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real-human



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:43 pm    Post subject: Special Counsel John Durham failed Reply with quote

Here we go after what 5 years of ultra right wing investigations, and even appointing a ultra right wing partisan special counsel. Not one single top Obama person indicted. and only one FBI agent who fudged info in a fisa warrant was found doing something minor wrong, considering Carter Page was found guilty and was being investigated and had several prior FISA warrants . Here his big one after all these years and 10s of millions spent was because he said he was bringing information forward. And note by life long right winger Mueller thay did find trump people working with Russians. And many convictions of Trumps top people. That trump pardoned.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/durham-s-sussman-indictment-bizarre-coda-doj-s-russia-investigation-n1279490


Durham's Sussman indictment is a bizarre coda for DOJ's Russia investigation


Quote:
Special Counsel John Durham was tasked with investigating the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation. He now appears to have ended his work not with a bang, but with a whimper.

It is hard to see how the case Durham filed on Thursday against Washington lawyer Michael Sussman meets Justice Department standards. The indictment alleges that Sussmann met with FBI General Counsel Jim Baker in September 2016 to provide information about connections between a Russian bank and the Trump Organization. The FBI was unable to substantiate any links between Alfa Bank and former President Donald Trump’s businesses, but the charge against Sussman — making false statements to the FBI — doesn’t allege that the substance of the information was false. Instead, Sussmann is accused of misrepresented on whose behalf he was providing it.

It is hard to see how the case Durham filed on Thursday against Washington lawyer Michael Sussman meets Justice Department standards.

A grand jury only needs to find probable cause that a crime was committed to return an indictment, but DOJ policy requires a higher standard. Before putting a person through the expense, burden and stigma of criminal charges, a prosecutor should make a determination “that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.” This case comes woefully short of that standard.

Let’s start with the easy one — admissible evidence. The indictment appears to rely on the handwritten notes of an assistant director with whom Baker spoke after his meeting with Sussmann. The notes state, among other things, “Said not doing this for any client.”

Anyone who’s played the game “Telephone” understands that as information is repeated, it often gets altered along the way. Instead, testimony at trial must be based on personal observation. If the prosecution attempted to offer these notes or even the writer’s testimony about what he heard Baker say before he wrote them as evidence, either would likely be ruled hearsay.



The case is equally weak on the merits. Although making false statements to an FBI agent is a serious crime, the government must be able to prove each and every element of the offense. Here, at least two of the five elements cannot be met.

First, Sussmann maintains that he did not make the statement. Many defendants deny misconduct, but this time it may work. In most false statement cases, the precise language of the statement at issue is memorialized in some way — the transcript of testimony under oath, a written submission, or a recorded oral statement. If not, the federal agency will usually provide two or more witnesses who personally heard the statement. Here, it appears that the whole case is built on the testimony of one witness, Baker. And in a he said, he said faceoff, the ties goes to the defendant.

In addition, it is not clear that Baker will be a strong — or even willing — witness. In a closed-door meeting with Congress in 2018, Baker testified that he did not recall whether Sussmann had represented himself as working on behalf of the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Hardly the star witness needed to convict in the absence of all other evidence.

Although making false statements to an FBI agent is a serious crime, the government must be able to prove each and every element of the offense.

Even assuming the prosecution can prove that the statement was false, that Sussman knowingly lied and that the crime is in the FBI’s jurisdiction, it still cannot establish materiality. The materiality element requires a showing that the statement could influence a matter under consideration; not every false statement is a crime, only those that matter. If Sussmann had also bragged to Baker, say, that he runs a six-minute mile, but in fact, he runs a ten-minute mile, that statement might be false, but it would not be material to the matter at issue.

Here, the indictment alleges that Sussmann’s statement that he was not acting on behalf of any client was material because if the FBI had known that Sussmann was providing the information on behalf of the Clinton campaign, it would have treated the information differently. But this allegation is refuted by its own witness. In his 2018 congressional testimony, Baker was asked whether it would have mattered if Sussmann had told him he was there on behalf of the Clinton Campaign. He said it wouldn’t, a devastating admission for Durham’s case.

