At 'RussiaGate' Trial, Questions Loomed About Special Counsel Durham (Updated)

With trial completed and ending in acquittal for one of the most politically explosive federal prosecutions in years, U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel John H. Durham’s record reveals legal error that undercuts his image as straight-shooting seeker of justice.

In a 2008 ruling that has never been reported by a major news outlet, a New York federal appeals court vacated bribery, wire fraud and racketeering convictions because a team led by Durham, left, then the Deputy U.S. Attorney in Connecticut (and Acting U.S. attorney for supervising the prosecution), illegally withheld evidence that could have helped federal defendant Charles Spadoni defend himself in a corruption case.

In another case, a Connecticut federal judge overturned a conviction in 2003 because of what she ruled in a 57-page decision was Durham's repeated prosecutorial misconduct at trial, a sanction that authorities stated is extremely rare in the federal system.

Past performance is relevant now because Durham's three-year probe of alleged illegality pertaining to the 2016 U.S. presidential election is reaching a pivotal and controversial juncture with the trial this month of the prominent cyberlaw attorney Michael Sussmann, right, on a claim that Sussmann falsely denied that he was representing the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton when he sought to alert FBI general counsel James Baker in the fall of 2016 to suspicions of Russian interference in the campaign and operations of the Democratic National Committee..

Sussmann, his attorneys and some independent commentators have denied wrongdoing and claimed that the prosecution is exceptionally weak and also tainted by political partisanship by Durham, a career prosecutor who was also nominated by President Trump for Durham's political post of U.S. attorney for Connecticut.

The trial began on May 16 and lasted two weeks before U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper in Washington’s federal court.

Breaking News May 31: 

• Washington Post, Michael Sussmann, who offered allegations about Trump in 2016, acquitted of lying to FBI
• National Public Radio, Special Counsel Durham fails first courtroom test in his three-year probe
• New York Magazine, Intelligencer: John Durham Tried to Prove Trump’s Russiagate Theory. Instead He Debunked It, Jonathan Chait
• Fox News, Michael Sussmann found not guilty of charge brought by Special Prosecutor John Durham

Durham’s case against Sussmann, a former partner at the DC office of law firm Perkins Coie, has generated substantial interest in the national press, particularly in pro-Trump circles where some Trump supporters regard it as their last best hope to vindicate Trump’s 2016 election victory as a purely American popular effort, thereby debunking claims that Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election to hurt Clinton and other Democratic candidates.

Sussmann and his defenders, on the other hand, have defended his actions as both non-criminal and reasonable, particularly in view of what they see as confirmed threats to the elections process posed by Russians, Trump and their allies. Sussmann’s defense lawyers accused Durham, for example, of promoting a “baseless narrative that the Clinton campaign conspired with others to trick the federal government into investigating ties between President Trump and Russia.”

Sussmann’s attorneys also have pointed to evidentiary problems in Durham’s case, including the lack of contemporary notes by the key FBI witness, James Baker, to support the Durham prosecution team's allegation that Sussmann criminally deceived Baker regarding his relevant clients.

The case, in other words, has come to be regarded in some quarters as either a rigorous and fearless application of the law by Durham and his team -- or, conversely, as an example of over-zealous overreach by an unaccountable prosecutor suspected of bringing a baseless prosecution to favor pro-Trump politics.

A consistent theme in the news accounts exploring the Durham investigation is that prosecutor and his team, including Nora R. Dannehy, a former Acting U.S. Attorney in Connecticut and longtime Durham colleague, bring to their work outstanding reputations as career prosecutors long entrusted to fulfill their responsibilities with the highest standards of professional expertise and justice-seeking.

And this is why the 2008 federal court decision, invalidating Durham’s prosecution of Spadoni for prosecutorial misconduct, remains especially relevant today in Durham’s prosecution of Sussmann.

• CNN, Who's who in the Michael Sussmann trial, Marshall Cohen (see below for details)
• New York Times, Clashing Views of Cybersecurity Lawyer as Trial in Special Counsel’s Case Opens, Charlie Savage

Here’s the story: New Questions Raised About Prosecutor Who Cleared Bush Officials in U.S. Attorney Firings, which we at the Justice Integrity Project originally reported in 2010 in Nieman Watchdog, a niche website published by Harvard University and edited by Barry Sussman, left, the former Watergate editor of the Washington Post who supervised its coverage of that scandal. Sussman is also the author of the recently released fifth edition of The Great Cover-up, a widely praised account of the Watergate probe.

The Nieman Watchdog story focused primarily on the appointment of Durham and Dannehy as special counsel investigating allegations of CIA and Justice Department misconduct. The story began this way:

"Four days before Nora Dannehy was appointed to investigate the Bush administration’s U.S. attorney firing scandal, a team of lawyers she led was found to have illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case.....[T]his previously unreported fact calls her entire investigation into question as well as that of a similar investigation by her colleague John Durham of DOJ and CIA decision-making involving torture."

The New York-based U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that Durham’s team should have known that the Spadoni defense was entitled to an FBI's agent's notes, which could have been used by Spadoni to argue that his conduct was legal.

The three-judge court ruled unanimously in vacating the major convictions against Spadoni, right. Judges held that the evidence unconstitutionally withheld might have helped Spadoni's defense against prosecution claims that he and his employer, Triumph Capital, Inc., illegally conspired to hire a political consultant in hopes of winning a major contract from the State of Connecticut.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson, left, a former federal prosecutor, authored the opinion, which is available here. It did not name the federal prosecutors at fault but the case caption and relevant filings were signed by Durham and Dannehy as the most senior attorneys.

Follow up correspondence to the courts in 2010 provides a sense of the high stakes and continued rancor. A memo signed by Durham and assistant, William J. Nardini, now a federal judge, urged the courts to sentence Spadoni without delay.

Spadoni's attorney, William M. Sullivan, Jr.., responded this way:

In his Memorandum (“Mem.”), Charles Spadoni presents overwhelming evidence of the government’s continued misconduct in this case—misconduct which the Second Circuit  previously recognized when it sternly rebuked the government. Instead of being chastened by the Second Circuit’s opinion, however, the government complains of Mr. Spadoni’s “tone” and of the delay which has taken place in this case—even though responsibility for both lies in its
hands.

Widespread Praise

Durham and Dannehy have achieved widespread praise and career advancement as special prosecutors entrusted with reviewing several of the most sensitive Justice Department controversies of recent years. These include investigations of suppression of evidence, partisan prosecutions or other alleged serious wrongdoing by Justice Department and CIA personnel in major proceedings of historic stature.

That pattern continued after May 2019, when the Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr named Durham, later assisted by Dannehy, to investigate the Trump team’s claims that the FBI and other Justice Department concocted phony claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election along with Democratic operatives associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Tabloids, pro-Trump media outlets and some leftist critics of the Democratic Party have labeled the claims of Russian interference "RussiaGate" in many news stories and commentaries that suggest that Russian "interference" is colossal fraud on par with the Nixon-era scandal of the 1972 break-in by GOP and CIA operatives of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC.

Typical of such coverage are editorials by the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, including a headline in February, Eyes turn to Hillary Clinton, not Trump in the Russiagate scandal. A headline last fall was The real ‘collusion’ was the creation of ‘RussiaGate’ out of absolutely nothing. Fox News, pro-Trump Republican officers and many bloggers have similarly advanced arguments that Trump and Russians have been falsely accused.

John Durham: 'The Legendary Lawman'

National Review columnist Jim Geraghty was even more forceful in a 2019 column headlined The Last Trusted Prosecutor in Washington, and subtitled: John Durham is the legendary lawman digging into how the intelligence probe of Donald Trump started. It began:

John Durham may be the most consequential and least known figure in Washington right now.

In May, U.S. attorney general William Barr (right) selected Durham, a longtime prosecutor with a résumé so sterling it nearly glows, to investigate the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and whether it was properly predicated. Some Trump fans believe there was a vast effort by a “deep state” of high-ranking intelligence and law-enforcement officials to smear Trump or hinder his campaign by creating a perception of corrupt ties to Russia. In late October, the New York Times quoted unnamed sources who said that Durham’s probe had officially become a criminal investigation, meaning he now has the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury, and to file criminal charges.

Since he is an attorney general appointed by President Trump, almost every decision from William Barr is criticized by Democrats as a partisan abuse of law-enforcement powers. But the appointment of Durham received no backlash, and in fact received praise far and wide.

Who is Durham, this rare-as-a-unicorn figure who can reassure lawmakers, talking heads, and court-watchers on both sides of the aisle, in an era when everything seems destined to turn into a loud partisan food fight?

To say Durham is tight-lipped is an understatement; he lets his courtroom arguments speak for him and rarely talks to reporters at all. Those who have covered him for years — or, more accurately, tried to cover him — say that when he does run into reporters, he is cordial but uninformative, and almost never on the record. In Durham’s questionnaire for the Senate while awaiting confirmation to be a U.S. Attorney, he was asked to list his written work. He answered that he had never written or published any books, articles, reports, or letters to the editor.

By contrast, an analysis headlined Russiagate Was Not a Hoax in 2020 by staff writer Franklin Foer argued that the 2017 to 2019 investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI Director, and a bipartisan report by the Republican-chaired Senate Intelligence Committee showed that Russians seriously interfered with the 2016 elections and were well-positioned to do so in the future.

Similar themes have been advanced in court and by such books as the “Proof” trilogy (Proof of Collusion, Proof of Conspiracy and Proof of Corruption) by Seth Abramson, right, House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger and Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.

Back-and-forth argumentation on the seriousness of threats began during the post-election transition to the Trump presidency when FBI personnel warned Trump that his campaign advisor Michael Flynn, a retired general and former Defense Intelligence Agency director, was falsely denying Russian contacts while Trump was in the process of naming Flynn to be the first National Security Advisor in 2017. Flynn, shown at left in a 2016 photo by Gage Skidmore, later pleaded guilty to federal charges, tried to withdraw his plea and ultimately received a pardon from Trump while helping lead a MAGA movement to have Clinton and her campaign personnel prosecuted.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over the Flynn case, appointed Gleeson, by then a former judge, to serve as a special master to sort through the legal options when a such a defendant seeks to withdraw a guilty plea even after the kind of thorough plea admission that Sullivan had supervised, as our Justice Integrity Project witnessed in covering the case. But the Trump-Barr Justice Department short-circuited the prosecution by dropping it, thereby protecting Flynn, an ardent admirer of Trump famed also for leading campaign rally chants of "Lock her up!" demonizing Clinton.

Another oddity in Durham's prosecution background is that retired FBI special agent Robert Fitzpatrick co-authored a 2011 memoir that criticized Durham as essentially whitewashing an investigation that is usually cited as one of Durham's finest achievements.

In Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down, Fitzpatrick and co-author Jon Land wrote about Durham's work in Boston after appointment by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate Justice Department misconduct documented by U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf in a special report. The report confirmed the coddling of Bulger's Irish-American gang by Justice Department personnel who were using them as informants against Italian-American Mafia leaders being prosecuted before Wolf.

Fitzpatrick claimed credit for initiating the investigation of the Bulger gang and FBI wrongdoing. He complained that higher levels of the Justice Department had been thwarting his internal probes.

He wrote that Durham then took an easy compromise by targeting solely the most obvious culprit, a flashy former FBI Boston supervisor, John Connolly, who is currently serving a life sentence for murder conspiracy.

"Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise," Fitzpatrick quoted Durham as saying at Connolly's sentencing, with the retired agent characterizing Durham's words as "seeming to indicate a plan or at least an intention, to pursue other guilty parties."

Fitzpatrick continued:

Nothing could be further from the truth. More than a decade later now, no additional arrests or prosecutions have taken place, in spite of the fact that I and a number of other law enforcement officials laid out all the evidence of corruption and leaking for Durham. We basically served up everything he needed on a silver platter, which he apparently ignored and has continued to ignore since.

A further oddity is that the Justice Department then prosecuted its retired agent, Fitzpatrick, for false statements for material in his memoir and elsewhere. He pleaded guilty. Neither he nor his co-author were available for comment when our Justice Integrity Project tried to contact them.

The controversies above are not the only ones in Durham's background. In 2003, a federal judge in Connecticut took the extraordinary step of vacating a conviction in her court because of what she described as prosecution misconduct by Durham. The story is recounted in a 2003 news report by the Connecticut Law Tribune excerpted below and at greater length at the bottom of the appendix to this column, with a link to the docket here: Anthony Washington Docket Report.

Connecticut Law Tribune, Attorney's Trial Tactics Impugned, Kellie A. Wagner, June 23, 2003. Judge tosses conviction.

Admonishing Deputy U.S. Attorney John Durham's trial tactics, as well as her own failure to maintain courtroom decorum, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton has taken the extraordinary step of overturning a weapons charge conviction largely on account of prosecutorial misconduct.

In granting defendant Anthony Washington's request for a new trial las month, Arterton (right) rebuked Durham for undermining the defense's key witness, while personally vouching for those who took the stand on the prosecution’s behalf, maligning defense counsel and his arguments; and aluding to highly prejudicial facts not in evidence.

Durham could not be reached for comment by press time. But U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said his office will be filing a motion for reconsideration in the matter.

Though he declined to reveal the specifics of the government's objections, O'Connor acknowledged the rarity of a conviction being uprooted due to prosecutorial misconduct at the federal level, stating there have only been one or two such rulings in the past 20 years.

In fairness, it can be expected that any professional litigator would generate criticiim during the course of a long career. But the criticism reported here against Durham by federal judges is both extraordinary and also is sharply at odds with his national image as an extraordinarily well-respected prosecutor.

Part of that discrepancy may arise from the economic cutbacks in advertising-supported local news media and national professional journals (the Connecticut Law Tribune was an affiliate of The American Lawyer) that used to cover courts, particularly in local and regional courts, far more thoroughly than now. That's a larger issue but underscores the lack of public knowledge and accountability for decision-making in the justice system.

Government Accountability

There are many aspects of the current Durham investigation, his overall career, Russian election tampering and so-called "RussiaGate" that have prompted wide commentary, sometimes at book length because it relates to controversial aspects of national presidential elections. This column will use an appendix below to summarize a diverse array of such commentary, and instead focus in our remaining space on a couple of over-arching themes.

"RussiaGate" refers to the ongoing political scandal surrounding a series of allegations regarding President Donald Trump's ties to the Russian government, including speculation of collusion between the Trump Presidential campaign and the Russian hack of the DNC email server.

An investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019.

On April 18, 2019, a redacted version of the Special Counsel's report titled Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, was released to Congress and the public. The report was in two volumes, the first about Russian interference in the election and potential involvement of Trump associates, and the second on possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

The report concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur "in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law."

Regarding the Sussmann prosecution and Durham's role:

Durham's overall career success is publicly premised on the image that the public can rely on Durham and a few other high-ranking prosecutors (such as his longtime colleague Dannehy) to enforce justice even-handedly, not just against private attorneys like Sussmann and Spadoni, but also against federal agents suspected of illegal or unethical conduct, as in their probes of CIA officers who destroyed torture evidence or the Justice Department and White House operatives involved in the 2006 U.S. attorney firing scandal.

