PrairiePundit

  Daily Scrape: The Durham report’s declassified annex has unleashed a firestorm, exposing George Soros as the alleged mastermind behind the 2016 Trump-Russia hoax. Leaked emails from Soros’ Open Society flunky, Leonard Benardo, reveal a sinister scheme to paint Trump as Putin’s pawn, with Clinton campaign operatives and FBI-tied CrowdStrike pulling the strings. The report, pushed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, shows the Obama FBI ignored red flags about this “Clinton Plan,” letting the fake narrative spiral. Insiders claim Soros’ cash fueled the operation, with his influence seeping into the intelligence community like a bad cold. Conservatives are apoplectic, demanding Soros be shipped back to Hungary for this “globalist treachery.” ... I have been a Trump supporter for some time and never bought into the Russia hoax.  In fact, it never made any sense to me.  Trump made his fortune by investing in real estate and not by engaging in liberal politics.  It looks like Soros i...

 David Marcus: Special Counsel John Durham recently appeared before Congress to answer questions about his bombshell report on the FBI’s botched handling of Donald Trump’s alleged Russian collusion in 2016, and what Americans heard in the hallowed halls of the Capitol should chill them to the core. Durham told the House Judiciary Committee, "The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research, such as the Steele dossier. The FBI relied on the dossier and FISA applications, knowing there was likely material originating from a political campaign or political opponent." And whose political campaign you might ask was funneling this false information to the FBI? Why that would be Hillary Clinton’s, Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent. As if this weren’t bad enough, and it most assuredly is, at almost the same time as the same FBI was opening a case on Trump under false pretenses, it was closing its investigation on Clinton’s mishandl...

 National Review: Appearing before the House Judiciary committee on Wednesday, Special Counsel John Durham defended his probe into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, asserting he found “troubling violations of law and policy” as well as bias among key officials. The report was published in mid-May and determined that the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia was improperly opened. Durham also found several examples of the agency mishandling the investigation once it was opened. The special counsel added that in the intervening years, FBI employees have come to him and apologized for the agency’s conduct. “I have had any number of FBI agents who I’ve worked with over the years — some of them retired, some of them still in place — who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken. I take that seriously. These are good, hardworking people — the majority of th...

 Real Clear Investigations: Special Counsel John Durham’s final report faults the FBI for opening the Trump-Russia collusion investigation on baseless grounds and relying on Hillary Clinton-funded material to pursue it, all while ignoring a warning that Clinton was plotting to frame Trump as a Russian asset. Yet Durham does not address the Clinton campaign’s equally central tie to Russiagate’s other foundational allegation: that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by hacking Democratic party servers and releasing the material through Wikileaks to help elect Trump. Durham’s silence on the Clinton team’s role in generating this unproven claim comes despite his unearthing of evidence that newly calls it into question. Material obtained by Durham’s team shows that the Clinton campaign and its contractor, the cyber-firm CrowdStrike, stonewalled the FBI’s requests for critical data about the alleged Russian hack. Two key Clinton associates who were integral to the Russian hacking clai...

 Monica Showalter: Obama torpedoed U.S. relations with Russia -- to perpetuate lies about Trump, Durham report found The Durham report exposed Obama's fraudulent statements. 

 I&I: The long-delayed, much-awaited Durham report has finally dropped. And what it shows is nothing short of shocking: A conspiracy at the highest levels of our government to fix an election in favor of one candidate over another. This is not something that deserves merely a handslap or the usual Inside-The-Beltway tut-tutting. It’s a criminal act for which people should go to prison. Just for the record, this is far worse than Watergate. And that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency, even though he neither planned nor approved of the break-ins against the Democratic Party offices in the famed Watergate Hotel. What will the perpetrators of this crime get? The FBI launched its now-infamous “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of alleged Russian “influence” on the Trump campaign in July 2016. The premise for the investigation was a “dossier” of information from former British spy Christopher Steele that implicated Donald Trump and several of his supporters as being improperly influe...