What’s more, Sussmann worked at the Perkins Coie law firm, whose representation of the Clinton campaign was publicly known. And based on the assistant director’s notes, it appears that Sussmann did tell Baker that he “represents DNC, Clinton Foundation, etc.”


So even if Sussmann misrepresented what motivated him to bring the information to the FBI that day, Baker knew that Sussmann was aligned with Clinton. If the FBI was going to treat information from Clinton’s camp with skepticism, Sussmann had provided all of the information necessary for the FBI to form that suspicion. For this reason, his allegedly false statement is, at worst, the equivalent of the ten-minute mile, not material to the matter at issue.

Claiming materiality here is particularly galling in light of DOJ’s treatment of former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn was charged by special counsel Robert Mueller with making false statements when he lied to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in late 2016. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia under former Attorney General William Barr filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that Flynn’s statement was not material. While materiality generally has a fairly low bar, the different standard that Durham — who Barr appointed — is holding Sussman now suggests that he is being treated unfairly.

So why would Durham bother to file charges in a case so rife with issues? The date of the indictment carries one clue. It was filed on the last day of the grand jury’s term before the five-year statute of limitations was set to expire on Sept. 19. That this case and a prior case against an FBI lawyer for altering an email are the only charges Durham has filed suggests that this is the closest thing he has found to a crime in his search.

Another clue about why this case is being filed is the amount of detail contained in the 27-page indictment.

Another clue about why this case is being filed is the amount of detail contained in the 27-page indictment. It discusses the Clinton campaign’s efforts to engage in opposition research on former President Donald Trump, much of it beyond the scope of the very narrow offense with which Sussmann is charged. It may be that Durham is using this indictment as a vehicle to disseminate what he has found to the public so that Trump and his allies can paint a false equivalence between the conduct of the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

Mueller found that the Trump campaign shared polling data with a Russia intelligence officer, met with Russians to obtain dirt on Clinton, and coordinated messaging around the disclosure of stolen email messages. With this indictment, Trump can now say that it was Clinton who brought information to the FBI about links to Russia in the first place and yet again claim the Mueller investigation was a hoax.


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Of course, that points us to the final problem with Durham’s investigation: His assignment was to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. The DOJ inspector general already found that the investigation opened in July 2016 was properly predicated on information received from a government ally about statements Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos regarding stolen email messages. Any statement made by Sussmann months later could not possibly have sparked the Russia investigation.

Instead of a quest for justice, the indictment appears to be one more shot fired in the information war. Attorney General Merrick Garland had the power to stop this indictment from being filed, and did not do so, perhaps because he believed it to be a valid charge — or maybe because he feared that stopping it would create the appearance that he was acting in furtherance of partisan political interests. While protecting the independence of the institution is a noble cause, it cannot come at the expense of an innocent man being used as a pawn in an ugly political game that will further erode trust in our institutions.

The Mueller Report spells out all the ways in which the Russia investigation was not a hoax. The only hoax is the charge contained in this indictment.

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real-human



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PostPosted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

seeems there was a good reason to present what they found to the government. where is the real investigation of why alfa bank and trump organization servers were talking....




Trump Server Mystery Produces Fresh Conflict


Quote:
WASHINGTON — The charge was narrow: John Durham, the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to scour the Russia investigation, indicted a cybersecurity lawyer this month on a single count of lying to the FBI.

But Durham used a 27-page indictment to lay out a far more expansive tale, one in which four computer scientists who were not charged in the case “exploited” their access to internet data to develop an explosive theory about cyberconnections in 2016 between Donald Trump’s company and a Kremlin-linked bank — a theory, he insinuated, they did not really believe.

Durham’s version of events set off reverberations beyond the courtroom. Trump supporters seized on the indictment, saying it shows that suspicions about possible covert communications between Russia’s Alfa Bank and Trump’s company were a deliberate hoax by supporters of Hillary Clinton and portraying it as evidence that the entire Russia investigation was unwarranted.

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Emails obtained by The New York Times and interviews with people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss issues being investigated by federal authorities, provide a fuller and more complex account of how a group of cyberexperts discovered the odd internet data and developed their hypothesis about what could explain it.