That's government accountability, in sum, at least according to popular understanding, as reinforced by commentaries who increasingly lack the time and sources to penetrate the tight-knit world of high-level law enforcement.

And tight knit it is, and almost opaque to legislative oversight, much less to reporters and the rest of the public. Durham and Dannehy, right, spent much of the past three decades working in the Connecticut U.S. attorneys office. So did Dannehy's husband, Leonard Boyle, the interim U.S. attorney recently running the office responsible for all federal criminal and civil litigation involving Connecticut, albeit under the overall supervision of the U.S. attorney general's staff at "Main Justice" in Washington, DC. The Senate confirmed Biden-nominated Boyle's successor on April 27.

All of these officials have made a virtue out of silence and secrecy except in court filings and appearances, as Boyle boasted of Durham in a rare if not unique public appearance by both of them in 2018 at a special lecture / tribute honoring Durham's career arranged by the University of St. Joseph. As reported by Jim Geraghty in his 2019 National Review column The Last Trusted Prosecutor in Washington: 

The only time Durham has offered public remarks on his work was in a March 2018 lecture at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, Conn. Durham was introduced by his friend of three decades and frequent prosecutorial partner, Leonard C. Boyle, the deputy chief state’s attorney in Connecticut, and Boyle observed, “At least three members of the press are here tonight, because they probably realize that this may be their only chance to hear John speak about his work, other than in a courtroom. He’s notoriously shy about speaking about himself.”

The impenetrability of such decision-making, while undoubtedly legally correct in most instances, nonetheless carries a potential cost in public accountability when suspicions arise that decision-makers are neither fair nor error free. That has happened on several occasions with both Durham and Dannehy even beyond the Sussmann and Spadoni cases.

For still-mysterious reasons, for example, Dannehy dropped off Durham's current investigation in the fall of 2020, shortly before the presidential election.

Only Edmund H. Mahony, right, a prominent legal reporter for the Hartford Courant for more than three decades, reported for any mainstream publication an indication of her reason for resigning. And even his reporting conveyed, in essence, a hint of displeasure, based on unidentified sourcing, about the probe's direction.

That is very thin fare for the public to understand a continuing multi-million-dollar investigation about the integrity of the two major political parties during the 2016 presidential campaigns, including concerns of overall honesty of the FBI, particularly as controversies continue to simmer and while claims of Russian election interference in 2016 have morphed into fears of continuing election threats, enhanced by fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Notable also is that both Durham and Dannehy advanced their reputations and careers by appointments to investigate wrongdoing at the Justice Department regarding the 2006 U.S. Attorneys firing scandal, for Dannehy, and destruction of torture evidence by CIA personnel, Durham's probe. In both instances, the investigators of the major national scandals found no wrongdoing worthy of any significant sanction. Close scrutiny of Dannehy's probe, which most reporters or watchdog officials are not in a position to provide, indicated that she interviewed only one of the eight (or arguably nine) of the 93 U.S. attorneys the Bush Administration fired for allegedly political reasons.

Their decision-making was attacked at the time as whitewashing major government scandals that ruined countless lives via unmerited prosecutions. Where is the accountability for any of that?

When the power and majesty of the U.S. Justice Department are brought to bear upon an individual almost everyone pleads guilty. A vigorous defense can easily cost a million dollars in a case like Spadoni's or Sussman's. Spadoni lost his law license from the prosecution begun in 1999 and thus his ability to make a professional income. He served 18 months in jail for trying before the federal prosecution geared up to delete from his computer two contracts that proved to be not on the computer. He says his legal costs were more than $5 million, albeit mostly covered by insurance.

Whatever the costs, most people do not have either those kinds of resources or a desire to subject their family and friends to the process, which can often include threats of dubious prosecutions against family and friends to pressure a primary defendant.

One of the great heroes of modern American civic life, the Pennsylvania coroner, author and medical school professor Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., below, now aged 91, faced legal bills of more than $8 million because he was targeted in 2006 with more than 80 felony charges in a political prosecution. More than 40 of them were "wire fraud" felony charges for using a fax machine for personal use in his part-time job as county coroner, with the total cost to county government calculated by Wecht's attorneys as less than $3 in ink and telephone charges.

Clearly, some politically ambitious or vengeful personnel at the Justice Department wanted to put him in prison for the rest of his life following his long career of rendering independent judgments on the cause of death in more than 500 autopsies a year (and more than 600 in 2021). These included analysis of many high-profile deaths where his independent judgment might conflict with those of police and prosecutors. He performed an autopsy on the imprisoned murderer and former federal informant James "Whitey" Bulger, for example.

His more than 60 books, including textbooks used to train fellow forensic pathologists in medical schools, include two recent ones, The JFK Assassination Dissected and his memoir, The Life and Deaths of Cyril H. Wecht. 

Wecht's primary prosecutor in 2006, Mary Beth Buchanan, was a politically connected Justice Department executive at Main Justice who had supervised of all U.S. attorneys nationally during the George W. Bush presidency. In leading the prosecution against Wecht, she was gearing up for a future campaign for a Pennsylvania congressional seat.

But her prosecution and political career faltered after Wecht was able to win transfer of his case away from a hostile judge and towards a new one, who pressured the government to dismiss the case.

Not everyone has the will power and connections of a Wecht in persevering to win such a victory. In his case, he won wide support in his Metro Pittsburgh community and via his law team, which included former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh.

The federal oversight investigation by Dannehy, now counsel to Connecticut's Gov. Ned Lamont, had nothing to say about that, with no record of even interviewing victims or prosecutors aside from fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. Her oversight probe, which we have described previously as a whitewash, thereby provided the most superficial illusion possible of effective oversight of massive injustice around the nation in numerous such cases that our organization and others were documenting, much like Durham's similar probe of CIA wrongdoing.

Judgment Day Looms

The day is fast approaching when Michael Sussmann, another intrepid but doubtless beleaguered defendant, will put Durham and his current investigation to the test. Following the pre-trial hearing on April 27, Sussman's trial is scheduled to begin on May 16 before Judge Cooper, right.  The Justice Integrity Project will be among those covering developments, including the jury's verdict on Sussmann -- and in effect a verdict on Durham and the rest of like-minded Justice Department officials.

Contact the author This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This column has been updated, most recently on June 1, 2022. Justice Integrity Project Editor Andrew Kreig was assigned by the Hartford Courant, Connecticut's largest news organization, to cover federal courts from 1976 to 1981. He later authored "Spiked," a best-selling book describing economic incentives in regional news media to curtail in-depth coverage of courts and other local government. Also, he later served as law clerk to Judge Mark Wolf in Boston from 1990-91 during the judge's pre-trial oversight of a federal racketeering case against seven leaders of the New England Mafia, including Raymond Patriarca, Jr., that evolved into the judge's scrutiny of federal prosecution methods. Any opinions expressed in this column are the author's, except as attributed in the text, and with no input from either the newspaper management or the judge. 

Related News Coverage

2023

May 15

Washington Post, Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s probe of 2016 Trump campaign, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, May 15, 2023. The long-awaited report on how the government probed Russian interference in the 2016 election seems likely to fuel, rather than end, partisan debates about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.

Special counsel John Durham, right, has issued a long-awaited report that sharply criticizes the FBI for investigating the 2016 Trump campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” — a conclusion that may fuel rather than end partisan debate about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.

Durham was appointed in 2019 by President Donald Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr, to re-examine how government agents hunted for possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election. The report, coming almost four years to the day since Durham’s assignment began, will likely be derided by Democrats as the end of a partisan boondoggle, while Republicans will have to wrestle with a much-touted investigation that didn’t send a single person to jail.

Many of the details of FBI conduct described by the Durham report were previously known and had been sharply criticized by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which did not find “documentary of testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct."

Durham goes further in his criticism, however, arguing that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump in a case known as Crossfire Hurricane, even as it proceeded cautiously on allegations related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Durham’s report finds the FBI failed to live up to its standards, and failed “to critically analyze information that ran counter to the narrative of a Trump/Russia collusive relationship throughout Crossfire Hurricane is extremely troublesome.”

The FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case was “seriously deficient,” Durham wrote. He concluded that the bureau failed in its responsibility to the public, causing “severe reputational harm” to the FBI. Durham said that failure could have been prevented if FBI employees hadn’t embraced “seriously flawed information” and had followed their “own principles regarding objectivity and integrity.”

Barr personally asked foreign officials to aid Durham probe of FBI, CIA activities

In particular, the report notes that while the FBI gave Clinton’s team a defensive briefing when agents learned of a possible evidence by a foreign actor to garner influence with her, agents moved quickly to investigate the Trump campaign without giving them a defensive briefing.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s highly touted “Durham probe” just crashed and burned into a pile of nothing, Bill Palmer, right, May 15, 2023. Donald Trump spent quite awhile publicly insisting that the “Durham probe” was going to prove that everyone from the FBI to the Democratic Party criminally conspired to rig the 2016 election against him.

But anyone paying attention knew the Durham probe would find nothing, because there was nothing to find. The entire thing was based on incoherent conspiracy theories cooked up by Trump and his fellow loons.

Sure enough, John Durham’s final report has been released today, and it’s completely toothless. Actually that’s too generous of a word to describe it. According to his own report, Durham found literally nothing. He failed to land a single conviction against anyone for any alleged crime. In the end he’s presented no evidence of any criminal behavior on the part of anyone.

It’s almost hilarious that Durham is trying to cover his own tracks by baselessly “concluding” in his final report that the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia probe to begin with. That’s certainly not a legal finding or even a valid prosecutorial conclusion. It’s just conspiracy theory gibberish, indistinguishable from what some right wing nutjob might post in a Twitter thread.

2022

October

Oct. 9

U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham, right, is shown in a file photo with international consultant Igor Danchenko, defendant in a false statement prosecution that represents in a trial scheduled to begin Tuesday the culmination of a Durham probe began with his Trump administration appointment in 2019 to investigate Trump allegations that the president was being smeared by suspicions that Trump and his campaign team acted in cooperation with Russian interests and entities before the 2016 presidential election.

 New York Times, Judge Narrows Trial of Analyst Who Reported Salacious Claims About Trump, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, Oct. 9, 2022. Matters deemed tangential to the charges of making false statements, including a notorious and uncorroborated rumor of a sex tape, will be excluded from the case.

John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel, set off political reverberations last year when he unveiled a lengthy indictment of an analyst he accused of lying to the F.B.I. about sources for the so-called Steele dossier, a discredited compendium of political opposition research about purported ties between Donald J. Trump and Russia.

But the trial of the analyst, Igor Danchenko, which opens on Tuesday with jury selection in federal court in Alexandria, Va., now appears likely to be shorter and less politically salient than the sprawling narrative in Mr. Durham’s indictment had suggested the proceeding would be.

In an 18-page order last week, the judge overseeing the case, Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia, right, excluded from the trial large amounts of information that Mr. Durham had wanted to showcase — including material that undercuts the credibility of the dossier’s notorious rumor that Russia had a blackmail tape of Mr. Trump with prostitutes.

Certain facts Mr. Durham dug up related to that rumor “do not qualify as direct evidence as they are not ‘inextricably intertwined’ or ‘necessary to provide context’ to the relevant charge,” Judge Trenga wrote, adding that they “were substantially outweighed by the danger of confusion and unfair prejudice.”

In that and other disputes over evidence, Judge Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, almost always sided with Mr. Danchenko’s defense lawyers. Mr. Durham, they said, had tried to inject irrelevant issues into the trial in “an unnecessary and impermissible attempt to make this case about more than it is.”

Judge Trenga’s ruling has pared down the larger significance of the trial, which is likely to be Mr. Durham’s final courtroom act before he retires as a longtime prosecutor. The grand jury that Mr. Durham has used to hear evidence has expired, suggesting he will bring no further indictments.

Mr. Durham is also writing a report to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who succeeded the Trump administration official who appointed him as special counsel, William P. Barr, right.

The dossier, which is at the heart of the Danchenko trial, attracted significant public attention when BuzzFeed published it in January 2017. Mr. Trump and his supporters frequently try to conflate it with the official Russia inquiry or falsely claim that it was the basis for the F.B.I.’s investigation.

But the F.B.I. did not open the investigation based on the dossier, and the final report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, did not cite anything in it as evidence. The F.B.I. did cite some claims from the dossier in applying for court permission to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russia.

The dossier grew out of opposition research indirectly funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Their law firm, Perkins Coie, contracted with the research firm Fusion GPS, which subcontracted research about Trump business dealings in Russia to a company run by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent.

Mr. Steele in turn subcontracted to Mr. Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in the United States, who canvassed people he knew, including in Europe and Russia. Mr. Danchenko verbally relayed what the analyst later called “raw intelligence” — essentially uncorroborated gossip — to Mr. Steele, who drafted the dossier.

A bureau counterintelligence analyst determined Mr. Danchenko’s identity and the F.B.I. first spoke to him in early 2017, during which he said he had not seen the dossier until BuzzFeed published it. Its tenor was more conclusive than was justified, he said, and he portrayed the blackmail tape story as mere rumor and speculation.

Mr. Danchenko talked to the F.B.I. for hours about what he had gathered, and court filings by Mr. Durham disclosed that the bureau formally deemed him a confidential human source.

An inspector general report revealed in late 2019 that Mr. Danchenko’s interview had raised doubts about the credibility of the dossier and criticized the bureau for failing to tell that to a court in wiretap renewal applications that continued to cite it. The report essentially portrayed Mr. Danchenko, whom it did not name, as a truth-teller, and the F.B.I. as deceptive.

But after further investigation, Mr. Durham accused Mr. Danchenko of deceiving the F.B.I. — including by concealing that a public relations executive with ties to Democrats, Charles Dolan, had been his source for a minor claim involving office politics in the Trump campaign. That assertion made its way into the dossier.

At the trial, Mr. Danchenko’s defense will apparently be that the F.B.I. asked him whether he had ever “talked” to Mr. Dolan about information in the dossier and that his somewhat equivocal denial was true: They had instead communicated by writing about that topic.

Defense lawyers had asked Judge Trenga to throw out the charge, arguing that the particular statute Mr. Danchenko had been charged with covers only affirmative misstatements, not misleading omissions. The judge has characterized that issue as a close call but let it go forward, while suggesting he could revisit the question later.

Mr. Durham had also wanted to present striking but inconclusive evidence: In the summer of 2016, when Mr. Danchenko went to Moscow to gather rumors like the one about a purported sex tape, Mr. Dolan was staying at the hotel where the tape had supposedly been filmed three years earlier — and toured the suite where Mr. Trump had stayed.

But Mr. Dolan told Mr. Durham’s team that he had never heard the tape rumor until BuzzFeed published the dossier, and Mr. Durham did not claim that Mr. Dolan was a source of the rumor. The judge excluded that information from the trial as irrelevant to the false statements Mr. Danchenko is charged with making.

Mr. Durham also brought four false-statement charges against Mr. Danchenko related to accusations that he lied to the F.B.I. about a person he said had called and provided information without identifying himself.

