimed was the source of some of the more sordid claims contained in the memos. The phony dossier also alleged that Russian intelligence officials were blackmailing Trump, something the former president has also denied.

Igor Danchenko is now the third individual to be charged by Durham and his team. As he appeared at the federal court in Alexandria last year, Danchenko’s former lawyer, Mark Schamel, issued a statement saying that his client’s work as a researcher is “above reproach.”

“For the past five years, those with an agenda have sought to expose Mr. Danchenko’s identity and tarnish his reputation while undermining U.S. National Security,” Schamel said. 

There’s been scuttlebutt and conjecture claiming that these trials aren’t so much about convictions as building a roadmap of conspiracy that may eventually lead to Clinton herself. Unlike the trial in DC, a failure to convict here will be a blow severe to morale for those who hope to see bad actors from Clinton world finally brought to some kind of justice.

FBI Kept Office at DNC Law firm Perkins Coie

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Ryan DeLarme,
June 1st, 2022

Yesterday we reported that Hillary Clinton’s lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted in what appears to be the first in a series of trials regarding the Durham Probe. Last night, hours after the verdict, it was discovered that the FBI maintains an office at Sussmanss firm, Perkins Coie.

Further Reading: Michael Sussmann Found “Not Guilty”

The acquittal came despite text evidence, evidence that the jury was barred from considering. The texts show where Sussmann claimed that he was not representing the Clinton campaign when he presented false evidence to the FBI linking Trump to the Russian Alfa bank.  The FBI employee he met with also testified that he said he was not representing a client.

The acquittal may clear Sussmann in the minds of some, but to many of those who have been following the case for the last couple of years, there are a lot of red flags to consider. Potentially compromised Judge and Jury aside, certain political operative’s cozy relationship with the FBI still remains an issue.

Further Reading: Was the Trial Rigged from the Start? Sussmann Jury, Judge Accused of Having Conflicts of Interest

These fears were further stoked last night after Perkins Coie, the DNC law firm where Sussmann was employed, admitted that the FBI maintains an office at their workplace.

The admission comes after the law office responded to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Oh.)

This is important for several reasons; first, it highlights why the Durham probe was even necessary in the first place, due to the cozy relationship between Democratic political operatives and the FBI that investigated President Trump for collusion with Russia. 

Secondly, it shows that Democrat lawyers and political operatives possibly had access to FBI databases where they could perform search queries on American citizens.

The revelation is in line with past complaints about abuses by the FBI and other intelligence agencies of the FISA database.  FISA judge Rosemary Collyer discussed these abuses going back to 2012, saying that a shocking 85% of FISA searches by the FBI are unlawful.

Though Durham’s first trial did not secure a conviction, it has succeeded in further proving why this type of investigation is necessary. Information gleaned from this trial will be useful in future trials when painting the roadmap of criminal conspiracy.

FBI Knew Sussmann Worked for Hillary Clinton, Moved Forward with Alfa Bank Investigation Anyway

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Ryan DeLarme,
May 26th, 2022

The Sussman trial shifted to the defense team on Wednesday after the prosecution finished presenting their evidence against the former federal prosecutor and partner at Perkins Coie, one of the Clinton Cabal’s go-to firms.

It is now a matter of public fact that Michael Sussmann met with the FBI as a client representative of the Hillary Clinton Campaign weeks before his one-on-one meeting with the bureau’s top lawyer before the election in 2016.

The Courthouse News Service reported on yesterday’s activities in the Sussmann trial.

After prosecutors rested their case in the Michael Sussmann trial on Wednesday, a federal jury learned for the first time that he met with the FBI as the client representative for Hillary Clinton’s campaign just weeks before his infamous one-on-one meeting with the bureau’s top lawyer in 2016.

The government has repeatedly insisted that the bureau did not know that Sussmann was legal counsel for the campaign — in litigation related to Russian hacking groups’ accessing Democratic National Committee servers — when he met with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in 2016 and gave him data files allegedly containing evidence of secret communications between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

The government claims that if the FBI knew during the September 2016 meeting that Sussmann was representing the campaign in other matters, the bureau might have taken different steps in its investigation of the Trump-Alfa Bank information he brought, which he said was “not on behalf of a client.”

 

In short, the evidence seems to suggest that they (the Clinton team, FBI, etc) were all in on it. That the bureau and Clinton’s legal team worked together on a 2016 October Surprise that went south and is now coming back to bite them 6 years later.

Durham’s case now rests on the argument that Michael Sussmann came into James Baker’s office and provided Baker bogus intel on a Trump-Alfa Bank connection and that Baker was unaware that Sussmann worked for Hillary. The problem is that Baker was Comey’s top lawyer at the FBI at the time.  It is highly unlikely that no one in this situation knew who was working for who.