At the same time, defense lawyers for the scientists say it is Durham’s indictment that is misleading. Their clients, they say, believed their hypothesis was a plausible explanation for the odd data they had uncovered — and still do.

... more...

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I believe Durham should be tried for treason. If this information is correct that he has been investigating for several years and he did not state that the experts did find communications with trump and the russias with these hidden back channels he is helping treason and a participant in treason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6xmr00tcI
In new letter, tech expert's lawyer insists Alfa-Bank, Trump server data is no hoax
Quote:
Rachel Maddow reports on a new letter to special counsel John Durham and Attorney General Merrick Garland from the lawyer for a tech expert that pushes back on how researchers' findings about interactions between a server related to Alfa-Bank and a server related to the Trump Organization are characterized in Durham's indictment of Michael Sussmann. [Edited for length from the original broadcast.]

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2021 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

at 2.5 years which is longer than the lifelong republican Mueller investigation

Carter Page was 5 pages of the Mueller report of the 800 plus on russian involvement with trump. .

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/strzok-calls-out-durham-s-russia-scandal-investigation-for-pushing-pro-trump-narrative-125440581565


Strzok calls out Durham's Russia scandal investigation for pushing pro-Trump narrative


Quote:
Former FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok talks with Rachel Maddow about Trump special counsel holdover John Durham's investigation of the Trump Russia investigation. Strzok tells Maddow, "I'm certainly concerned when I read these indictments, both Mr. Sussmann’s and Mr. Danchenko’s... They have subtle dog whistles to these kinds of pro-Trump conspiracy theories... The indictment makes a point to note that the FBI was unable to corroborate Steele's reporting, but at the same time it neglects to mention that we weren't able to disprove it either."
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real-human



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 3:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

has he really spent more years in his investigation than the Mueller investigation and not one grand jury indictment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TA7xxNSUU


Hillary Clinton Responds To 'desperate' New Trump Attack

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

here we go we had a ultra partisan right winger do an investigation and we had one guy plead he lied on a part to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page who had had a FISA warrant approved year or so before he ever met the trump people.

And another went to court (and from what I have seen did not have a grand jury indictment) and the jury found this person not guilty of all charges and took them less than a day to deliberate.

So how many years did he have? how many millions did he spend? allowed by Biden to continue till he gave up. NOT ONE GRAND JURY INDICTMENT not one conviction.

we know that a prosecutor in SDNY wrote a book that was just released noting how he was fired because he kept putting right wingers in jail and was ordered by Barr to forget the republicans and go after dems.


https://www.rawstory.com/john-durham-2658209848/


Durham probe into Trump-Russia investigation to wind down with no further charges: NYT


Quote:
The Durham probe into the federal government's investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Russian agents is ending with a whimper.


The New York Times reports that the grand jury convened by prosecutor John Durham to hear evidence has expired, and sources tell the paper that there are no plans to convene another.

Durham and his attorneys are preparing a final report into their inquiry, which lost the only case that it brought to trial when former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted on charges of lying to the FBI.

As the Times notes, the end of Durham's probe is sure to disappoint former President Donald Trump.


"When John H. Durham was assigned by the Justice Department in 2019 to examine the origins of the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, President Donald J. Trump and his supporters expressed a belief that the inquiry would prove that a 'deep state' conspiracy including top Obama-era officials had worked to sabotage him," the paper writes. "Now Mr. Durham appears to be winding down his three-year inquiry without anything close to the results Mr. Trump was seeking."

Former Attorney General Bill Barr picked Durham to lead a probe into the Russia investigation that eventually led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but who nonetheless found multiple potential instances of criminal obstruction of justice committed by the former president.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nicolle-wallace-hammers-former-us-attorney-over-why-he-didn-t-sound-the-alarm-to-congress-sooner/ar-AA11Nock?cvid=04d59d234a7d47d1c5181a17e1e0c8db&ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover

Nicolle Wallace hammers former US attorney over why he didn’t sound the alarm to Congress sooner


Quote:
Former US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, of the Southern District of New York, began sounding the alarm in the middle of 2020 about what he was witnessing at the Justice Department.