Mr. Danchenko told the F.B.I. he believed the caller had probably been Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, but Mr. Durham contends that is a lie and Mr. Danchenko never believed that.

Like Mr. Steele, Mr. Millian is abroad; he refused to come to the United States to be a witness at the trial. The judge has also ruled inadmissible two emails Mr. Millian apparently wrote about Mr. Danchenko in 2020 denying that he talked to Mr. Danchenko.

The “emails lack the necessary ‘guarantees of trustworthiness’ as the government does not offer direct evidence that Millian actually wrote the emails, and, even if he did, Millian possessed opportunity and motive to fabricate and/or misrepresent his thoughts,” the judge wrote.

After Mr. Durham was assigned to investigate the Russia investigation in the spring of 2019, Mr. Trump and his supporters stoked expectations that Mr. Durham would uncover a “deep state” conspiracy against him and charge high-level F.B.I. and intelligence officials with crimes.

But instead, Mr. Durham developed two cases on narrow charges of false statements involving outside efforts to uncover links between Mr. Trump and Russia. One was against Michael Sussmann, right, a lawyer with Democratic ties who was acquitted of lying to the F.B.I. when he shared a tip about possible connections between Mr. Trump and Russia. Another was against Mr. Danchenko.

Mr. Durham filled court filings with copious amounts of information seemingly extraneous to the charges, while insinuating that Democrats had conspired to frame Mr. Trump for colluding with Russia.

While that was not the theoretical conspiracy Mr. Trump and his supporters at outlets like Fox News had originally focused on, Mr. Durham’s filings provided fodder for them to stoke grievances about the Russia investigation. But judges in both cases have proved skeptical about putting much of that material before a jury.

In both instances, however, Mr. Durham’s earlier filings had already made that information public.

Mr. Danchenko was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation more than a decade ago, after the F.B.I. received a tip that he had made a remark that someone interpreted as an offer to buy classified information. He had also had contact with someone at the Russian embassy believed to be an intelligence officer. The bureau closed the case in 2011 without charging him.

Mr. Danchenko — who made his name as a Russia analyst by bringing to light evidence that President Vladimir V. Putin likely plagiarized parts of his dissertation — has denied being a Russian agent and said he has no memory of the purported remark. For now, the judge has barred Mr. Durham’s team from introducing details about that inquiry, although prosecutors can tell the jury that there had been one.

In an interview last month with the conservative Washington Examiner, Mr. Barr suggested that despite the special counsel’s limited achievements in the courtroom, the investigation was a success from another point of view.

“I think Durham got out a lot of important facts that fill in a lot of the blanks as to what was really happening,” Mr. Barr said, adding that he expected “the Danchenko trial will also allow for a lot of this story to be told, whether or not he’s ultimately convicted.”

July

July 19

Washington Examiner, Clinton lawyers deny involvement with dossier source Danchenko ahead of Durham trial, Jerry Dunleavy, July 19, 2022.
Hillary Clinton's lawyers are denying any connection to British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source Igor Danchenko following a lawsuit brought by former President Donald Trump in the lead-up to Danchenko's October trial.

Trump filed a federal racketeering lawsuit contending a host of characters (including Clinton, members of her campaign, FBI leadership, Danchenko, and others) were part of a broad conspiracy to undermine his candidacy and presidency with false collusion claims, and Clinton sought to dismiss the suit late last week, in part by disputing any direct links between Danchenko and her campaign.

“Danchenko could not have conspired with the RICO Defendants,” Clinton’s lawyers said. “He does not know them. He has never met, communicated, or agreed with any of them about anything. This is why all of [Trump’s] allegations that Danchenko conspired with anyone are conclusory and factually baseless. … [Trump] can allege no specifics. There are none.”

ALLEGED DOSSIER SOURCE DANCHENKO FACES DURHAM TRIAL

Danchenko, a Russian-born lawyer, was charged in November by special counsel John Durham with five counts of making false statements to the FBI, which Durham says he made about information he provided to Steele for his discredited dossier.

According to Durham’s charges, Danchenko anonymously sourced what was a fabricated claim from longtime Bill and Hillary Clinton ally Chuck Dolan about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's resignation. Durham claimed Dolan “actively campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer” for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and he spent years doing work for Russian businesses and Russia's government, including in 2016. Durham has not charged Dolan or Clinton with wrongdoing. Dolan is discussed at length in the Danchenko indictment.

Danchenko has pleaded not guilty. He has lived and worked in the Washington, D.C., area for many years, and he allegedly relied upon a network of Russian contacts but undermined key collusion claims when interviewed by the FBI. The special counsel noted that “certain allegations” which Danchenko provided to Steele that appeared in the dossier “mirrored and/or reflected information that [Dolan] himself also had received through his own interactions with Russian nationals.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Trump’s lawsuit, filed in March and then amended in June, said the “RICO Defendants” (including Clinton, Danchenko, and others) “conspired” in a "scheme to manufacture and disseminate the Steele Dossier and Danchenko’s various false statements to law enforcement" to hurt Trump.

The Clinton attorneys argued Trump “conveniently overlooks” that the claim about Manafort provided to Danchenko by Dolan “was widely reported prior to when he alleges Danchenko received an email about it.” The Clinton legal filing contended that “just as the media’s reporting on the goings-on of the [Trump’s] political campaign was political speech protected by the First Amendment, so it would have been for any defendant.”

Robert Trout, who is at the same firm as Danchenko's lawyers, represented the Clinton campaign ahead of the trial against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who was found not guilty.

July 14

Fox News, Special Counsel Durham requests 30 subpoenas issued in Danchenko case, Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson, July 14, 2022. Danchenko's trial is set to begin on Oct. 11.

Special Counsel John Durham has asked a federal court to issue more than two dozen subpoenas associated with the trial of Igor Danchenko, the Russian national accused of lying about his connection to the now-infamous anti-Trump dossier.

Durham this week requested that 30 subpoenas be issued to individuals to testify on behalf of the government during Danchenko’s trial, which is set to begin Oct. 11.

The court filing, reviewed by Fox News, did not reveal the identities of the individuals Durham is requesting be compelled to testify.

Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI. The charges stemmed from statements Danchenko made relating to the sources he used in providing information to an investigative firm in the U.K.

DESPITE ACQUITTAL, DURHAM TRIAL OF SUSSMANN ADDED TO EVIDENCE CLINTON CAMPAIGN PLOTTED TO TIE TRUMP TO RUSSIA

Danchenko is believed to be the sub-source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier that served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

The dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through the law firm Perkins Coie.

According to the indictment, in March, May, June, October and November of 2017, Danchenko made false statements regarding the sources of certain information that he provided to a U.K. investigative firm that was then included in reports prepared by the firm and subsequently passed to the FBI.

FLASHBACK: DNI DECLASSIFIES BRENNAN NOTES, CIA MEMO ON HILLARY CLINTON 'STIRRING UP' SCANDAL BETWEEN TRUMP, RUSSIA

The June 15, 2017, false statement count alleges that Danchenko denied that he had spoken with a particular individual about material information contained in one of the "Company Reports" when he knew that was untrue.

The March 16, 2017; May 18, 2017; Oct. 24, 2017; and Nov. 16, 2017, counts involve statements made by Danchenko on those dates to FBI agents regarding information he "purportedly had received from an anonymous caller who he believed to be a particular individual, when in truth and in fact he knew that was untrue," Durham's office said Thursday.

"The information purportedly conveyed by the anonymous caller included the allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that the caller had indicated the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected," Durham's office said in a statement last year.

Durham’s team is shifting their focus to the Danchenko trial following the more than two-week-long trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

The jury in late May found Sussmann not guilty of making a false statement to the FBI in September 2016 when he said he was not working on behalf of any client when he brought information alleging a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

SUSSMANN-DURHAM TRIAL: MARC ELIAS SAYS HE BRIEFED CLINTON CAMPAIGN OFFICIALS ON FUSION GPS OPPO AGAINST TRUMP

The jury found that Durham’s team had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Sussmann’s statement was a lie, and that he was, in fact, working on behalf of Clinton’s presidential campaign and technology executive Rodney Joffe when he brought two thumb drives and a white paper alleging a Trump-Russia connection.

Sussmann was charged with one count of making a false statement to the FBI during his meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016.

Durham has indicted three people as part of his investigation: Sussmann in September 2021, Danchenko in November 2021 and Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020.

Clinesmith was also charged with making a false statement. Clinesmith had been referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation.

Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about Trump campaign aide Carter Page to say that he was "not a source" for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

June

June 8

Emptywheel, Something like this has 0 repercussions if you mess up:” John Durham debunked the Alfa Bank debunkery,  emptywheel, right, June 8, 2022.  As you know, John Durham failed spectacularly in trying to use a false statement charge against Michael Sussmann to cement a wild conspiracy theory against the Democrats.

But Durham did succeed in one thing (though you wouldn’t know it from some of the reporting from the trial): He utterly discredited the FBI investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations. Lead prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis even conceded as much in his closing argument.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard testimony about how the FBI handled this investigation. And, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve seen that the FBI didn’t necessarily do everything right here. They missed opportunities. They made mistakes. They even kept information from themselves.

That’s a fairly stunning concession from DeFilippis. After all, DeFilippis asked the guy who was responsible for some of the worst failures in the investigation, Scott Hellman, to be his expert witness, even though Hellman, by his own admission, only “kn[e]w the basics” of the DNS look-ups at the heart of the investigation. Along with Nate Batty, Hellman wrote an analysis of the Alfa Bank white paper in less than a day that:

• Misstated the methodology behind the white paper
• Blew off a reference to “global nonpublic DNS activity” that should have been a tip-off about the kinds of people behind the white paper
• Falsely claimed that the anomaly had only started three weeks before the white paper when in fact it went back months
• Asserted that there was no evidence of a hack even though a hack is one of the hypotheses presented in the white paper for the anomaly at Spectrum Health (Spectrum itself said the look-ups were the result of a misconfigured application)

June 6

Foreign affairs analyst and consultant Igor Danchenko, above left, who's been described as the Steele dossier's primary researcher, was arrested as part of an investigation by John Durham, above right, the special counsel appointed by Trump’s Justice Department to investigate the origins of the Russia probe.

Emptywheel, John Durham's Igor Danchenko Case May Be More Problematic than His Michael Sussmann Case, emptywheel, right, June 6, 2022. John Durham's case against Michael Sussmann was a ridiculously weak case. His problems in the Igor Danchenko case may be still worse.

Legal commentators who ignored the run-up to the Michael Sussmann trial and still have not reported on the evidence of abuse and incompetence are writing posts claiming it was always clear that the jury in that case would return an acquittal. The same people, however, are suggesting there might be more to the Igor Danchenko charges.

I wrote a whole series of posts laying out why that’s wrong — the last one, with links to the others, is here. In addition, I’ve been tracking Durham’s difficulties obtaining classified discovery from other parts of DOJ here. This post pulls together the problems Durham faces in his second trial, which is currently scheduled to start on October 11.

As a reminder, the Danchenko indictment charges the former Christopher Steele source with telling five lies to the FBI in interviews in which they tried to vet the Steele dossier:

One alleged lie on June 15, 2017 about whether he had spoken with Chuck Dolan “about any material contained in the” dossier.

Four alleged lies, told in interviews on March 16, May 18, October 24, and November 16, 2017, that he spoke to Sergei Millian in late July 2016 when Danchenko knew (variably in 2016 or in the interviews in 2017) that he had never spoken with him; one charged lie accuses Danchenko of wittingly lying about speaking to Millian more than once.

Durham will have to prove that these five statements were intentional lies and that they were material to the FBI’s operations.

June 5

Washington Post, Barry Sussman, Washington Post editor who oversaw Watergate reporting, dies at 87, Emily Langer, June 5, 2022 (print ed.). Working alongside reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, he provided invaluable if at times unheralded contributions to the news coverage that helped force President Richard M. Nixon from office.

Barry Sussman, left, the Washington Post editor who directly oversaw the Watergate investigation by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, providing invaluable — if at times unheralded — contributions to the news coverage that helped force President Richard M. Nixon from office, died June 1 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 87.

The cause was an apparent gastrointestinal bleed, said his daughter Shari Sussman Golob.

In Hollywood and in the public eye, newspapering is often imagined as a solitary undertaking, the work of shabbily dressed reporters hunched over their keyboards with telephones cradled between shoulder and ear, barricaded in by notepads and papers piled high atop their desks.

In truth, journalism is a far more collective enterprise, with crucial roles played by people whose names do not appear below headlines in the space known in newspaper jargon as the byline. One such person, and perhaps the chief example in The Post’s unraveling of the Watergate affair, was Mr. Sussman.

By Saturday, June 17, 1972, when five burglars wearing business suits broke into the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, Mr. Sussman was The Post’s city editor, in charge of 40 to 45 reporters and editors responsible for coverage of the District.

One standout Metro reporter was 29-year-old Woodward. A button-down former Navy lieutenant, he had been with The Post only nine months but had already distinguished himself with his inexhaustible work ethic and investigative zeal, although not with his literary flair. Mr. Sussman took Woodward on as a protege and personal friend, journalist and Watergate scholar Alicia C. Shepard reported, helping him improve his writing “at a time when colleagues joked that for Woodward, English was a second language” and teaching him “how to take his hard-earned facts and massage them into readable stories.” The morning of the Watergate break-in, Mr. Sussman immediately phoned Woodward at home and called him into the newsroom.

The more renegade Bernstein, 11 months younger than Woodward but with more than a decade of journalism experience, sensed intrigue in the Watergate burglary and wanted in on the action. While other editors at The Post had grown exasperated by Bernstein’s more trying habits — he was allergic to deadlines and once rented a car on The Post’s dime, parked it in a garage and forgot about it — Mr. Sussman recognized his value as both a reporter and a writer and argued successfully to keep him on the Watergate story.

Paired by Mr. Sussman, Woodward and Bernstein — known collectively as Woodstein — became the most famous reporters in American journalism. Their incremental and inexorable revelations of the political sabotage, corruption and coverup that began with the Watergate break-in helped send numerous Nixon associates to prison and ultimately precipitated Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 9, 1974. During their reporting, Mr. Sussman was detailed to serve as special Watergate editor.

“If you look at the reporting, it wasn’t just stringing together facts,” Bernstein said in an interview. “It wasn’t just the knocking on doors. It was also … an intellectual process, and he had his finger on that in a way that none of the [other editors] did.”
Mr. Sussman speaks at the National Press Club in Washington in 1972. At left is Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. (James K.W. Atherton/The Washington Post)

The Post’s Watergate coverage received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the highest honor in journalism, and was dramatized in “All the President’s Men,” the 1976 movie directed by Alan J. Pakula. Robert Redford played Woodward, convening by night in a parking garage with his highly placed source called Deep Throat. Dustin Hoffman played the shaggy-haired Bernstein. Mr. Sussman was omitted entirely.
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In her 2007 book “Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate,” Shepard wrote that the filmmakers excised Mr. Sussman “for dramatic reasons.” The story already had three editors — executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, portrayed in an Oscar-winning turn by Jason Robards; managing editor Howard Simons, whose real-life role the movie diminished, played by Martin Balsam; and Metropolitan editor Harry M. Rosenfeld, played by Jack Warden.