 Daily Mail: Durham's final report is RELEASED: Prosecutor says FBI did NOT have any 'factual evidence' to investigate Trump-Russia collusion and slams 'bias' bureau for failing to properly probe Steele dossier And:   After 4-year probe, Durham report slams FBI for actions in 2016 Russia investigation ... "Our investigation ... revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities," Durham wrote in his report. "In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump's political opponents. The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them before opening a full-scale investigation." In his final report, Durham alleges that the investigation into Trump in its early days ...

 Just the News: Durham bombshell: Prosecutor unveils smoking gun FBI text message, 'joint venture' to smear Trump Special Counsel John Durham revealed he has unearthed a text message showing Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann falsely told the FBI he was not working on behalf of any client when he delivered anti-Trump research. Special Counsel John Durham is revealing new smoking gun evidence, a text message that shows a Clinton campaign lawyer lied to the FBI, while putting the courts on notice he is prepared to show the effort to smear Donald Trump with now-disproven Russia collusion allegations was a "conspiracy." In a bombshell court filing late Monday night, Durham for the first time suggested Hillary Clinton's campaign, her researchers and others formed a "joint venture or conspiracy" for the purpose of weaving the collusion story to harm Trump's election chances and then the start of his presidency. "These parties acted as ...

 Margot Cleveland: Special Counsel John Durham’s deft questioning of FBI agent Brian Auten during the prosecution of Steele-dossier primary sub-source Igor Danchenko confirmed the Crossfire Hurricane team obtained permission to surveil U.S. citizen Carter Page without first verifying the dossier’s claims. While scandalous, the Justice Department’s deceptive framing of Christopher Steele’s source network as connected to his prior work with British intelligence is worse because the higher-ups who authorized the inclusion of this detail in the final revision of the application knew a FISA warrant would likely be denied without the misrepresentation. The special counsel’s criminal trial against Danchenko on five counts of lying to the FBI began earlier this week in a Virginia federal court, with prosecutor Michael Keilty framing for the jury the significance of Danchenko’s alleged lies during the government’s opening statement. “The evidence in this trial will show that the Steele doss...

 Washington Examiner: ... Kash Patel appeared on Fox News on Sunday and defended former President Donald Trump's claims that he issued sweeping declassification orders of documents after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago resort and seized more than a dozen boxes of materials in an investigation that could have national security implications. MARK MEADOWS SAYS DOJ TRIED TO REDACT RUSSIAGATE MATERIALS 'MINUTES' BEFORE BIDEN SWORN IN Patel, who was chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and held other high-ranking positions in the Trump administration, said Trump named him his representative to the National Archives, and they have been locked in a "bureaucratic battle" in regards to documents that were taken to his Florida club. Because there appears to be an "ongoing" counterintelligence investigation, he argued, "you will never be allowed to see the Russiagate docs or any other docs that President Trump lawfully declassified, and...

 Eli Lake: ... The problem with Durham’s prosecution of Sussmann is that the evidence presented to the jury would be better suited to a trial of the former leadership of the FBI. For example, after field agents looked at the white papers and dismissed them as shoddy research, a senior manager from FBI headquarters told them to keep the probe open as a counterintelligence investigation, noting that FBI leadership was keenly interested. What’s more, the opening of the server investigation did not mention that the tip came from a Clinton campaign lawyer; instead it said it came from the Justice Department. When the bureau’s investigators wanted to know the identity of the person who had brought the white papers to the FBI, they were told the source would have to remain confidential. None of these details mattered, though, to the outcome of the trial itself. The FBI was not on trial; Sussmann was. And Sussmann was not charged with defrauding the US government or conspiring with FBI off...

  Washington Examiner: Sussmann found not guilty in blow to John Durham's investigation It looks like Durham was facing a stacked deck with an Obama Judge and a DC jury made up of Clinton voters. 

 Washington Examiner: Former  Attorney General William Barr  said he believes  special counsel John Durham  is uncovering "seditious" activity. The trial  of Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann  has shown  how Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and its  allies spread theories  tying rival Donald Trump to Russia in the final months of the election, providing evidence for those who have long argued there was a so-called Russiagate plot to undermine Trump's candidacy and later his presidency. This Alfa-Bank matter tied to the Clinton team may not have spurred the FBI's investigation into Trump's links to Russia, but Barr said he accepted the chance to become attorney general, his second stint, because he believed a "constitutional crisis" was afoot. Barr took charge of the Justice Department in February 2019, overseeing the roll-out of special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia findings, and appointed Durham to investigate the ...