In a new tell-all book, "Holding the Line," Berman describes the ways in which former Attorney General Bill Barr managed to insulate Donald Trump and his allies.

“Every single chapter is a new example of political corruption at DOJ," said MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline White House" while talking to Berman. "And you're telling that a lot of them are coming straight from the White House Twitter feed and I wonder if you were ever so concerned that you asked your inspector general to look into main DOJ, to Mr. Ed O'Callaghan, and you write about Brian Rabbitt. Did you ask anyone to look into what you describe as a pattern?"

"We handled the interferences, the attempts to interfere ourselves and we didn't have the need to refer it to the inspector general," said Berman.
[/b]

another one....
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/john-durhams-probe-appears-ending-whimper-rcna47705


John Durham’s probe appears to be ending with a whimper
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real-human



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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2022 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

still not one Clinton person charged...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-russia-dossier-source-goes-on-trial-for-allegedly-lying-to-the-fbi/ar-AA12PRMX?cvid=7fea39574386405690c64094ed3d7e11&ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover

Trump-Russia Dossier Source Goes on Trial for Allegedly Lying to the FBI


Quote:
Durham’s first trial, of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, ended with a jury finding him not guilty of lying to the FBI after a few hours of deliberations. A second acquittal could fuel Democratic criticism that the probe is a politically motivated remnant of the Trump administration, while a conviction would give the former president a valuable talking point as he weighs another White House run in 2024.

Former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers, a critic of the Durham’s probe, said his investigation was supposed to “blow the lid off the deep state plot against Trump and lead to criminal convictions of high-level government officials,” but has instead been limited to targeting “peripheral players” in the affair.

“We’ll see what Durham’s report claims the evidence he gathered establishes, but we certainly haven’t seen any criminal cases that support his appointment in the first place, much less the conspiracies claimed by the former president and others about the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russia’s criminal interference with the 2016 election,” said Rodgers, who isn’t involved in the matter.

Danchenko’s lawyer, Stuart A. Sears, has called the prosecution “a case of extraordinary government overreach,” accusing the US of charging his client over “ambiguous” statements to FBI agents in a series of 2017 interviews that did not have any material impact on the direction of Durham’s probe.
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real-human



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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

here we go again, Durhams own gov witness under cross tell the truth that a source the Steele dossier was regarded as truthful intel. IE trump and his people were involved with Russians in essence. That Durham was chery picking such that he was not truthful/objective per se.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/john-durham-turns-against-his-own-witness-in-trial-probing-origins-of-trump-russia-investigation/ar-AA12VGyr?ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover&cvid=c592b645357e4b53fc422ca584d2ba98

John Durham turns against his own witness in trial probing origins of Trump-Russia investigation


Quote:
Special counsel John Durham lashed out at his own witness during the trial of a Russian-born businessman who was a key source in Christopher Steele's dossier.

Senior FBI intelligence analyst Brian Auten, who oversaw part of the bureau's early investigation into Donald Trump's ties to Russia, helped prosecutors by testifying that Igor Danchenko withheld information from investigators about his dossier sourcing that would have helped authorities, but things changed after defense lawyers cross-examined him, reported CNN.

Danchenko’s focused on the analyst's previous testimony years ago to the Justice Department inspector general and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he told that he considered Danchenko "truthful" and helpful to the FBI's Russia probe, and he said securing him as a source was beneficial to the agency.

That contradicted the heart of Durham's indictment, which alleges that Danchenko repeatedly lied to the FBI and impeded investigators trying to corroborate the Steele dossier.


Auten testified that he stood by that previous testimony, and he also told the court that Durham misleadingly cherry-picked material that he wrote.

Durham returned for a final round of questioning of his own witness, but he sounded angry at times and elicited sometimes hostil testimony from Auten, who conceded that he had been recommended for suspension by the FBI's internal auditors -- which could undercut the credibility of the special counsel's witness.