If Mr. Sussman was deemed superfluous for the movie — a decision that deeply wounded him, according to Shepard’s reporting — he was by all accounts the opposite in the actual events that inspired it.

“Barry was essential for The Post’s Watergate” coverage, said former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., who worked as an editor on the Watergate investigation, “just as essential as Bob and Carl.”

Journalist David Halberstam, writing in his 1979 book about American media, “The Powers That Be,” described Mr. Sussman as “the perfect working editor at exactly the right level.”

“Almost from the start, before anyone else at The Post,” Halberstam wrote, Mr. Sussman “saw Watergate as a larger story, saw that individual events were part of a larger pattern, the result of hidden decisions from somewhere in the top of government which sent smaller men to run dirty errands.”

Woodward and Bernstein, for their part, described Mr. Sussman as “Talmudic” in his mastery of the most arcane details of the Watergate affair and “Socratic” in his ability to elicit leads from them through his insightful questioning.

“More than any other editor at The Post, or Bernstein and Woodward, Sussman became a walking compendium of Watergate knowledge, a reference source to be summoned when even the library failed,” the two reporters wrote in “All the President’s Men,” their 1974 book upon +which the movie was based.

“On deadline, he would pump these facts into a story in a constant infusion, working up a body of significant information to support what otherwise seemed like the weakest of revelations. In Sussman’s mind, everything fitted. Watergate was a puzzle and he was a collector of the pieces.”

The book “All the President’s Men” reportedly contributed to a rift that opened between Mr. Sussman and the two reporters he had supported through the most difficult days of the Watergate investigation, when an error in their reporting involving grand jury testimony invited questions about their credibility, and when Nixon was privately threatening “damnable, damnable” consequences for The Post in retaliation for its coverage.

Mr. Sussman had hoped to co-author the account of Watergate with Woodward and Bernstein, Shepard wrote, but the reporters ultimately moved forward alone with “All the President’s Men,” which became a bestseller. Shepard quoted Woodward as saying that “it was a reporter’s story to tell, not an editor’s,” and that Mr. Sussman’s “role is fully laid out in the book.”

By the time the book was published, Shepard wrote, Mr. Sussman had stopped speaking to Woodward and Bernstein. According to Mr. Sussman, they were “wrong often on detail” in the book and had a tendency to “sentimentalize” the Watergate story.

Mr. Sussman wrote his own book about Watergate, “The Great Cover-Up” (1974), which broadcast journalist Brit Hume, writing in the New York Times, praised as establishing “with clarity the compelling case for Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate coverup.”

Decades later, when Shepard called Mr. Sussman to inquire about his two former colleagues, he replied, “I don’t have anything good to say about either one of them.”

Reached after Mr. Sussman’s death, Woodward said in an interview that “Barry was one of the great imaginative, aggressive editors at The Washington Post during Watergate. We all owe him a debt of gratitude, particularly Carl Bernstein and myself.”

Barry Sussman was born in Brooklyn on July 10, 1934. His mother, an immigrant from what was then the Russian Empire, was a homemaker. His father, who was born in the United States, was a civil servant.

Mr. Sussman graduated in 1956 from Brooklyn College, where he received a bachelor’s degree in English and history, and where he was an editor and columnist on a school newspaper.

His first job after college was at a New York advertising agency. He hated the work but reveled in moonlighting as a movie reviewer. He placed an ad in the trade publication Editor and Publisher — “freelance writer seeks first newspaper job” — and got one at the Bristol Herald Courier, more than 500 miles and a universe away from New York.
Mr. Sussman and his wife, the former Peggy Earhart. (Family Photo)

In Bristol, he met his future wife, Peggy Earhart, whom he married in 1962. Survivors include his wife, of Rockville; two daughters, Seena Sussman Gudelsky, also of Rockville, and Shari Sussman Golob of Potomac, Md.; and four grandchildren.

At The Post, Mr. Sussman became a favorite among his reporters. One of them, John Hanrahan, who went on to become executive director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, described Mr. Sussman in an interview as “by far the best editor I ever had on any newspaper or any project I was ever involved with.”

“He was wonderful to work with on deadline,” another, Lawrence Meyer, recalled. “When there were holes in the story, he would send you back to fill them and manage to do everything without any kind of rancor.”

Mr. Sussman had long cultivated an interest in public opinion. After Watergate, he became The Post’s first in-house pollster, helping to found the Washington Post-ABC News poll.

“If presidential elections are the heart of the political process in this country,” he once wrote, “political polls have become the chief instrument through which that heart’s beat is measured.”

Mr. Sussman penned a column on polling for The Washington Post National Weekly edition as well as a book on the subject, “What Americans Really Think and Why Our Politicians Pay No Attention” (1988).

His other books included “Maverick: A Life in Politics” (1995) written with Lowell P. Weicker Jr., the Republican turned independent Connecticut congressman, senator and governor who had served on the Senate Watergate Committee.

In 1987, Mr. Sussman was hired by United Press International as managing editor for national news; he resigned within months in opposition to large-scale staff cuts at the troubled news agency.

He later ran a private survey research firm, was a consultant to newspapers in Spain, Portugal and Latin America and served as editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project at Harvard University. As the Internet upended the newspaper business model and hollowed out newsrooms across the United States, he cited reductions in the ranks of editors as “the single greatest failing of newspaper investigations these days.”

“There’s no cohesion in the reporting,” he told Investigating Power, an online history of investigative journalism. It seemed, he said, that when new scandals arose, “there’s not an editor who is told ‘[this] is your story,’ the way I was told Watergate was my story, and you’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

Decades after Watergate, Mr. Sussman was sometimes called on to speak about Nixon’s undoing and the ongoing role of a free press in a democracy. All those years later — the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in will fall just weeks after his death — Mr. Sussman, ever the attentive editor, still had command of the most granular details of the investigation he had overseen, and had at his fingertips the names of all the president’s men.

June 3

President Trump watches as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swears in William Barr as Attorney General as Barr's wife looks on.

Washington Post, Opinion: Bill Barr’s reign of innuendo — unmasked, Dana Milbank, right, June 3, 2022. This week saw the unmasking of former Trump administration attorney general Bill Barr, and it wasn’t pretty.

A jury deliberated for just six hours before reaching a unanimous verdict acquitting former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, left, leaving the Barr-appointed special prosecutor John Durham with essentially nothing to show for his years-long attempt to find wrongdoing by the FBI and the Clinton campaign in the Trump-Russia probe.

Hours after the jury dismissed Durham’s bull, BuzzFeed published a previously secret Justice Department report, also ordered by Barr, in which Barr’s own DOJ concluded that the Obama administration didn’t intend to expose the identity of Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn “for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons.” It was further evidence that another favorite Trump claim enabled by Barr — that Obama officials engaged in illegal “unmasking” — was bunk.

The day after these twin repudiations of Barr’s fantasies, the hoaxster explained himself on Fox News — by arguing that Durham’s failure in court was in fact a triumph. “While he did not succeed in getting a conviction from the D.C. jury,” Barr said, “I think he accomplished something far more important.”

This is about as convincing as the Washington Nationals saying, “While we did not succeed in scoring a run for 27 innings, we think we accomplished something far more important.” In a courtroom, a prosecutor either wins or loses.

So what did Barr think was more important than Durham actually winning his case? “He crystallized the central role played by the Hillary campaign in launching, as a dirty trick, the whole Russiagate collusion narrative,” Barr said, and “he exposed really dreadful behavior by the supervisors in the FBI.”

Durham didn’t “crystallize” or “expose” anything. He packed his court filings with innuendo, and the jury decided he hadn’t made his case. The only conviction Durham has earned to date was a plea deal with an FBI lawyer over a doctored email — and that wrongdoing was uncovered by the Justice Department’s inspector general, not Durham.

But Barr’s argument, that the innuendo Durham spread is “far more important” than proving actual wrongdoing, unmasks Barr’s perverted view of justice. He didn’t tap Durham (or John Bash, who handled the unmasking probe) primarily to prosecute criminal behavior. He launched the inquiries to tell a political “story.”

“Part of this operation is to try to get the real story out,” Barr told Fox News. “And I have said from the beginning, you know, if we can get convictions, if they are achievable, then John Durham will achieve them. But, the other aspect of this is to get the story out.” Bringing a case for such a purpose violates Justice Department policy.

Running Trump’s DOJ, Barr was all about telling stories rather than prosecuting wrongdoing. He sat on the Mueller report of the original Russia investigation, instead releasing his own purported summary that gave a misleading impression of Mueller’s findings. Barr baldly alleged, “I think spying did occur” against the Trump campaign, but no proof has surfaced.

In fulfilling Donald Trump’s demands to investigate the Russia investigators and those who allegedly “unmasked” Flynn, Barr wasn’t seeking justice. He now admits that trying to make a case that the FBI acted in bad faith against Trump — as Republicans allege — would have been “onerous” and “a herculean case” and a “very hard thing to prove.”

Barr was giving Justice cover to the reckless allegations being made by Trump and his allies. Barr made sure the lies had a lengthy head start to leave lasting impressions before any corrective could be issued.

Barr made space for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to predict “one of the biggest political scandals in American history”; for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to proclaim a scandal “bigger than Watergate”; for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to claim there was a “smoking gun found”; for Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) to declare “a threat to democracy itself”; and for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to allege that Obama officials “were unmasking anyone and everyone so that they could leak information to a press that was willing to take that illegal information.”

Now we know Trump’s DOJ, in its own words, had “not found evidence” of inappropriate unmasking. And we see Durham’s claim of wrongdoing in the Russia probe ending in swift acquittal.

Barr, unmasked, now claims the federal jurors in Durham’s failed case violated their oaths by following political biases. “A D.C. jury,” he said, “is a very favorable jury for anyone named Clinton and the Clinton campaign. Those are the facts of life. … There are two standards of the law, and we have had to struggle with that.”

So, now, Barr is trying to discredit the centuries-old American jury system. It’s just one more “story” he tells to replace the rule of law with the reign of innuendo.

June 2

Washington Post, Analysis: Barr’s extraordinary defense of the John Durham probe, Aaron Blake, June 2, 2022. From the start, then-Attorney General William P. Barr’s decision to appoint special counsel John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation was controversial.

And more than three years later, the inquiry has largely come up empty. It has secured one guilty plea that led to a sentence of probation, and it has now come up short in the much-watched trial of Michael Sussmann, who was acquitted Tuesday.

It’s a marked contrast to the probe Durham was tasked with investigating, in which Robert S. Mueller III secured more than half a dozen guilty pleas or verdicts. Those included several high-profile aides and associates of then-President Donald Trump. And that’s to say nothing of the extensive evidence Mueller laid out suggesting Trump might have committed obstruction of justice. A later bipartisan Senate report also suggested there was more to the collusion portion of the investigation than even Mueller was able to unearth.

To the extent people on the right have believed the Russia investigation was a “hoax” and the real crime was the Mueller probe itself, the evidence thus far paints quite a different picture.

Which leaves everyone involved to account for that. And on Wednesday, Barr himself attempted to do so — in a rather novel way for a lawman. Indeed, his defense reinforced Barr’s dual role under the Trump presidency as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and a political actor often preoccupied with taking extraordinary steps to right the supposed wrongs committed against Trump.

Fox News had hyped the significance of the Sussmann verdict beforehand and then just as quickly downplayed the acquittal afterward, suggesting the jury was unfriendly. But when Barr, right, appeared for an interview, one of its hosts pressed him on the probe’s lack of deliverables.

“Do you feel in any way responsible for how this Durham situation’s unfolding?” Jesse Watters asked. “And are you disappointed in John Durham?”

Barr assured he wasn’t disappointed. He noted that it’s difficult to obtain guilty verdicts and suggested repeatedly that the jury was slanted.

But he also pointed to a way in which Durham’s probe was supposedly successful: telling a story.

To wit (emphasis added):

“I think he accomplished something far more important, which is he brought out the truth in two important areas. First, I think he crystallized the central role played by the Hillary campaign in launching as a dirty trick — the whole Russiagate collusion narrative and fanning the flames of it. And second, I think he exposed really dreadful behavior by the supervisors in the FBI, the senior ranks of the FBI, who knowingly use this information to start an investigation of Trump …”

“The other aspect of this is to get the story out.”

“Complicated cases like this take a long time to build; they occur step-by-step and in secret. People don’t like that. If they want people punished, that’s what it takes. If they want the facts of what happened, you can get it that much more quickly.”

To summarize: Even without convictions, this is good, because it has exposed something. And that something apparently need not be proven crimes or anything amounting to the supposed conspiracy that has been alleged.

That is decidedly not how this is supposed to work. There is a reason the Justice Department doesn’t generally disclose its investigations when it can avoid doing so: because it wants to avoid impugning those who didn’t commit crimes. The role of the Justice Department is to enforce the law — not to expose “dirty tricks” that haven’t been shown to be crimes. Yet Barr is basically suggesting the value of this investigation lay largely in getting information out there, regardless of whether that information is ultimately tied to a proven crime.

(Here, we are leaving aside the actual substance of the information Durham has put out, which has been misleading in its most high-profile instances.)

This is a remarkable view of the special counsel investigation Barr launched, to be sure, but it’s also in keeping with Barr’s general posture. While decrying the politicization of law enforcement, he took an extraordinary interest in the affairs of Trump and Trump allies who found themselves afoul of the law. Some prosecutors resigned in response. In what was arguably an audition for his job in the first place, Barr wrote a remarkable 2018 memo, while he was still a private citizen, assailing Mueller’s investigation. At one point, he even suggested that Mueller’s probe was less substantiated than a debunked conspiracy theory involving the Clintons and Uranium One.

Against that backdrop, saying that your decision to launch a special counsel investigation is validated by the information it has put out, rather than the laws enforced, isn’t terribly surprising. But it’s still a remarkable admission.

New York Times, Sussmann Acquittal Raises Question: What Is Durham Actually Trying to Do? Charlie Savage, June 2, 2022. Supporters of the Trump-era prosecutor are lauding his work as a success in unearthing politically charged information, even though his first case to go to trial ended in failure.

Supporters of the Trump-era prosecutor are lauding his work as a success in unearthing politically charged information, even though his first case to go to trial ended in failure.

Even before 12 jurors voted to acquit Michael Sussmann of lying to the F.B.I. in a rebuke of the Trump-era special counsel, John H. Durham, supporters of Donald J. Trump were already laying the groundwork to declare that the prosecutor won despite losing in court.

What really mattered, they essentially claimed, was that Mr. Durham had succeeded in exposing how Hillary Clinton framed Mr. Trump for the “Russia collusion hoax,” an argument that ricocheted across the right-wing news media.

Indeed, Mr. Durham, left, did show that associates of the 2016 Clinton campaign — a victim of Russian hacking — wanted reporters to write about the allegations that played a role in the case, an obscure theory about the possibility of a covert communications channel between Mr. Trump and Russia. But most news outlets were skeptical, and the F.B.I. swiftly discounted the matter.