Sussmann’s evidence indicates that the FBI knew the information coming from Sussmann was unverified but they ran with it anyway.  The FBI knew the information was coming from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  

Now the defense must convince the jury that they weren’t all in on it.

 

Techno Fog Coverage of The Sussmann Trial: Fingers Pointed at FBI Leadership

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Excerpt from Techno Fog’s SubStack report from Monday evening:

It was a long day of travel but we’re back at it on the Sussmann trial.

This morning started with testimony from Bill Priestap, who in September 2016 was the FBI’s Assistant Director of Counterintelligence. His testimony was expected, even before the witness lists were put out. Back in January, we observed that Priestap had testified before a grand jury. In fact, Priestap himself stated today that he testified before the grand jury in June 2021.

A little bit of background on Priestap before we begin. Priestap approved the opening of Crossfire Hurricane and decided against defensive briefings being provided to the Trump Campaign. He was Peter Strzok’s supervisor and also approved the use of all the confidential human sources used against the Trump campaign (Stefan Halper, et al.).

Last week, former FBI general counsel James Baker testified that he spoke with Priestap about his meeting with Sussmann and “repeated to Mr. Priestap that Michael had said that he was not there on behalf of a particular client, that he was there as a citizen, as a – essentially as a human source of information, confidential source.”

At trial today, Priestap was presented with notes he took after that meeting with Baker. Those notes reflected that conversation with Baker, stating Sussmann “said not doing this for any client.” Priestap also said that the Alfa Bank/Trump Organization investigation ultimately fell under his control. Getting to the issue of materiality, Priestap was then asked about why the motivations of sources matter to the FBI:

Q: Based on your experience, if Mr. Sussmann had brought these allegations to the FBI on behalf of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, would that have mattered to the FBI?

Priestap: Again, the – somebody – anybody bringing information to the FBI, we’re interested – the FBI is interested in knowing the motivation of the person providing the information.

On cross examination, Priestap admitted he couldn’t recall the meeting with Baker or why he wrote in his notes that Sussmann wasn’t there on behalf of a client. After approximately 6 years, his memory was fuzzy:

Q: Do you remember anything more about why you wrote that down?

Priestap: I do not.

Q: You don’t remember anything about the context in which that was said to you?

Priestap: I do not.

To summarize the defense theory of this case, it’s that Sussmann was there to help the FBI and that he supposedly acted against his clients’ interest by stopping a New York Times article on the Alfa Bank allegations from being published. On that topic, Priestap discussed how the FBI might ask a newspaper to not run a story:

Q: As a general matter, if the FBI knew that a newspaper story was coming out about a threat from a nation state, are there ever occasions in which you would, at the FBI, want to ask a newspaper to hold off on running that story?

Priestap: Yes.

Q: Okay. And that’s because there are situations in which the FBI would want to have the chance to investigate before a story came out, right?

Priestap: Yes. If the FBI thought, let’s just say, that publicly revealing a certain matter could potentially negatively impact not just things the FBI was doing but potentially negatively impact the country, we’d want to have a conversation about it.

Then there’s this blockbuster of a comment. Counsel for Sussmann presented Priestap with messages from the FBI’s internal messaging system, in which Priestap discussed how the FBI’s leadership – Comey, McCabe, et al. – were excited about pursuing the Alfa Bank/Trump allegations:

The influence that FBI leadership (Comey and McCabe) had on the investigations related to the Trump/Russia accusations is notable – but not an exception. This is the first time we heard that the Alfa Bank hoax was pushed by FBI leadership. However, this fits their broader pattern. Recall the statement of FBI agent William Barnett. He was part of the FBI’s investigation of General Flynn and decided it should be closed down. The FBI’s senior officials, who ran the investigation from the “top down,” called the shots.

Testimony from FBI Agent Ryan Gaynor

Back in 2016, Agent Gaynor was the FBI’s counterintelligence division’s unit chief in Washington, DC. He learned of the Alfa Bank allegations on September 23, 2016 during a briefing led by the FBI’s Chicago field office. Agent Gaynor reported to Supervisor Special Agent Joe Pientka (who, along with Strzok, interviewed General Flynn) and volunteered to help work on the case.

This is how he described some of the steps the FBI took in its Alfa Bank investigation:

As to the accuracy of the information and accusations provided by Sussmann? One investigating agent found it to be BS:

In fact, the Chicago Office itself was curious about the source of Sussmann’s data. Agent Curtis Heide e-mailed:

Their supervisor in Chicago agreed:

Whether or not the Chicago team would have access to the source of the Alfa Bank data was discussed – but not approved by – FBI headquarters.