He then admonished Auten for claiming that George Papadopoulos was a “high-level adviser” to Trump’s 2016 campaign, when in fact he was a low-level foreign policy aide.

Durham also tried but failed to get Auden to agree the FBI was more concerned about Papadopoulos' links to the Middle East than Russia, but the FBI analyst said they were worried about both
.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

With this testimony there is no friggen way this guy will be convicted...

How many years has Durham had and he brings this asset to court... I am sure russia paid trump well for outing this russian asset to the usa.

so barr and trump damaged national security in outing the source for the steel dossier . FBI 20 years of working counter intelligence claims the source for the dociar has changed the way we understood russia was acting that his many years he was a top assed to USA counter intelegence. That Danchenko in essence is a hero for america and risked his and his families lives to help america. Thus Trump Barrs outing him I believe is treason.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/politics/steele-dossier-national-security-fbi.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-time-cutoff-30_impression_cut_3_filter_new_arm_5_1&alpha=0.05&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=26158896&impression_id=70dbd6d0-4bdb-11ed-9596-7dd6c63b05b5&index=1&pgtype=Article&pool=more_in_pools%2Fus&region=footer&req_id=742504652&surface=eos-more-in&variant=0_bandit-all-surfaces-time-cutoff-30_impression_cut_3_filter_new_arm_5_1

Loss of Steele Dossier Source Damaged National Security, F.B.I. Agent Testifies


Quote:
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A veteran F.B.I. counterintelligence agent testified on Thursday that the Trump Justice Department’s decision in 2020 to release sensitive documents about a bureau informant to a Senate committee examining the bureau’s Russia investigation had damaged national security.

The agent told jurors at the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about matters related to the anti-Trump Steele dossier, that Mr. Danchenko, a Russia analyst, had provided extraordinary assistance for years as a paid F.B.I. informant.

Internet sleuths managed to piece together Mr. Danchenko’s identity after Attorney General William P. Barr directed the F.B.I. to declassify a redacted report about its three-day interview of Mr. Danchenko in 2017 and give it to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.

Kevin Helson, the agent, said Mr. Danchenko became a political target, adding that the “release of the document was dangerous.”

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The testimony by Mr. Helson, a witness for the prosecution, seemed to be another setback for the special counsel investigation examining the origins of the F.B.I. inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump’s ties with Russia. The trial of Mr. Danchenko appears to be the last chance for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who Mr. Trump had said would expose a “deep state” conspiracy against him, to obtain a court conviction before his investigation winds down.

In November 2021, Mr. Durham charged Mr. Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to the F.B.I. about his sources for certain claims in the dossier, which contains a collection of rumors and unproven assertions suggesting that Mr. Trump and his 2016 campaign were compromised by and conspiring with Russian intelligence officials to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. Although a few of the dossier’s claims made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser, that was largely peripheral to the official inquiry.

This is the second trial for Mr. Durham, whom Mr. Barr appointed to lead the investigation in the spring of 2019. The first trial, in which Mr. Durham accused a lawyer of providing false information to the F.B.I., ended this year with an acquittal.

In the new trial, which began on Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Northern Virginia and in which testimony is expected to conclude Friday, with closing statements likely on Monday, Mr. Durham and his team have had to grapple with significant questions about the quality of their evidence.

Mr. Helson’s testimony on Thursday capped three days of questioning of him and another F.B.I. prosecution witness, a counterintelligence analyst, both of whom at certain points seemed to undermine the prosecution’s case. Mr. Durham at times appeared visibly frustrated with the testimony of the F.B.I. officials.

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Mr. Durham has tried to make the case that Mr. Danchenko never spoke to Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, as a potential source for the dossier, a claim at the heart of four of the false-statement charges.

Mr. Danchenko told the F.B.I. that he had received a phone call in late July 2016 from a Russian-sounding person who did not identify himself but whom Mr. Danchenko believed to be Mr. Millian, and that he had arranged to meet the businessman in New York on a weekend later that month.