Still, that Mr. Durham’s cheerleaders have embraced this explanation for Mr. Durham’s actions is striking. Stephen Gillers, a New York University professor of legal ethics, said the case was “incredibly weak” and he doubted a prosecutor pursuing normal law enforcement goals would have brought it.

“The case wasn’t a nothing-burger, but it was very thin, and it’s hard to understand why it was brought other than to support Trump’s allegation that the Clinton campaign falsely alleged a Trump-Russia connection,” he said. “That motive is unacceptable. The government’s only legitimate goal in bringing this case was conviction.”

Washington Post, Editorial: John Durham’s probe of the Trump investigations has flopped, Editorial Board, June 2, 2022 (print ed.). Special counsel John Durham has been trying for three years to prove wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, the FBI or other government officials in their handling of accusations that then-candidate Donald Trump had nefarious ties to Russia.

In court, Mr. Durham’s staff has alleged that there was a “plan” to create an “October surprise” that would kneecap the Republican presidential nominee. His assertions have fueled endless right-wing commentary claiming that the FBI’s investigation of Mr. Trump’s Russia connections was illegitimately predicated, despite compelling evidence and outside investigations showing it was warranted. From its onset, the basis for Mr. Durham’s probe was fallacious.

Now, the special counsel’s most prominent prosecution — of former Clinton attorney Michael A. Sussmann, whom Mr. Durham accused of lying to the FBI — has failed. It took a federal jury only six hours to acquit Mr. Sussmann on Tuesday. “I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” the jury forewoman told The Post, declaring that the government “could have spent our time more wisely.” Perhaps Mr. Durham’s other prosecution, of Igor Danchenko, a source for a salacious 2016 dossier on Mr. Trump, will end in a conviction. Indeed, Mr. Danchenko’s indictment has already led news organizations such as The Post to backtrack on some previous reporting about the dossier. But these matters are tangential to the broader purpose and effect of Mr. Durham’s probe, which has primarily enabled right-wing agitators to erode trust in the FBI for political gain.

June 1

Mother Jones, How John Durham’s Probe Has Exposed Trump’s Russia Con, David Corn, June 1, 2022. His three-year investigation has so far shown the only hoax was orchestrated by the former president.

Donald Trump has bad timing. On Friday, he sent a letter to the Pulitzer Prize Board reiterating his demand that it rescind the awards given to the New York Times and the Washington Post in 2018 for their coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal. (That’s not what he called it.) He based this request on the prosecution of Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann, who was indicted by special counsel John Durham for allegedly lying to the FBI during a September 2016 meeting when he shared with the bureau computer data research that suggested there might be a connection between a Trump-related business and Alfa Bank, a large Russian financial entity. Trump claimed the Sussmann case showed the “Russia hoax was a dirty campaign trick promulgated by Crooked Hillary Clinton and her associates.” Five days later, the jury, after only several hours of deliberation, acquitted Sussmann. Oops.

The quick not-guilty verdict was a sharp slap at Durham’s three-year-long investigation, which was launched by William Barr, when he was Trump’s loyalist attorney general, and which has come across as a political crusade mounted to undermine the various Trump-Russia investigations. Durham was tasked by Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s probe of the Russian attack on the 2016 election (which, according to multiple investigations, was waged to help Trump win) and the interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives.

Put simply, Durham’s job was to find that Trump had been set up by the bureau. When the Justice Department in late 2019 issued a report concluding the FBI had legitimate cause to investigate the Russian assault and the Trump campaign, Durham, in an unusual move, released a statement declaring, “we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” A-ha, Trumpists exclaimed. Durham was on track to reveal that the FBI investigation was bogus from the get-go and Trump was right: It was all a hoax and a witch hunt.

Yet after years of toil, Durham has produced nothing to suggest the Russia investigation was a Deep State hit-job against Trump. He has brought three cases that have nothing to do with the origins of the investigation. One involved an FBI lawyer who altered an email used to obtain a search warrant after the investigation was started. (The attorney pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation.)

Another led to the indictment of Igor Danchenko, a source for the so-called Steele dossier, for allegedly lying to the FBI about his sources. His trial is scheduled to begin in October. This prosecution, too, has nothing to do with the origin or legitimacy of the FBI’s investigation, which was not triggered by the Steele reports. The third was the Sussmann case that just exploded in Durham’s face. It, too, was essentially unconnected to the FBI’s core investigation, given that the meeting in question happened months after the bureau began examining the Russian assault and that the FBI quickly dismissed the Trump-Alfa Bank tie.

Despite declaring over two years ago that he had reason to question the FBI’s opening of the Russia investigation, Durham has failed to make good on his assertion. His investigation has yielded zilch in this regard. His prosecutions are all sideshows.

But Durham has done Trump and his cultists a great favor by providing material they can exploit for one of their favorite pastimes: deflection.

For over five years, Trump and his minions have endeavored to beat back the Trump-Russia scandal with denial and distraction. They have done all they could to change the subject from the basics of the affair: the Kremlin attacked the 2016 election to help Trump; while this assault was underway, the Trump camp had troubling interactions with Russian operatives and was told the Kremlin intended to covertly assist Trump; Trump hid from the public his effort to land a major development deal in Moscow (for which he sought help from Vladimir Putin); the Trump campaign aided and abetted the Russian attack by denying and/or downplaying it; and, as president, Trump tried to impede the investigation.

All of these are confirmed facts that make a damning case that Trump committed a grand act of betrayal to become president. Trump and his defenders, though, have tried to change the subject: the problematic Steele dossier, an improperly obtained search warrant, baseless conspiracy theories about the Democratic Party’s computer servers being whisked away to Ukraine, and, most recently, the Sussmann meeting.

Look at Trump’s letter to the Pulitzer board. It dwells on details that came out during the Sussmann trial about the Clinton campaign promoting the Alfa Bank allegation. This case, Trump claims, shows that Clintonites were trying to spread opposition research about him, particularly iffy data about a purported computer server tie between his business and Alfa Bank. He declares he was the victim of “shameful smears” from the Clinton campaign—and these covert attacks were the basis for the FBI investigation. The Clinton crew, of course, was trying to disseminate negative information about Trump—especially worrisome material about a possible Trump-Russia connection. But this had nothing to do with the investigation already begun by the FBI, which was launched independently of the Clinton effort.

Trump writes, “I again call on you to rescind the Prize you awarded based on blatantly fake, derogatory and defamatory news. If you choose not to do so, we will see you in court.” Putting aside whether Trump can sue a journalism awards committee for content it honors, he is yet again engaging in deflection. Nothing in the Sussmann case undercuts the investigations or the reporting related to the central elements of the scandal. Trump is trying to turn the thin gruel Durham has served up into a feast.

In the reality-based world, Durham actually has undermined Trump and his bogus narrative. He has failed to demonstrate that the Russia investigation was a witch hunt or hoax cooked up by Trump’s enemies. His small-beer cases do not challenge any of the main findings of the investigations, which justifiably taint Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency. Durham’s work (so far) shows that Trump’s attempts to distract from the scandal have been nothing but a big con.

Trump shrieks about Sussmann, the Steele dossier, and other matters so the public doesn’t see what’s clearly there: a record of misdeeds, lies, and treachery. In a way, Durham has provided a valuable service. His inability to uncover evidence of a hoax confirms that Trump’s denials and diversions have been the real hoax all along.

Washington Post, Opinion: A clever effort to try to de-Putinize Trump, David E. Kendall, June 1, 2022 (print ed.). David E. Kendall, a lawyer at Williams & Connolly, represents 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Well, that was a quick acquittal! The Michael Sussmann prosecution brought by Trump administration special counsel John Durham tried to generate a Clinton-conspiracy bang but ended with a not-guilty-verdict whimper.

The actual case against Sussmann was both narrow and paper-thin from the start. He was charged with lying to the FBI’s general counsel in a one-on-one, unrecorded meeting on Sept. 19, 2016, about whom he was speaking for — not on the report he presented about mysterious communications between the Trump Organization and a Vladimir Putin crony’s Russian bank (which the FBI later declared unsubstantiated).

While the alleged lie was simple, straightforward and could have been explained in two pages, it was encased in 27 pages of dark and inchoate allegations of wrongdoing by a number of Clintonites.

What was the lie? Not that Sussmann provided false evidence of Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russians — that was neither alleged nor proven.

Not that there was a vast conspiracy to falsely besmirch Trump as seeking Russian assistance — that was neither alleged nor proven. Not that there was a successful deception of the FBI — many witnesses testified they were well aware of Sussmann’s many Democratic connections and clients.

The Durham indictment charged only that Sussmann had failed to tell the FBI general counsel why he was meeting with him. The jury saw through the fog of misdirection and innuendo in the indictment’s overstuffed allegations and quickly returned a not-guilty verdict.

Wall Street Journal, Opinion: Durham Jury Convicts the FBI, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., June 1, 2022 (print ed.). In the Russiagate case, it seems the agency wanted to be lied to. If special counsel John Durham didnt get the verdict he wanted in the Michael Sussmann case, its because he did a better job of convicting the victim than he did the culpritthe victim being the FBI, the agency to which the Democratic lawyer allegedly lied when claiming he wasnt acting for the Clinton campaign while peddling slime about Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election.

In the indictment filed eight months ago, Mr. Durham went out of his way to show why the FBI would not have been fooled by Mr. Sussmann, who was acquitted by a jury Tuesday. The trial itself piled on the evidence that the FBI leadership was both embarrassed to be seen carrying water for the Clinton campaign and willing to carry it. By the end, Mr. Sussmanns alleged lie seemed more aimed at obliging the agency than deceiving it.

June 1

Washington Times, Durham team seeks redemption with Danchenko trial, Jeff Mordock, June 1, 2022. Special counsel John Durham’s stinging loss in federal court this week cast doubt over the future of his probe of U.S. intelligence community wrongdoing in pursuing Trump-Russia collusion theories, but the Durham team still has a narrow window to redeem themselves.

Even if Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to pull the plug on Mr. Durham’s investigation, he must wait until after the special counsel’s next trial in October.

That’s when the Durham team gets a crack at a key figure in compiling the unverified and now mostly debunked dossier that spawned a host of Trump-Russia collusion theories.

“Garland doesn’t strike me as someone looking for an aggressive political move here,” said University of Illinois law professor Andrew Leipold, who was a member of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s team that investigated President Clinton.

“I could see Garland letting Durham run out the string, bring whatever is in the pipeline and start wrapping up,” he said.

May 31

U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham, left, and defendant Michael Sussmann, a cyberlaw attorney and former federal prosecutor whose trial began with jury selection on May 16 on a false statement charge in Washington, DC's federal court.

Washington Post, Michael Sussmann, who offered allegations about Trump in 2016, acquitted of lying to FBI, Devlin Barrett, May 31, 2022. A jury cleared Sussmann, a lawyer for Democrats, of lying to the FBI at the height of the 2016 campaign -- a defeat for Special Counsel John Durham; The verdict is a defeat for Special Counsel John Durham, appointed three years ago by then-Attorney General William Barr.

A federal jury found Michael Sussmann, an attorney for Democrats including the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, not guilty of lying to the FBI when he brought them allegations against Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race.

Tuesday’s verdict was a major setback for Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed during the Trump administration and has spent three years probing whether the federal agents who investigated the 2016 Trump campaign committed wrongdoing.

Sussmann was the first person charged by Durham to go to trial. Another person charged in the investigation is due to face a jury later this year.

The Sussmann jury began deliberating Friday, weighing the testimony of current and former FBI officials, former Clinton campaign advisers, and technology experts. In closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury that Sussmann thought he had “a license to lie” to the FBI at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. Sussmann’s attorneys countered that the case against their client was built on a “political conspiracy theory.”

theory.”

Emptywheel, Analysis: Jury aquits Michael Sussmann; Sussman lawyer calls prosecution "Extraordinary prosecutorial overreach," emptywheel (Dr.  Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D., right, independent national security analyst), May 31, 2022. The Michael Sussmann jury just announced its verdict. Michael Sussmann was acquitted of lying to the FBI.

The jury deliberated for six hours. This morning, they asked for exhibits that include the taxi receipts showing that Sussmann did not bill the Hillary campaign for the meeting with the FBI. They also asked whether they all had to agree on the elements of the offense, suggesting some people believed Durham had not proven some aspects (such that Sussmann had lied or that he did so intentionally) whereas others believed Durham had not proven other parts (such as that it was material — remember that FBI largely proceeded as if this were a tip from the Hillary campaign).

Durham released a statement:

While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service. I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case.

Sussmann read a statement:

I have a few thoughts to share, now that trial has ended.

First, I told the truth to the FBI, and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today.

I am grateful to the members of the jury for their careful and thoughtful service. Despite being falsely accused, I am relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in this case.

As you can imagine, this has been a difficult year for my family and me. But right now, we are grateful for the love and support of so many during this ordeal, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the work that I love.

Finally, I want to thank my legal team at Latham & Watkins—Sean Berkowitz, Michael Bosworth, Natalie Rao, & Catherine Yao. They are the finest lawyers, and they worked tirelessly on my case.

Thank you.

The statement from his attorney, Sean Berkowitz, is more interesting.

We have always known that Michael Sussmann is innocent and we are grateful that the members of the jury have now come to the same conclusion.

But Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place. This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach. And we believe that today’s verdict sends an unmistakable message to anyone who cares to listen: politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.

Media Matters via Twitter, Fox last hour before Sussman was found not guilty, Lis Power, May 31, 2022. 

• Fox last hour before Sussman was found not guilty: An acquittal in the Sussman trial "could raise doubts about the legal merits of Durham's entire investigation."
• Fox this hour after Sussman was found not guilty: THE JURY WAS RIGGED, ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM

National Public Radio (NPR), Special Counsel Durham fails first courtroom test in his three-year probe, Carrie Johnson, May 31, 2022. A jury in Washington, D.C., has acquitted lawyer Michael Sussmann on a single charge of lying to the FBI, dealing a blow to the three-year investigation by special counsel John Durham.

Jurors deliberated over two days before delivering the verdict to a courtroom filled with the defendant's family and members of the news media.

Durham, in a statement, said that "while we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury's decision."

"I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case," he said.

The Trump administration appointed Durham to investigate the origins of the "Mueller probe" – the federal government's investigation into possible links between former President Donald Trump and Russia. This was the first case from that investigation to be heard by a jury.

The two-week trial featured witnesses with prominent political ties including election lawyer Marc Elias, former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, and several former FBI and Justice Department officials who served in key roles in 2016.

 "We're not here to relitigate the 2016 election," Judge Christopher Cooper told the jury pool. "Donald Trump's not on trial. Hillary Clinton's not on trial."

But Durham's special counsel team had argued Sussmann wanted to deliver an October surprise that could change the outcome of the presidential election six years ago, by pushing the FBI to investigate questionable links between a Russian bank and a computer server tied to the Trump Organization. Federal agents testified the allegations lacked merit.

The single criminal count stemmed from a meeting Sussmann brokered with then FBI general counsel James Baker in September 2016, only weeks before the election. Sussmann was accused of lying to Baker about whether he appeared on behalf of Democratic clients such as the Clinton campaign or a technology executive named Rodney Joffe.