  National Review: Sussmann Billed Clinton Campaign on Day of FBI Meeting for Work on ‘Confidential Project,’ Records Show Sussmann is accused of lying to the FBI about whether he came forward with the Trump-Alfa Bank evidence on behalf of a client. Sussmann will now have o present evidence that the billing was for something else, if he can. 

 PJ Media: Durham Trial: The Guy Who Ran FBI Counterintelligence in Trump Russia Scam Has a Really, Really Bad Memory ...   Priestap didn’t remember much and seemed cagey about the Alfa-Bank debacle. He didn’t remember details of the Alfa-Bank investigation, nor meeting with reporters about it, nor thinking that the Chicago FBI field office assigned to the investigation needed to know about the provenance of the dirt. That information was kept from line officers investigating the case. ... He is no longer with the FBI.   

 Washington Examiner: Durham trial: Baker '100% confident' Sussmann told him he was acting alone But court and DC jury appear biased to some:   Tale of two trials: How Sussmann is receiving every consideration denied to Flynn ...  Whereas Flynn’s prosecution was a no-holds-barred affair, Sussmann’s prosecution has been undermined by a series of unfavorable rulings by the court. Special prosecutor John Durham still may be able to eke out a conviction, but the difference in the treatment of Trump and Clinton associates is striking.  ... Looking at the jury box, one can understand Shaw’s unease. During jury selection, one juror admitted he was a Clinton donor and could only promise to “strive for impartiality as best I can.” Prosecutors objected to his being seated, but Judge Christopher Cooper overruled them.  In another exchange, a former bartender and donor to far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was told by a Sussmann defense lawyer that neither Clin...

  Andrew McCarthy: One lie that hides an enormous conspiracy: Inside the trial that exposes Clinton’s plot to slander Trump It was one of the biggest political frauds in history that started with a lie to get the FBI and DOJ involved in pushing the fraud.  Sometimes one of the best ways to try a major fraud case is to pick out an obvious lie that was used to promote it.  In a case I had where some retuning Vietnam POWs were swindled out of their back pay by a bond dealer where the salesman claimed he had been a Korean war POW as a Marine in order to get the victims to buy, I made that the central element of the fraud case and produced evidence the guy had never been a POW.

  Washington Examiner: A  federal judge placed limits on special counsel John Durham’s evidence in court meant to demonstrate a  “joint venture”  involving Hillary Clinton’s 2016  presidential campaign  to discredit rival Donald Trump with Russia collusion claims. ... “The government contends that the Alfa Bank data was gathered as part of a concerted effort to collect and disseminate derogatory opposition research about Donald Trump,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote in the 24-page ruling, adding that participants in the “purported joint undertaking” included Sussmann, the Clinton campaign, Clinton campaign general counsel and Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, Joffe, and several computer researchers working at Joffe’s direction. “The Court will exercise its discretion not to engage in the kind of extensive evidentiary analysis that would be required to find tha...

 Washington Examiner: ... Steele  testified  in a British court that Sussmann provided him with other claims about Alfa Bank’s purported ties to Russian President  Vladimir Putin   during a late July 2016 meeting. These allegations made their way into a September 2016 memo that became part of the dossier. DeFilippis said Wednesday that Sussmann’s meeting with Steele is “incredibly probative and relevant” because the meeting shows that Sussmann was “integrated” with the broader effort. He said the prosecution’s goal is to show “the intersection between Mr. Steele’s efforts and the Russian Bank-1” claims. The prosecutor said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook “told the government that he viewed Steele’s opposition research and Alfa Bank research as intermixed” and part of the same "work stream" of Fusion and Perkins. The prosecutor pointed out that the same law firm and opposition research firm were the ultimate sources of the Steele reporting and the Alfa Bank a...

It looks like the attempt to avoid document production to Durham's investigation has failed and he will get to see the documents related to the Russian collusion hoax.