As part of Mr. Durham’s investigation, he turned up evidence that Mr. Helson and Brian Auten, an F.B.I. supervisory counterintelligence analyst and a prosecution witness earlier in the week, said could have supported Mr. Danchenko’s version of what had happened. The evidence included Amtrak receipts showing that Mr. Danchenko had traveled to New York that weekend and documentation that Mr. Millian had flown to New York that same weekend.

Image
Members of Mr. Danchenko’s legal team wheeling evidence to the courthouse in Alexandria, Va., this week.
Members of Mr. Danchenko’s legal team wheeling evidence to the courthouse in Alexandria, Va., this week.Credit...Alex Wong/Getty Images

Charles Dolan, a public relations executive with ties to the Democratic Party whose interactions with Mr. Danchenko are the basis of another false statement charge, also testified on Thursday. The indictment said Mr. Danchenko falsely told the F.B.I. that he had not discussed the claims in the dossier with Mr. Dolan. But Mr. Durham says that Mr. Dolan was an unwitting source for some of the claims.

Mr. Dolan said on Thursday that he had emailed a tidbit he had heard on the news to Mr. Danchenko, who appeared to have used the information in the dossier. But he testified that he had never discussed the dossier with Mr. Danchenko and did not realize that the analyst had used his information in the compendium until Mr. Durham’s team pointed out the similarities.

Mr. Danchenko’s lawyers seized on that testimony. During cross-examination on Thursday, Mr. Helson said that in one instance, the basis of Mr. Durham’s false statement charge, he had asked Mr. Danchenko if he had talked with Mr. Dolan about the information in the dossier.

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Mr. Danchenko told him that they had talked about issues related to the dossier, Mr. Helson said, but he agreed that it was “literally true” that Mr. Dolan and Mr. Danchenko had never talked about the dossier itself.

Defense lawyers also tried to buttress the idea that Mr. Danchenko was an exceptional informant and that his exposure was a huge loss to the F.B.I., citing annual internal bureau reports that showed Mr. Helson thought highly of Mr. Danchenko and saying he was paid more than $200,000 for his work.

Mr. Helson said Mr. Danchenko had provided information that had aided in at least 25 investigations and dozens of reports distributed to the U.S. intelligence community, and he acknowledged that he had told investigators previously that Mr. Danchenko “reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.” Mr. Helson said the F.B.I.’s Washington Field Office had not had an informant with a comparable source network during his 20 years there and had set up a new squad of agents based on Mr. Danchenko’s information.


In October 2021, Mr. Helson said, he drafted an internal F.B.I. document asking to provide Mr. Danchenko a $346,000 final payment for his work and expenses helping the F.B.I.

“The disclosure of false and baseless claims aimed to undermine his credibility,” the document said, adding that his public outing would hurt his ability to make a living. “This payment is part of the F.B.I.’s commitment for insuring the safety and security of this highly valued” informant “and his family, and will fulfill the F.B.I.’s commitment to properly take care of those individuals who come forward to help our mission at grave risk to themselves and their loved ones.”


Mr. Danchenko did not get the money.

After the defense was done with Mr. Helson, Mr. Durham sought to limit the damage of his testimony. He brought up a 2009 F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Danchenko. But Mr. Helson said he had discussed the matter with the case agent who had handled the earlier investigation and was comfortable continuing to use Mr. Danchenko as a source.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

See, right now, with his opening witness, Durham's at the point he's getting it on the record:

The FBI didn't corroborate or verify any of these Steele Dossier allegations before they used them in the FISA warrant on Carter Page.

What comes next?

Well it's obvious what comes next:

Durham: "Oh by the way, when did you discover that Christopher Steele and Igor Danchenko were paid political operatives of the Hillary Clinton campaign? And was that before or after you used their unverified allegations in the FISA warrant?"

FBI Agent: [mumbles something unintelligible]

Durham: "I'm sorry, could you say that louder?"

FBI Agent: "Do I have to?"

Durham: "Yes."

FBI Agent: Well it was in September of 2016 that...."

Durham: "So you knew that both Steele and Danchenko were doing opposition research for the Clinton campaign when you took these allegations from them and made use of them in your FISA warrant targeting Carter Page? That they were contractors working for Hillary Clinton?

FBI Agent: "Well...yes."
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