"No one should be so privileged as to be able to walk into the FBI and lie for political ends," prosecutor Brittain Shaw told the jury. "The FBI should never be used as a political pawn."

In the months before the trial, prosecutors belatedly asked Baker to sift through his electronics for relevant evidence. Baker found a text from Sussmann, who typed that he was coming on his own – "not on behalf of any client or company."

Because the material was discovered so late, Sussmann faced only a charge of lying about their in-person meeting the following day. On that essential question, Baker took no notes from the meeting and offered inconsistent testimony over the years. Defense lawyers pointed out that on the witness stand, Baker said he failed to remember things 116 times.

"Do you think Mr. Sussmann would throw his career away, his life away, to tell a lie to that guy?" asked defense attorney Michael Bosworth.

Prosecutors produced a Staples receipt for thumb drives they said Sussmann had billed to the Clinton campaign, as well as calendar entries and other bills from Perkins Coie, the law firm where the defendant had worked until his indictment.

The defense focused in on taxi receipts, apparently to and from the FBI meeting, which Sussmann had not billed to clients with Democratic ties.

The case has been closely watched as the first courtroom test for the Durham probe, launched by former Attorney General Bill Barr amid hostile tweets from then President Trump about the investigation into Russia's election interference in 2016.

Durham secured a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who ultimately avoided prison time. Another one of his cases is scheduled to go to trial in Virginia later this year against Igor Danchenko, a Russian citizen and former think tank employee who faces five charges for allegedly lying to the FBI.

Danchenko, who is fighting the charges, is accused of lying about the sources of the information he provided to former British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, for what became the Steele dossier.

New York Magazine, Intelligencer: John Durham Tried to Prove Trump’s Russiagate Theory. Instead He Debunked It, Jonathan Chait, May 31, 2022. Trump’s prosecutor face-plants.

Donald Trump and William Barr have spent years alleging that the Russia investigation was a criminal plot by the FBI. The Department of Justice’s inspector general found the Russia investigation was adequately predicated, but Barr disagreed. So he selected a prosecutor, John Durham, who would supposedly uncover this scheme and begin frog-marching its perpetrators to justice.

By 2020, Barr was conceding that Durham might not reach all the way up to Barack Obama but would bring down his accomplices. “As to President Obama and Vice-President Biden,” he said that spring, “whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.” By the fall, Barr was reportedly “communicating that Durham is taking his investigation extremely seriously and is focused on winning prosecutions.”

However focused he may be, Durham is not winning prosecutions. His investigation has produced one extremely small fish – a guilty plea by FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith* for a likely immaterial error. And now he is losing prosecutions. Durham abused his authority by trying to prosecute Michael Sussmann, a lawyer working for Hillary Clinton, whom Durham tried to convict on a single perjury charge. And the case turns out to have been so pathetically threadbare that it resulted in a rapid acquittal.

New York Times, Michael Sussmann Is Acquitted in Case Brought by Trump-Era Prosecutor, Charlie Savage, May 31, 2022. The Democratic-linked lawyer was accused of lying about his clients to the F.B.I. when he passed on a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia.

Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Democrats, was acquitted on Tuesday of a felony charge that he lied to the F.B.I. about having no client in 2016 when he shared a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia.

The verdict was a blow to the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.

The case centered on odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers discovered in 2016 after it became public that Russia had hacked Democrats and Mr. Trump had encouraged the country to target Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The researchers said the data might reflect a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked bank. The F.B.I. briefly looked at the suspicions and dismissed them.

On Sept. 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann brought those suspicions to a senior F.B.I. official. Prosecutors accused him of falsely telling the official that he was not there on behalf of any client, concealing that he was in fact working for both Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and a technology executive who had brought him the tip.

Mr. Durham and his trial team used court filings and trial testimony to detail how Mr. Sussmann, while working for a Democratic-linked law firm and logging his time to the Clinton campaign, had been trying to get reporters to write about the Alfa Bank suspicions.

But trying to persuade reporters to write about such suspicions is not a crime. Mr. Sussmann’s guilt or innocence turned on a narrow issue: whether he made a false statement to a senior F.B.I. official at the 2016 meeting, by saying he was sharing those suspicions on behalf of no one but himself.

Mr. Durham used the case to put forward a larger conspiracy: that there was a joint enterprise to essentially frame Mr. Trump for collusion with Russia by getting the F.B.I. to investigate the suspicions so reporters would write about it — a scheme involving the Clinton campaign; its opposition research firm, Fusion GPS; Mr. Sussmann; and a cybersecurity expert who brought the odd data and analysis to him.

That insinuation thrilled supporters of Mr. Trump who share his view that the Russia investigation was a “hoax,” and have sought to conflate the actual inquiry with sometimes thin or dubious allegations. In reality, the Alfa Bank matter was a sideshow: The F.B.I. had already opened its inquiry on other grounds before Mr. Sussmann passed on the tip, and the final report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made no mention of the Alfa Bank suspicions.

But the case Mr. Durham and his team used to float their broad insinuations was thin — one count of making a false statement in a meeting with no other witnesses or contemporaneous notes. The evidence and arguments the lead prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, and his colleagues marshaled fell flat with the 12 jurors, who voted unanimously to find Mr. Sussmann not guilty.

Some supporters of Mr. Trump had been bracing for that outcome, pointing to the District of Columbia’s reputation as a heavily Democratic area and putting forward the prospect that a jury might be politically biased against a Trump-era prosecutor trying to convict a defendant who was working for the Clinton campaign.

Mr. Durham expressed disappointment about the verdict but said he respected the decision by the jury, which deliberated for about six hours.

“I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case,” he said in a statement.

Shortly after the verdict, Mr. Sussmann read a brief statement to reporters outside the courthouse, expressing gratitude to the jury, his defense team and those who supported him and his family during what had been a difficult year. He did not take any questions.

“I told the truth to the F.B.I., and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today,” he said, adding: “Despite being falsely accused, I am relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in this case.”

The judge told the jury that they were not to take any of their own political views into account when deciding the facts.

The defense, which portrayed prosecutors’ insinuations as “political conspiracy theories,” had argued that Mr. Sussmann only brought the matter to the F.B.I. when he thought The New York Times was already on the cusp of writing an article about the matter, to give the bureau a heads-up so it would not be caught flat-footed.

Clinton campaign officials testified during the trial they had not told or authorized him to go to the F.B.I. — and that doing so was against their interests because they did not trust the bureau and it could slow down the publication of any article.

In a statement, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, two of Mr. Sussmann’s defense lawyers [shown in a Justice Integrity Project photo leaving the courthouse, with Berkowitz in the foreground), criticized Mr. Durham for bringing the indictment.

“Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place,” they said. “This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach. And we believe that today’s verdict sends an unmistakable message to anyone who cares to listen: Politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.”

Politico, Sussmann acquitted on charge brought by special counsel Durham, Josh Gerstein, May 31, 2022. The jury acquitted Michael Sussmann, 57, on a charge that he lied when he allegedly denied he was acting on behalf of any client in alerting the FBI to claims that a secret server linked Trump and a Moscow bank.

The first courtroom test for Special Counsel John Durham ended in defeat Tuesday as a federal jury found a Democratic attorney not guilty of making a false statement to the FBI related to allegations of computer links between Donald Trump and Russia.

The jury deliberated for about six hours before acquitting Michael Sussmann, 57, on the single felony charge he faced: that he lied when he allegedly denied he was acting on behalf of any client in alerting the FBI to claims that a secret server linked Trump and a Moscow bank with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

During a two-week trial in federal court in Washington, Durham’s prosecutors argued that Sussmann was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and an internet executive when he took two thumb drives of data and white papers on the purported link to FBI General Counsel James Baker about six weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Sussmann’s defense said the case was flawed on a variety of grounds, including that prosecutors could not prove with certainty exactly what the cybersecurity lawyer and former federal prosecutor said to Baker.

Sussmann’s attorneys also stressed that there was no evidence the Clinton campaign authorized Sussmann to go to the FBI, although he and researchers working for Clinton appeared to have spent an extensive amount of time dealing with the server allegations and were actively encouraging The New York Times to write about the issue in the closing weeks of the presidential race.

In the courtroom, Sussmann showed no evident reaction to the not guilty verdict, although he was masked as most trial participants have been throughout. A prosecutor asked that all 12 jurors be polled and they all confirmed the acquittal.

After U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper gaveled out the trial, Sussmann’s two lead attorneys, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, embraced.

In a brief statement outside the courthouse shortly after the verdict, Sussmann thanked his lawyers and said he views the not guilty verdict as a vindication.

“I told the truth to the FBI and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today,” Sussmann told reporters. “Despite being falsely accused, I believe that justice ultimately prevailed in my case.”

Sussmann’s defense team declined to address the crowd of reporters and cameras at the court, but issued a written statement blasting the prosecution.

Durham, who was not a member of the trial team but was present in the courtroom throughout, left the courthouse quietly and later issued a written statement expressing disappointment in the verdict. His prosecutors had described the evidence of Sussmann’s guilty as “overwhelming.”

“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service. I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case,” the special counsel said.

Several jurors declined to comment on the deliberations as they left the courthouse, but the foreperson spoke briefly with reporters and stressed the burden that the prosecution faced in the case.

“The government had the job of proving beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said, declining to give her name. “We broke it down...as a jury. It didn’t pan out in the government’s favor.”

Asked if she thought the prosecution was worthwhile, the foreperson said: “Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted because I think we have better time or resources to use or spend to other things that affect the nation as a whole than a possible lie to the FBI. We could spend that time more wisely.”

Shortly before the verdict was returned Tuesday morning, the jury sent Cooper a note asking if they had to agree unanimously on the grounds for their verdict. The judge replied that they had to agree on the basis for a guilty verdict, but they could acquit even if jurors differed about which of the various defense theories they accepted.

Following Sussmann’s outreach in 2016, the FBI concluded that the evidence Sussmann presented didn’t support the notion of a link between Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Some agents assigned to the investigation found that the hints of such contacts found in domain name system records were actually caused by a marketing email server sending out spam message, but during the trial, Sussmann’s defense called the FBI’s probe “shoddy” and at least one agent involved conceded it was “incomplete.”

Trump’s aides denied any such link, and a computer security firm hired by Alfa Bank also concluded that the allegations were unfounded.

It’s unclear how the high-profile courtroom setback will impact Durham’s ongoing probe or his ability to bring future charges in his broad investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. Some Durham supporters have praised his pursuit of Sussmann as providing a useful vehicle to publicly air the involvement of the Clinton campaign in efforts to publicize the purported server link and for releasing evidence suggesting that some technical experts who advanced the allegations harbored doubts about them.

However, Justice Department policy generally bars prosecutors from using a criminal case to lay out a broader narrative unless they believe they have the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence needed to get a conviction.

Senior Justice Department officials have been vague about what level of supervision is in place over Durham’s probe, which former Attorney General Bill Barr gave special-counsel status a few weeks before the 2020 election. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the department is adhering to regulations governing the special counsel’s autonomy, but has declined to elaborate.

The Hill via Yahoo! News, Trump on Sussmann verdict: ‘Our country is going to hell,’ Dominick Mastrangelo, May 31, 2022. Former President Trump on Tuesday expressed outrage at the news that Micheal Sussmann, a lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party, was found not guilty of lying to the FBI.

Sussmann is being investigated by a special counsel in relation to the origins of the bureau’s probe of Trump’s 2016 campaign for president.

“Our Legal System is CORRUPT, our Judges (and Justices!) are highly partisan, compromised or just plain scared, our Borders are OPEN, our Elections are Rigged, Inflation is RAMPANT, gas prices and food costs are “through the roof,” our Military “Leadership” is Woke, our Country is going to HELL, and Michael Sussmann is not guilty,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, the small conservative social networking site he founded.

Trump and his allies have long claimed Sussmann and others within the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities were part of a politically motivated “deep state” attempt to undermine his first presidential campaign.

Conservative media outlets have relentlessly covered the special counsel’s probe and Sussmann’s role in the narrative.

Before his acquittal this week, prosecutors had alleged that Sussmann, a key figure in the special counsel’s investigation, had lied to the FBI regarding the case.

“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service. I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case,” John Durham, the special counsel, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Alternet, Legal experts slam John Durham and his failed 'clown show' prosecution of Michael Sussman, David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement, May 31, 2022. Legal experts slam John Durham and his failed 'clown show' prosecution of Michael Sussman.

Bill Barr‘s secret appointment of a U.S. Attorney to investigate the origins of the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s influence on Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, and the 2016 election has received a big blow. A lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign was just acquitted of a charge of lying to the FBI, leaving legal experts to wonder why John Durham, the former U.S. Attorney appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, just months before his resignation, is continuing in his role as special counsel, and why the investigation, now more two years old, hasn’t closed down.

“The first courtroom test for Special Counsel John Durham ended in defeat Tuesday as a federal jury found a Democratic attorney not guilty of making a false statement to the FBI about allegations of computer links between Donald Trump and Russia,” Politico reports. “The jury deliberated for about six hours before acquitting Michael Sussmann, 57, on the single felony charge he faced: that he lied when he allegedly denied he was acting on behalf of any client in alerting the FBI to claims that a secret server linked Trump and a Moscow bank with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Former U.S, Attorney Joyce Vance, who is now a law professor and an MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, criticized the very existence of the Durham investigation after Sussman was acquitted.

“The failure to convict today, largely was a result, in my judgment, of the fact that the FBI has to establish that not only was Jim Baker – their general counsel – lied to, but the lie was material,” Vance told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in the noon hour Tuesday. “And of course, the defendant Mr. Sussman maintained that he never lied about who he represented or why he was there. And also the lie even if there was one wouldn’t have been material because the FBI would have still investigated this information.”

“So this entire situation smacks of sour grapes,” Vance continued, referring to the Durham investigation itself. “Perhaps, at best, an effort by former Attorney General Bill Barr to curry favor with the [Trump] White House. At worst an effort to appease Donald Trump and investigate one of his pet theories: what Trump always called ‘the Russia hoax.'”

Fox News, Michael Sussmann found not guilty of charge brought by Special Prosecutor John Durham, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and David Spunt, May 31, 2022. Sussmann had been accused of lying to the FBI.

The jury on Tuesday found Michael Sussmann not guilty of making a false statement to the FBI in September 2016 when he said he was not working on behalf of any client, when he brought information alleging a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

After a two week trial, and more than a day of deliberations, the jury found that Special Counsel John Durham’s team had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Sussmann’s statement was a lie, and that he was, in fact, working on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and technology executive Rodney Joffe when he brought two thumb drives and a white paper alleging a Trump-Russia connection.

Sussmann was charged with one count of making a false statement to the FBI during his meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016.

In remarks following the verdict, Sussmann said that he had been falsely accused.

"I told the truth to the FBI, and the Jury clearly recognized this in their unanimous verdict today," he said. "I’m grateful to the members of the jury for their careful thoughtful service. Despite being falsely accused I believe that Justice ultimately prevailed in my case. As you can imagine this has been a difficult year for my family and me. But right now we are grateful for the love and support of so many during this ordeal."

