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John Durham

Igor Danchenko Found Not Guilty on All Counts of Lying to the FBI

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A jury on Tuesday found Steele Dossier source Igor Danchenko not guilty on all counts pursuant to charges of lying to the FBI.

The case was led by Special Counsel John Durham who led much of the prosecution’s questioning of witnesses in the case and whose intent for the trial was at least in part intended to expose the FBI’s mishandling of the large Russia-2016 Trump campaign collusion probe.

The jury had deliberated for roughly nine hours. After the verdict, Durham left and declined to comment. Danchenko attorney Stuart Sears, meanwhile, thanked the jurors for their service and added that the American public learned of Danchenko’s innocence, of which he had long been aware.

Durham was appointed in 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr to look into the FBI’s handling of the probe.

Danchencko compiled about 80% of the information in the dossier organized by former British spy Christopher Steele.

The biggest revelation in the trial that started Oct. 11 is that the FBI offered Steele as much as $1 million to corroborate the information in the dossier, which was essentially a Trump opposition file that has now been largely discredited.

Danchenko was found not guilty by a 12-member jury in a federal court in northern Virginia. Juror Joel Greene said that the decision was close, but that ultimately the jury reached a unanimous decision.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga dropped one of the five counts in the original indictment that alleged Danchenko didn’t fully disclose the nature of his contacts with dossier source Democrat operative Charles Dolan.

Is John Durham’s Next Target the FBI? John Solomon Makes Prediction as 14 Whistleblowers Come Forward

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John Solomon, the founder of Just the News, recently spoke about John Durham’s probe into the Trump-Russia investigation and has made a prediction as to what he believes Durham’s next target might be.

Solomon believes that the Durham Probe is dealing with at least “two buckets”. In one “bucket,” there are indictments against officials connected to Hillary Clinton and their plan to feed the FBI false information about Trump-Russia conspiracies. The other “bucket” focuses on the FBI and agents who are alleged to have knowingly misled the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on members of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“A month after the CIA sends a warning to the FBI, this is something John Ratcliffe declassified, saying Hillary Clinton is trying to play a dirty trick on Donald Trump to tie him to Russia to get out of her e-mail thing. All through the fall, they keep a spreadsheet of what’s right and wrong with the Steele dossier. It’s all wrong. Can’t corroborate, they can’t collaborate the information. The FBI never should have started the investigation and I think that’s where John Durham’s investigation is focused right now,”.

This comes on the heels of GOP Rep. Jim Jordan telling Fox News that 14 whistleblowers from the FBI have come forward with concerns about the Department of Justice’s possible political bias following the raid on Mar-a-Lago last week.

“Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people. There are lots of good people in the FBI. It’s the top that is the problem,” the Ohio Republican told the outlet. “Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us … what’s going on… the political nature now of the Justice Department,”

Republican party leaders have condemned the raid as partisan, promising investigations should the GOP seize the majority in either chamber of Congress. House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy intimated that he’s “seen enough”. 

Despite McCarthy’s posturing, his post was flooded with doubtful comments.

Just before the raid, the FBI was faced with two separate whistleblowers attesting to political bias within both the Bureau and the Department of Justice. 

RELATED: Whistleblowers Claim FBI, DOJ are Downplaying Negative Hunter Biden Information

The last decade has had a decidedly negative impact on the FBI’s reputation. Since 2015 the FBI has propagated the Russia Collusion smear knowingly in an effort to hurt both candidate and president Donald Trump, they have been found to have manufactured the Whitmer kidnapping case, misclassified domestic extremism cases in favor of democrats, targeted parents who’ve spoken up at school board meetings, placed undercover agents in the crowds on January 6th,  assisted Biden’s presidential campaign by burying Hunter Biden’s illegal dealings with foreign countries and conveniently losing track of the laptop in the process.

It’s only speculation at this point, but if John Soloman’s prediction is correct, we could see a huge clash between the FBI and John Durham in the near future.

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.

Michael Sussmann Found “Not Guilty”

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Ryan DeLarme,
May 31st, 2022

A federal jury has found former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann not guilty of lying to the FBI.  The verdict came midway through the second day of deliberations following a two-week trial on a single count of making false statements to a federal agent.

The prosecution sought to prove that Sussmann deliberately lied to then-FBI general counsel James Baker by claiming he was not acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign while providing him with data he said supported an alleged secret communications channel between the Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.

This “backchannel” was allegedly connected to the Kremlin.

The trial was held in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Christopher Cooper and lasted 11 days, that is including jury selection and deliberations.

The Sussmann trial is only the first in Durham’s probe, which was created to look into the origins of the now-debunked Russia collusion plot.

“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” Durham said after the verdict. “I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case.”

Prosecution attorneys said during the trial the material was “pure opposition research” and that Sussmann wanted an “October Surprise” in the 2016 presidential race.

Durham argued that Sussmann, who at the time was also a private attorney, was working on behalf of two clients, the Clinton campaign and former tech firm executive Rodney Joffe, when he presented Baker with two computer thumb drives of data and whites papers that Sussmann said support an alleged connection between the organization and the bank, which has connections to the Kremlin.

The next Durham probe trial will be in October in Virginia, this time for Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst who is also accused of lying to the FBI in connection with the collusion plot.