If the FBI believes that John Durham’s recent – and likely final – courtroom loss as special counsel has restored its reputation, its deduction powers aren’t any better than when they launched an investigation into whether former Trump was really a Russian resource based on what known liars and political operatives said.
Danchenko’s acquittal on Tuesday mirrored Michael Sussmann previously in the year in two legal cases Durham brought to trial in his attempt to learn why the FBI launched an investigation that split the country, cost millions of dollars, and derailed a presidential bid. Both individuals were effectively accused of telling lies to the FBI in order to “fool” the agency into believing that Trump spoke with his handlers at a bank of Russia via some kind of bat signal radiating from the Trump HQ, and in Igor Danchenko’s instance, a slew of highly impossible lies immortalized in the “Steele dossier.”
Durham did not, at least not publicly, put the whole FBI on trial. However, both cases proved that the agency was not misled but an active participant in a heinous farce that started as the worst political ruse in the history of America. Sussmann, a Hillary Clinton election operative in 2016, was said to be lying when he claimed that his discussion with senior FBI authorities about Trump’s private conversations was the result of a concerned citizen’s efforts. Danchenko is accused of informing former British secret agent and dossier creator Christopher Steele regarding a cryptic phone call that communicated information about a “scheme of partnership” between both the Trump team and Russian authorities. The phone call never came, but that’s okay.
The FBI obtained four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders to intercept Trump adviser Carter Page’s email and phone communications using the dossier, which also featured salacious and utterly fictitious allegations about Donald Trump meeting with peeing hookers in a hotel room while visiting Moscow. Because of the “two-hop” requirement, those orders effectively opened up the whole Trump team to FBI spying.
Durham’s only triumph so far has been a guilty plea and a smack on the hand for previous Federal attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who suppressed the knowledge that the FBI knew Page had worked previously for the CIA and was so unlikely to be snooping for the Russian government.