Durham issued a terse statement expressing his office's disappointment.

"While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service," Durham said. "I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case."

The jury included one federal government employee who told the judge they donated to Democrats in 2016 and another government employee who told the judge they "strongly" dislike former President Trump. Both of those jurors told the judge they could be impartial throughout the trial.

The jury also included a teacher, an illustrator, a mechanic and more. One juror had a child who was on the same high school sports team as Sussmann's child.

The overwhelming majority of jurors selected told Cooper they had not heard of the case prior to jury service.

Durham’s team presented billing records dated beginning on July 29, 2016, and through October 2016, revealing Sussmann repeatedly billed the Clinton campaign for work on the Alfa Bank opposition research against Trump.

The government, during closing arguments, reminded jurors of a key text message Sussmann sent to Baker on the night before his FBI meeting on Sept. 19, 2016. Durham’s team alleged Sussmann put his "lie in writing" in his Sept. 18, 2016, text to Baker.

The text message stated: "Jim — it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss," the text message stated, according to Durham. "Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks."

Baker replied, "OK. I will find a time. What might work for you?"

Durham's team on Friday during closing arguments said that text message had "43 words" and said "20" of those words were "a lie."

Sussmann did not testify in his defense.

The FBI, at the time of receiving the information from Sussmann, was already conducting an investigation into alleged connections between the Trump campaign and Russians. The code name for that investigation in the bureau, which eventually turned into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, was "Crossfire Hurricane."

The FBI, after receiving the data from Sussmann, went on to investigate whether there was a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank and found that there was "nothing there."

Several current and former FBI officials and agents testified that the FBI was "unable to substantiate any of the allegations in the white paper."

One official even testified that the white paper describing the DNS data on the thumb drives was drafted by someone who was "5150." The official clarified on the stand that meant he believed the individual who came to the conclusion of a Trump-Russia connection "was suffering from some mental disability."

James Baker, who served as FBI general counsel, left the bureau in 2018.

May 30

Emptywheel, How Judge Cooper rewrote the Michael Sussmann indictment, emptywheel (Dr.  Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D., right, independent national security analyst), May 30, 2022. I’ve been tracking a dispute about the jury instructions in the Michael Sussmann trial, but only got time to check the outcome last night. At issue was whether some of the extraneous language from the indictment would be included in the description of the charge.

Sussmann had wanted the instructions to include that language claiming Sussmann was lying to hide two clients.

When Judge Cooper (left) instructed the jury, however, he rewrote the indictment approved by the grand jury to reflect that maybe Sussmann was just hiding one client.

Now, perhaps there was some discussion I missed finding that the government only had to prove Sussmann was hiding one client — the disjunctive proof business, above. And perhaps it will not matter — I think Sussmann’s team raised plenty of issues with Jim Baker’s credibility such that the jury will find the whole prosecution preposterous, but I also think Durham’s team may have thrown enough cow manure at the jury to stifle rational thought.

But this slight change — unilaterally replacing “and” with “or” — seems to intervene to help Durham recover from one of the most abusive aspects of the prosecution, his failure to take basic investigative steps before charging Sussmann.

May 28

The Hill, Opinion: Friends with benefits: Sussmann trial is a black eye for the FBI, Jonathan Turley, right, May 28,2022. With the jury out in the trial of former 2016 Clinton campaign counsel Michael Sussmann, the usual odds-takers appeared on cable news, rating the chances of a conviction. Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence against Sussmann, the jury’s makeup seems strikingly favorable for the defense.

One verdict, however, appears to need little deliberation. It concerns the Department of Justice, and particularly the FBI. The trial confirmed what many have long alleged about how top officials eagerly accepted any Russia collusion claim involving former President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Special counsel John Durham’s investigation, which led to Sussmann’s trial, is an indictment of a department and a bureau which, once again, appeared willfully blind as they were played by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Despite the trial judge’s rulings imposing strict limits on the scope of the trial evidence, Durham’s case still revealed new information on how the Russia collusion theory was pushed into the FBI and the media by the Clinton campaign. Perhaps the most ironic moment came when Sussmann’s defense team outed Clinton as personally approving the campaign’s effort to spread the claim that the Trump organization maintained a secret channel to the Kremlin through Russia’s Alfa Bank.

May 27

New York Times, Prosecutors and Defense Duel in Closing Arguments of Politically Charged Trial, Charlie Savage, May 27, 2022. A verdict is expected as early as Tuesday in the case brought by a Trump-era special counsel against a lawyer with ties to Hillary.

Fox News, Sussmann-Durham trial: Jury deliberating, judge says verdict to come next week, Brooke Singman, May 27, 2022. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sent jurors into deliberations Friday, but said he will not “take a verdict” in the trial of Michael Sussmann until next week. George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley comments.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sent jurors into deliberations Friday, but said he will not "take a verdict" in the trial of Michael Sussmann until next week.

Emptywheel, Analysis: The Staples Receipt and FBI's Description Of Michael Sussmann Sharing A Tip From Hillary, emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D., right, independent national security analyst), May 27, 2022. Whether Michael Sussmann lied or not, the FBI operated with the understanding that the tip he shared came from Hillary and private computer researchers. It's hard to see how the lie could be material.

Durham’s single witness is the only one who claims to have remembered this meeting, but he has had about six different memories of the meeting, and Sussmann made a really good case that Baker’s evolving testimony (as well as that of several other witnesses) is an attempt to avoid legal jeopardy himself. Sussmann has shown a receipt that did not bill his $28.00 taxi to Hillary, and I believe he affirmatively took the meeting time off his bill to Hillary before the election (though I need to check the records).

That leaves Durham with a September 13, 2016 $12.99 receipt for two thumb drives and a Google map from his office to Staples to buy it.

As described, there are so many ways to explain these thumb drives. Remember: Sussmann admits he shared the story with the press and wanted it to come out. What he denies is that his intent in going to the FBI was in getting them to investigate to serve the story.

Durham will also claim, probably falsely, that Fusion or Sussmann had to have told Mark Hosenball about the investigation; I know of no evidence that’s the case, Durham’s repeated efforts to misrepresent the timeline on Fusion emails suggests he doesn’t have that evidence, and plenty of reason to believe there are other ways he could have learned about this.

Perhaps Durham has more somewhere.

But, particularly depending on the outcome of that jury instruction, even that receipt may not be enough. That’s because Sussmann has presented this piece of proof about how the FBI understood his tip (Trial exhibit, obtained by Emptywheel team):

One of the first people to respond to this tip (this text is likely in UTC, not ET, so this is likely at 4:31 on September 19, four hours after the meeting) understood it to be:

• A tip about a Trump company, not Trump himself
• From the DNC and Clinton
• Bringing information a private cyber group had identified

That is, whatever Sussmann said in the meeting with Jim Baker, the best representation of what the FBI understood showed him identifying both his possible clients. And identifying a tip not about Trump himself, but his corporate person and a Russian bank that the FBI understood to have ties to Russian intelligence.

It’s hard to claim this alleged lie was material if the FBI responded to it as if he had fully disclosed both Hillary and private researchers like Rodney Joffe’s role in it.

Fox News, Sussmann defense, in closing argument, slams Durham case as 'misdirection,' Brooke Singman, May 27, 2022 (7:25 min.). Trump Attorney Alina Habba and Fox analyst Gregg Jarrett comment on developments to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Politico, Prosecution: 'Overwhelming' evidence of guilt for Clinton campaign attorney, Josh Gerstein, May 27, 2022. Jury began deliberations Friday in false-statement case against lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Prosecutors at the trial of Democratic attorney Michael Sussmann told a jury Friday that there is “overwhelming” evidence Sussmann lied to the FBI weeks before the 2016 election in order to obscure the role of the Clinton campaign in advancing allegations that then-candidate Donald Trump had a secret computer link to a Russian bank.

 Epoch Times, Opinion: Tech Exec Was FBI Source for Years; Sussmann Billed Clinton Campaign for Alfa Bank Thumb Drives, Kash Patel, right, and Jan Jekielek, May 27, 2022. Kash Patel and Jan Jekielek break down revelations from the trial of ex-Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann—from revelations that tech executive Rodney Joffe was an FBI source for years to evidence that Sussmann billed the Clinton campaign for thumb drives he bought from Staples and gave to the FBI. * Click the "Save" button below the video to access it

May 26

New York Times, Defense Team for Democratic-Linked Lawyer Won’t Call Ex-Times Reporter to Testify, Katie Benner and Charlie Savage, May 26, 2022 (print ed.). Lawyers had argued that the reporter, Eric Lichtblau, should testify about his communications with their client, Michael Sussmann, who is accused of lying to the F.B.I.

The defense team for Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has dropped its plans to call a former New York Times reporter to testify in a trial that centers on Mr. Sussmann’s motives in meeting with the F.B.I. in 2016.

Testimony in the case has underlined the role the news media played during the bare-knuckle fight between Mrs. Clinton and Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election, particularly as suspicions about Mr. Trump’s possible ties to Russia grew.

Mr. Sussmann’s lawyers had argued that the former Times reporter, Eric Lichtblau, should testify about his communications with Mr. Sussmann over odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers said could be covert communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-affiliated bank.

Politico, 2016 Clinton attorney Sussmann won't testify in his own defense at trial, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, May 26, 2022. Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments in the case beginning Friday morning.

Democratic attorney Michael Sussmann, accused of lying to the FBI about his work for the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, has decided not to testify in his own defense at his ongoing trial on a false-statement charge.

Sussmann’s defense rested its case on Thursday and jurors are expected to hear closing arguments beginning Friday morning.

The decision not to have Sussmann testify in his own defense signals a degree of confidence by the defense team in its case after almost two weeks of witnesses, evidence and arguments at U.S. District Court in Washington.

New York Post, Clinton campaign lawyer Sussmann will not testify for allegedly lying to FBI, Ben Feuerherd, May 26, 2022. Michael Sussmann is accused of lying to the FBI when he turned over since-debunked data that purportedly linked the Trump Organization to a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin.

The Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI about his motivation for turning over since-debunked data purportedly linking Donald Trump to Russia will not testify in his own defense, he said in court Thursday.

Fox News, Michael Sussmann will not testify in trial, defense rests ahead of closing arguments, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and David Spunt, May 26, 2022. Special Counsel John Durham's team and Sussman's attorneys are expected to give closing arguments Friday.

Michael Sussmann said Thursday he will not testify in his trial in which Special Counsel John Durham alleges he made a false statement to the FBI when he claimed he was not bringing Trump-Russia allegations to the bureau on behalf of any client, while he represented the Clinton campaign.

Claremont Institute via Newsweek, Opinion: Deep State Allies Play Judge, Jury and Perhaps Executioner Against Durham, Ben Weingarten, May 26, 2022. Assume for the sake of argument that Special Counsel John Durham was doggedly devoted to pursuing every last individual implicated in crimes regarding the origins of Russiagate/Spygate, and subsequent investigatory and prosecutorial efforts.

Assume that no matter the rank of the perpetrators, the professional and personal costs he and his team might incur, and the fact he serves at the pleasure of the Biden Justice Department, Durham would do whatever it takes to bring to justice all those who broke the law.

Still, he would face a greater than uphill battle. For he would be taking on an entire system arrayed against him, just like it was arrayed against former President Donald Trump.

The trial of Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann demonstrates well the extent to which Durham is playing an away game against The Swamp—the Deep State, the political establishment and their manifold allies—that will make even those less sensitive targets being pursued on more narrow and straightforward grounds difficult to bring to justice.

Ben Weingarten is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, fellow at the Claremont Institute and senior contributor to The Federalist. He is the author of "American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party" (Bombardier, 2020). Ben is the founder and CEO of ChangeUp Media LLC, a media consulting and production company. 

May 25

Emptywheel, The Visibility Of FBI's Close Hold: John Durham Will Blame Michael Sussmann That FBI Told Alfa Bank They Were Investigating, emptywheel, right, May 25, 2022. John Durham will likely blame Michael Sussmann that, in advance of an election, the FBI called up the agent for the agent of Russian that was the subject of their investigation and told them they were investigating.

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work.

According to an exchange at the end of they day yesterday, John Durham’s team plans to introduce “a hundred” exhibits through their paralegal acting as a summary witness today.

Washington Examiner, Alpha Bank investigator under FBI review over role in Papadopoulos FISA case, Jerry Dunleavy, May 25, 2022. One of the FBI agents who led the investigation into debunked Alfa-Bank claims in 2016 remains under review for allegedly concealing exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court during the Trump-Russia investigation.

Curtis Heide, who worked at the Chicago field office in 2016 when it handled the Alfa-Bank investigation, was also doing work at that time on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, specifically related to Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos. He admitted while giving testimony Tuesday at the Michael Sussmann trial that the FBI is reviewing whether he intentionally withheld potentially exculpatory information related to the investigation.

Heide, an FBI veteran of 16 years, testified that he began temporary duty assignments in the nation’s capital in January 2016, working on a number of election-related matters.

Specifically, Heide said he did work to support the Midyear Exam investigation — what he described as “the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email matters."

He testified there was still an administrative investigation at the FBI related to Crossfire Hurricane — specifically into actions taken by himself and others. He said the allegation against him was “not identifying exculpatory information related to one of the Crossfire Hurricane investigations.”

When Durham prosecutor Jonathan Algor asked if he had intentionally withheld exculpatory information from the case team, Heide said under oath he had not done so.

Fox News, Sussmann may testify in trial charging that he lied to FBI, pending judge's ruling, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and David Spunt, May 25, 2022. Sussmann may testify in trial charging that he lied to FBI, pending judge's ruling. Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann could testify in his own defense beginning Thursday, his attorneys said, should the judge agree to certain conditions.

Fox News, Prosecution, defense spar over bill allegedly proving Sussmann charged Clinton campaign for 2016 FBI meeting, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and David Spunt, May 25, 2022. Prosecution, defense spar over bill allegedly proving Sussmann charged Clinton campaign for 2016 FBI meeting. Michael Sussmann billed Clinton's campaign for his meeting with the FBI where he shared allegations of communications between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank

Politico, Jury sees conflicting evidence on Michael Sussmann's role at FBI Trump-Russia meeting, Josh Gerstein, May 25, 2022. The prosecution rested in the false-statement case brought by special counsel John Durham.

Jurors at the false-statement trial of Democratic attorney Michael Sussmann saw conflicting evidence Wednesday about whether the lawyer was acting on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign when he approached the FBI weeks before the 2016 presidential election with evidence of an alleged covert computer link between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia.

CNN, Durham prosecutors rest case against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann after relitigating 2016 election drama, Marshall Cohen, May 25, 2022. Prosecutors working for special counsel John Durham rested their case Wednesday against Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann after seven days of testimony that relitigated some of the most controversial moments of the 2016 presidential race.

Sussmann has pleaded not guilty to one count of lying to the FBI during a September 2016 meeting, where he passed along a tip about a potential communications backchannel between Donald Trump and a Kremlin-linked bank. He isn't accused of inventing the tip, which the FBI later dismissed, but he was charged with lying about whether he brought the tip on Clinton's behalf.

