We are getting near the start of the trial of Igor Danchenko, accused by Special Counsel Durham of making false statements to the FBI regarding the Steele Dossier.
The Durham investigation has evolved in a frustrating manner.
On the one hand, we've learned much more about the falsity of the Russia collusion story, the emptiness of the Steele Dossier, the involvement of the Clinton campaign in creating the myth, and the complicity of the FBI.
On the other, is the puzzling legal theory Durham is pursuing; that Danchenko and, before him, Sussman, made material false statements to the FBI. As several legal commentators have pointed out, the problem with this theory, is that the materiality of the false statements is difficult to prove when the FBI knew they were false and were themselves part of the get-Trump gang. If you've read my posts since 2018, you'll know the FBI (and many at DOJ, as well as the Mueller crew) simply didn't care whether statements were true or false, they just wanted enough to keep the Russia collusion story in play to justify the continuance of their investigations.
Sussman was acquitted because that was a key element of his defense and it will also be the keystone of Danchenko's defense. Danchenko has recently made filings with the trial court stating that he had informed the FBI that not only was he merely passing on gossip that he could not vouch for, which ended up in the Dossier (and remember that Steele called Danchenko his key sub-source), but the FBI knew this in January 2017, before Comey entrapped Flynn, before senior FBI and DOJ officials made the final two FISA warrant renewals on Carter Page in which they certified as to the reliability of the Steele Dossier, before Comey told President Trump the FBI was not investigating the Dossier, and well before the appointment of Mueller. In fact, Danchenko claims he even told the FBI in January 2017 that he was concerned that Charles Dolan, a long time Clinton associate who had also been doing PR work for Putin's government, was potentially entangled with the Kremlin.
By trying to portray the FBI as innocents deceived by wicked men, Durham is telling an implausible story.
The defendants in both cases aren't spending much time on contesting underlying facts. The narrative of Clinton campaign involvement remains sound. But as for convictions for false statements, that's another story.
The irony abounds in the Clinton campaign creating the collusion story using a dossier claiming to rely on, among others, Russian intelligence sources, and with a long-time Clinton supporter with Kremlin ties as another source. As Andrew McCarthy wrote in his book on all of this, regarding indicia of Russian collusion with Trump and Clinton:
The FBI and the intelligence agencies had no indicia of conspiracy. They had indicia of contacts - of associations. That is day and night different. Everyone had Russia contacts. The Clinton campaign had not just Russia contacts; it had Bill Clinton meeting with Putin and taking a huge payment while Russia had important business before the State Department run by his wife; it had Hillary Clinton, for all her tough-on-the-Kremlin bravado, running the State Department in a manner that aligned with Russia’s interests; it had Russia money pouring into the Clinton Foundation; its chairman, John Podesta, sat on the board of Joule Energy, a Massachusetts company into which Putin’s venture capital firm, Rusnano, invested $35 million.
Moreover, Clinton was Secretary of State to President Obama, who was openly endorsed by the Kremlin in 2008 and 2012 as Putin made clear he hated McCain and Romney, and, when Hillary became SoS in 2009, rather than follow government security requirements she set up her own email and server system, leaving it open to penetration by foreign governments such as Russia and China. In summary, given a choice that her emails might one day be available to the public under FOIA, or risk that Russia and China might end up with them, she chose Russia and China.
At this point, I am less concerned with the prosecutions, and even the Hillary side of Russia collusion. The facts are already out there for anyone interested. However, I am increasingly concerned that Durham will never publish a full report on his investigation and, even if that happens, the intelligence community thread - the second leg of the creation of the Russia collusion story - will be omitted. I end, as always, with a plea that Durham tell us what Josef Mifsud was up to in 2016. The answer to that one question would answer so many questions about what, if any, role the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and among our allies, played in the Russia collusion story.
If you've read my posts since 2018, you'll know the FBI (and many at DOJ, as well as the Mueller crew) simply didn't care whether statements were true or false, they just wanted enough to keep the Russia collusion story in play to justify the continuance of their investigations.
ReplyDeleteSussman was acquitted because that was a key element of his defense and it will also be the keystone of Danchenko's defense.
At some point, when the events of the world refused to be bound by our notion of reality, we face the choice of altering our notions or sliding further into irrelevancy. Perhaps Durham's choices puzzled you because you have fundamentally misinterpreted other events. Every other source I have read says Sussman's defense was based on the inability of the prosecutor to prove either that Sussman was actually representing the Clinton campaign or that Sussman denied he was so doing, much less both. Under your theory, neither fact would even be relevant.
Yes, Sussman made those claims but a signficant part of his defense, and, it is clear from the Danchenko filings, that the materiality issue played a major role. In fact, the foreperson of the Sussman jury made a statement to that effect after the trial. And if you rely upon press or media reports instead of reading the underlying documents, from the IG reports, the FISA warrants, the Mueller/Weissman report, the House intelligence committee hearing transcripts, court filings etc you will be misled about what happened. It was my growing distrust of what I was reading, left and right, that started me off in looking at the documents themselves in late 2017.
DeleteA couple of additional points. The underlying narrative is reinforced in both cases. Danchenko does not dispute he was Steele's primary source, nor does he stand by the gossip he passed on to Steele, and he verifies that Dolan, a Clinton associate who was also doing PR for the Kremlin, was one of his sources. Rather than coming from Russian intelligence sources, the Steele Dossier was actually a fantasy document, developed by the Clinton campaign and readily adopted by the FBI to further its campaign against Trump. As for Sussman, the underlying claim that he presented the phony Alfa Bank allegations to his government pals is uncontested, whether or not you believe he was officially representing Clinton in doing so. Whether convictions occur or not, the phoniness of the allegations has been further documented.
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