Special Counsel Durham’s Protect-The-Establishment Approach Is Destroying The Country
By: Margot Cleveland
September 26, 2022
What was judicious a few years ago is foolhardy today because the left has learned there are no consequences when they abuse the system to attack conservatives.
Special Counsel John Durham continues to ignore the FBI’s malfeasance in the Crossfire Hurricane targeting of Donald Trump, a Friday court filing by prosecutors in the criminal case against Igor Danchenko confirms. While that approach may have been prudent and in the country’s best interests three and a half years ago, when then-Attorney General Bill Barr tasked Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia collusion hoax, it is no longer judicious.
The special counsel’s failure to appreciate this reality threatens the government’s case against Danchenko, but more significantly has spurred the Biden administration, the D.C. deep state, and partisan state officials to further weaponize the criminal justice system against their political enemies.
Since May of 2019, when the public first learned that Barr had tasked Durham — who at the time was the U.S. attorney for Connecticut — to investigate the origins of Crossfire Hurricane, there have been only three criminal prosecutions. In August of 2020, Durham obtained a conviction of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, after Clinesmith pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the government. Clinesmith’s crime consisted of him altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to falsely indicate Page had not served as a source for the CIA. For his offense, Clinesmith received a sentence of 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service.
In September of 2021, Durham, who by then had been appointed a special prosecutor, initiated a second prosecution when he indicted former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann with one count of lying to former FBI General Counsel James Baker. That indictment alleged that Sussmann lied when he provided Baker with data and three “white papers” purporting to establish a secret communication channel between the Trump organization and the Russia-based Alfa Bank, telling the former FBI general counsel that he was sharing the information on his own, when, in fact, according to the indictment, Sussmann represented the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe. A D.C. jury acquitted Sussmann in May of 2022.
Next month, the third criminal case related to the Russia collusion hoax goes to trial in a federal court in Virginia when Durham seeks to convict Russian-national Danchenko on five counts of lying to the FBI. The special counsel charged Danchenko late last year with lying to the FBI concerning his role as Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source. Earlier this month, Danchenko asked the court to dismiss the charges against him, claiming his supposed lies to the FBI were not “material” to the government’s investigation. “Crossfire Hurricane agents never intended to drop their investigation of Donald Trump, and therefore any lies he told the FBI did not affect their decision-making,” Danchenko argued in his motion to dismiss.
more
https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/26/special-counsel-durhams-protect-the-establishment-approach-is-destroying-the-country/