Then there’s the issue of another confidential human source (CHS). The Chicago Field Office was informed that the Alfa Bank allegations had been provided to various media outlets. This source “was not Mr. Sussmann.”

End excerpt.

Click here to read Techno Fog’s full report on the Sussmann trial.

Techno Fog: Day 2 of the Michael Sussmann Trial

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Via Techno Fog’s SubStack:

Day 2 of the Michael Sussmann trial started with some housekeeping. Here are the rulings of note:

  1. Robby Mook, who has a scheduled vacation in Spain, will testify on Friday. He’s a defense witness.
  2. Evidence of Steele’s meetings with Sussmann and Fusion GPS in July 2016, and his tasking to conduct research on Alfa Bank, according to the judge, “can come in.” The judge observed they are “relevant to Mr. Sussmann’s activities for the campaign and his attorney-client relationship, as far as it went, with the campaign as it relates to Alfa-Bank.”

Onto the witnesses. We start with the short testimony of Deborah Fine.

Fine began working for the Hillary Clinton Campaign (aka Hillary for America) as “one of several deputy general counsels” in May 2016. She answered to Marc Elias, the campaign’s general counsel.

After being presented with calendar entries confirming her daily calls with Fusion GPS, she testified that she worked with them as “part of my work for the campaign.” In fact, she regularly interacted with Glenn Simpson and co-founder Peter Fritsch. Fine conceded that Fusion GPS were seemingly free to conduct research on their own, stating she “personally didn’t direct them” to accomplish specific tasks.

On cross-examination, she admitted she didn’t know if Marc Elias spoke to anyone else at the Clinton Campaign about the activities of Fusion GPS. She was out of the loop regarding efforts to bring the Alfa Bank allegations to the NY Times or to the FBI.

Testimony of Laura Seago

Laura Seago worked with Fusion GPS back in 2016, where she reported directly to Fritsch and Simpson. She has been granted immunity by the Special Counsel for her testimony. She understood Marc Elias to be the Fusion GPS contact for the Clinton Campaign.

Seago stated she was present at a summer 2016 meeting with “Mr. Elias, my colleague Peter Fritsch from Fusion GPS, Mr. Sussmann, and Mr. Sussmann’s client Rodney Joffe.” As to the nature of that meeting:

“The general purpose, to the best of my recollection, was to discuss allegations of communications between the Trump organization and Alfa-Bank.”

Once the Alfa Bank allegations were developed, Seago met with journalist Franklin Foer (who would write the October 31, 2016 Alfa Bank article in Slate). The purpose of that meeting was to discuss “the allegations of communication between the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank.”

They sold Foer on the Alfa Bank data at that meeting, telling him there were “highly credible computer scientists who seemed to think that these allegations were credible.” These “credible computer scientists” would ultimately be cited in Foer’s article. She admitted that Fusion GPS did nothing to validate the DNS records – something she said was “beyond my capabilities.”

Seago was walked through a number of e-mails she had with Joffe and other members of Fusion GPS. Some of these were privileged (the Joffe e-mails) so the Special Counsel was unable to discuss with Seago the contents. However, she did know about the contents of the Joffe e-mails generally:

Finally, she admitted to understanding whose interests were served by planting the Alfa Bank story.

Now we get to Marc Elias.

Elias meets weekly with Fusion GPS at his office. Typically Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson would be in attendance. Generally, those meetings involved discussions of Elias’s “needs” and Fusion GPS’s “work” – which included what Elias described as the “unusual connections” the Trump Campaign had with Russia. They would also report to Elias on their findings related to Trump during the election.

Notably, Elias mentioned Jake Sullivan as someone at the Clinton Campaign who knew about the Trump/Russia research (though there is uncertainty as to whether Sullivan knew about Fusion’s activities). Elias would give the campaign these updates.

A brief aside: Jake Sullivan’s wife is Margaret Goodlander – who serves as counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland. We understand that she has not recused herself from anything having to do with the Special Counsel’s investigation. We further understand that Goodlander is keeping close tabs on Durham’s investigation. We’ll report on that down the road…

Anyway, Elias also testified that the Clinton Campaign paid them (Perkins Coie) a “flat fee” for their legal services. Why is this important? Because it explains why Sussmann would block the bill the Clinton Campaign (see tweet below). (“Block billing” is having a multi-hour entry with a generalized description. Example: “6.5 hours on a confidential project.) For flat-fee work, attorneys are generally allowed block billing because the client isn’t paying the hourly rate.

Read Techno Fog’s full article here.