Fox News, Sussmann may testify in trial charging that he lied to FBI, pending judge's ruling, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson, David Spunt, May 25, 2022. Sussmann's attorneys claimed the FBI knew he was working for a client when he delivered the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations,

May 24

Emptywheel, Jim Baker's "Doctored" Memory Forgot The Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting, emptywheel, right, May 24, 2022. The currently "doctored" memory Jim Baker has of what happened on September 19, 2016, is not possible given that he had a meeting immediately after the meeting he had with Michael Sussmann.

One of key piece of evidence to John Durham’s prosecution against Michael Sussmann are the notes that Bill Priestap took reflecting Baker saying that Sussmann, “said not doing this for any client.”

On the stand, Priestap remembered nothing about this meeting. Baker, though, claims he remembers a bunch of things.

Emptywheel, Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial, emptywheel, right, May 24, 2022. A repository of materials from the Michael Sussmann trial related to technical issues.

Most of my coverage during the Michael Sussmann trial will be trial related, describing what witnesses and exhibits say about the case.

But there are good reasons to question the conduct of the investigation — and that’s a topic a lot of people have independent interest in. So I wanted to start a running post on technical issues.

CBS News (Austin), FBI agent testifies about possible misconduct during investigation into Trump-Russia ties, Kristine Frazao, May 24 2022. The trial of attorney Michael Sussman is now wrapping up with testimony from FBI agent Curtis Heide. (WICS)

The trial of attorney Michael Sussman is now wrapping up with testimony from FBI agent Curtis Heide.

Heide was part of a team looking into an alleged secret server from Alfa bank that was believed to possibly be a backchannel communication between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to a "confidential human source" who took those claims to the FBI back in 2016.

The source was later revealed to be Sussman, who was working with the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time.

The trial of attorney Michael Sussman is now wrapping up with testimony from FBI agent Curtis Heide. (TND)

Courthouse News, FBI agent who drafted Trump-Alfa Bank report says he ‘learned’ of typo during meeting with feds, Emily Zantow, May 24, 2022. A 16-year veteran of the FBI told a federal jury in Washington on Tuesday that he may have "conflated" the terms "DOJ" and "DNC" in the bureau's report on its probe into the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations.

A longtime FBI agent testified on Tuesday in the Michael Sussmann trial that he took a back seat in the bureau’s investigation of the 2016 Trump-Alfa Bank claims so that a probationary agent could learn the ropes.

Curtis Heide, who is currently under investigation for allegedly withholding exculpatory information in the Crossfire Hurricane probe, said he approached Allison Sands and let her take the lead on the case because he wanted to train her on how to open an investigation.

But Sussmann’s defense attorney Sean Berkowitz pointed out that their report — which states that the Trump-Alfa Bank investigation referral came from the Department of Justice (DOJ) — had a “typo.”

CNN, FBI doing an internal review of possible misconduct in Trump-Russia probe, Marshall Cohen, May 24, 2022. The FBI is conducting an internal review into possible misconduct related to the Trump-Russia investigation, including potentially improper handling of a surveillance warrant that was used early in the investigation, an FBI agent revealed Tuesday in federal court.

FBI supervisory agent Curtis Heide testified that an administrative inquiry is underway, and that multiple FBI agents are being scrutinized, including himself.

Heide said the inquiry is being handled by the FBI's Inspection Division, which conducts internal audits and can refer any wrongdoing it finds to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which can recommend discipline or even firings.

Politico, Sussmann’s defense faults FBI probe of Trump-Russia server claims, Josh Gerstein and Kelly Hooper, May 24, 2022. The Durham case should wrap up later this week.

The defense for a Democratic attorney accused of lying to the FBI hammered away Tuesday at the prosecution, arguing that the FBI probe the lawyer triggered with his Trump-Russia allegations was so shoddy and haphazard that any falsehood uttered by the attorney would not have affected the Russia investigation.

Lawyers for former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann maintain he did not lie to the FBI when he allegedly claimed he wasn’t acting on behalf of any client while giving the FBI data and reports suggesting that a secret server connected to Donald Trump was in communication with another computer controlled by a Russian bank.

• Epoch Times, Opinion: Why We Are Praying for John Durham Epoch Times, Roger L. Simon, May 24, 2022.

Fox News, Special Counsel John Durham's team says evidence has 'proven' Sussmann is guilty, May 24, 2022. Special Counsel John Durham's team says evidence has 'proven' Sussmann is guilty. Special Counsel John Durham’s team said Michael Sussmann has been proven guilty of lying to the FBI “beyond a reasonable doubt” as it gave its closing argument Friday.

Fox News, Internet company CEO was 'extremely uncomfortable' with Rodney Joffe's task to research Trump and associates, Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and David Spunt, May 24, 2022. Internet company CEO was 'extremely uncomfortable' with Rodney Joffe's task to research Trump and associates. A former subordinate of Rodney Joffe said he was, “extremely uncomfortable” with the research connected to then-candidate Donald Trump during a the trial of Michael Sussmann.

Fox News, FBI running internal investigation into its own Trump-Russia probe 'Crossfire Hurricane,' Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson, David Spunt, May 24, 2022. The revelation came during the trial for Michael Sussmann, who is accused of lying to the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The FBI is conducting an internal investigation into the bureau’s Trump-Russia investigation, also known as Crossfire Hurricane.

The news of the internal review came during testimony from FBI Special Agent Curtis Heide Tuesday during the trial of Michael Sussmann — the first trial out of Special Counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

National Review, Top FBI Officials Hid Sussmann’s Identity from Agents Working Trump-Russia Case, Agent Testifies, Isaac Schorr, May 24, 2022. Senior FBI leaders refused to identify Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann as the source of evidence suggesting illicit back channel communications between the Trump Organization and Russia's Alfa Bank, concealing Sussmann's identity from the rank-and-file agents as they investigated the alleged Trump-Russia connection in 2016, FBI agent Ryan Gaynor testified Monday in Sussmann's false-statement trial.

May 23

Emptywheel, Apprehension And Dread With Bates Stamps: The Case Of Jim Baker's Missing Jencks Production, emptywheel, right, May 23, 2022. Sometimes, Bates stamps are a fun way to show how incompetent John Durham's investigation has been, or the lies he has told to the Judge. Sometimes, though, they leave me with a sense of dread that all the wrong people are going to get hurt.

I’ve done a couple of posts showing how much fun one can have with Bates stamps — the serial numbers stamped onto every page of discovery that tells you a little bit about how any document was treated. In this post, for example, I showed that when John Durham accidentally-on-purpose released an exhibit with a bunch of Fusion GPS documents, he wasn’t doing so primarily to get them admitted at trial, because he had no intention of using most of them at trial. In this post, I showed that Durham hadn’t looked at key investigative documents that Michael Horowitz had relied upon in the Inspector General investigation into Crossfire Hurricane before Durham claimed he knew better than Horowitz about the predication of the Russian investigation. As of now, by the way, Horowitz is on the schedule to be a witness for Michael Sussmann. Ostensibly he’ll just talk about how valuable an anonymous tip that Sussmann once shared on behalf of Rodney Joffe proved to be, but who knows whether he’ll get a question about comments Durham has made about knowing better than Horowitz about things he hadn’t done the work to understand?

This post about Bates stamps won’t be so fun. It fills me with dread.

In this post and these two threads (Thursday night, Friday morning), I tried to summarize the Greek tragedy of Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz’ cross-examination of Jim Baker. The short version of it is that these two men, men who used to be friends, are stuck in some nightmare Hunger Games created by a right wing mob led by Donald Trump. After years of being dragged through the mud because they dared to try to protect the United States from Russia in 2016, the survival of each depends on taking out the other. Jim Baker only avoids prosecution if he adheres obediently to John Durham’s internally contradictory script. Sussmann only gets his life back if he takes Baker out. While just Sussmann’s lawyer, Sean Berkowitz, and Jim Baker appear on this stage, it’s quite clear that Durham and DeFilippis set it.

Politico, Jurors hear contrasting stories about FBI handling of Trump-Russia secret server claims, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, May 23, 2022. Agents detail their role in probe prompted by attorney Michael Sussmann, who is on trial over an alleged false statement to the FBI.
Michael Sussmann leaves federal court.

An FBI agent involved in the investigation of links between Donald Trump and Russia told a colleague weeks before the 2016 election that top FBI brass were “fired up” about since-discredited allegations of a secret communications channel between Trump and a Russian bank with close ties to Vladimir Putin.

“People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server,” FBI agent Joseph Pientka wrote in an internal instant message to another agent working on the issue, Curtis Heide, on Sept. 21, 2016. “Reachout and put tools on… its [sic] not an option — we must do it.”

The Hill, Opinion: Mook’s testimony at Sussmann trial: A surprise for Hillary, or a smart defense strategy? Kevin R. Brock, May 23, 2022. While cable news cherished the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial this past week for its revenue-generating clickbait value, special prosecutor John Durham brought Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann before a jury to determine whether he lied to the FBI — a trial that has actual value for the nation.

Durham believes Americans are owed the truth about what he contends was the Clinton campaign’s efforts to create or use false information about her opponent in order to deceive voters into choosing her in the 2016 presidential election.

Is making up false dossiers and a story about a Donald Trump “hotline” to the Kremlin against the law? Maybe not a lot of it. But Durham accuses the Clinton team of simply making up false stories in their lust for power — a fraud-in-effect against the American people that requires exposure and condemnation. Otherwise, we will see more of it as a campaign strategy in future elections.

Everyone knows that politics is a contact sport and “dirty tricks” and “October Surprises” are routine ploys. But most of these result from opposition research that uncovers information linked to some true fact, such as a DUI arrest, an extramarital affair, a youthful indiscretion, or a cringeworthy photo with some undesirable person.

The Sussmann trial is helping to document a different approach by the Clinton campaign. According to Durham, they simply made up a stunning scale of false allegations and disinformation, unprecedented in presidential politics, in their attempt to sway the election and then, having failed, to undermine the new administration to which they lost. This has cost the country dearly.

The trial is moving rapidly, which is to be expected on a single charge of lying to the FBI (18 USC 1001). Durham’s prosecution team expertly introduced evidence refuting Sussmann’s claim that he was simply acting as a concerned citizen, and not on behalf of any client, when he passed on information to the FBI about supposed links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Kevin R. Brock is a former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He independently consults with private companies and public-safety agencies on strategic mission technologies.

New York Post, FBI wrongly told its agents Trump-Russia collusion claims had come from DOJ, bombshell document reveals, Ben Feuerherd and Mark Moore, May 23, 2022. FBI agents probing since-debunked claims of a secret back channel between Donald Trump and a Russian bank believed that the allegations had originated with the Department of Justice — when in fact they came from Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann, who had shopped them to the bureau’s then-general counsel days earlier.

Testifying for the prosecution Monday, FBI agent Ryan Gaynor revealed that bureau honchos shielded Sussmann’s identity from field agents who investigated the claims of a link between Trump and Alfa-Bank as part of a longstanding practice known as a “close hold.”

Gaynor told prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis that the decision to hide where the information originated was made by top leadership at the FBI before the Alfa-Bank material was given to the Chicago field office.

Washington Examiner, FBI opened Alfa-Bank inquiry based on 'referral' from DOJ — but it came from Sussmann, Jerry Dunleavy, May 23, 2022. The FBI opened a full-fledged counterintelligence investigation into since-debunked Trump-Russia collusion claims just four days after Michael Sussmann pushed the allegations to the bureau.

The electronic communication marking the opening of the investigation cited a “referral” from the Justice Department rather than saying the Alfa-Bank allegations came from a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON SIGNED OFF ON SHARING DEBUNKED ALFA-BANK CLAIMS WITH MEDIA

The opening communication, titled “Alfa Bank,” was authored by FBI agents Curtis Heide and Allison Sands, both of whom may testify this week, and the investigation initiated on Sept. 23, 2016, four days after Sussmann's meeting with FBI General Counsel James Baker.

May 22

Emptywheel, That Clinton Tweet could lead to a mistrial (or reversal on appeal), emptywheel, right, May 22, 2022. If you follow coverage of the Michael Sussmann trial anywhere but here and Politico, you would believe that the big news from Friday is that former Hillary campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary personally approved of sharing the Alfa Bank story. As part of that coverage, virtually everyone is also covering the tweet admitted where Hillary focused attention on the Franklin Foer story after it came out.

The special counsel team has previously said that the Clinton campaign’s media blitz around the Slate story “is the very culmination of Mr. Sussmann’s work and strategy,” to allegedly gin up news coverage about the Trump-Alfa allegations and then get the FBI to start an investigation.

During the hearing, Twitter users recirculated Clinton’s old post. It caught the eye of billionaire Elon Musk, who has become increasingly vocal about political matters while he tries to buy Twitter, and recently announced his support for the Republican Party. He called the Trump-Alfa allegation “a Clinton campaign hoax” and claimed that Sussmann “created an elaborate hoax.” [my emphasis]

Obviously, the frothy right has made it the center of a frenzy to investigate Hillary herself. Surely it will also lead to an investigation of Jake Sullivan.

The thing is, legally, the part about investigating wasn’t supposed to come into the trial and will be something that, at the very least, Judge Christopher Cooper issues an instruction to the jury on.

This media frenzy was the predictable result of Andrew DeFilippis breaking Cooper’s rules. Again.

Emptywheel, John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann For Sharing A Tip On Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank, emptywheel, right, May 22, 2022. John Durham accused Michael Sussmann about lying to hide why he shared allegations about Presidential candidate Donald Trump. But formally, at least, the FBI didn't consider these allegations to be about Trump, they considered them to be about (now sanctioned) Alfa Bank.

May 21

Washington Post, Sussmann prosecutors also take aim at Clinton, FBI and the news media, Devlin Barrett, May 21, 2022. The trial of well-connected lawyer Michael Sussmann centers on whether he lied to the FBI while sharing potentially damaging allegations about Donald Trump at a key moment in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But the first week of testimony showed the prosecution’s hopes for a conviction rest largely on a much broader set of assertions: that the FBI, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the press collided in ultimately harmful ways, leading to the public airing of unsubstantiated allegations shortly before Election Day.

National Review Daily, Opinion: Clinton Lawyer’s Achievement: Getting Donald Trump Elected President, Andrew C. McCarthy, May 21, 2022. Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of "Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency."

Apparently, Michael Sussmann hoped the FBI and New York Times would whip each other into a Trump–Russia collusion frenzy. Instead, they compared notes and torpedoed Clinton’s ‘October surprise.’

I don’t know if Michael Sussmann will be found guilty of making a false statement to the FBI. Special Counsel John Durham’s team has so far put in what appears to be a convincing case, and Sussmann’s defense seems incoherent.

The D.C. jury was always going to be tough for Durham, however, and it’s been made tougher still by the judge’s refusal to exclude for cause jurors who were admirably candid about having contributed to Democrats, strongly supported Hillary Clinton, and opposed Donald Trump.

Whether or not Sussmann beats the rap, though, there is some poetic justice here.

Emptywheel, Jim Baker's Tweet And The Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater, emptywheel, May 21, 2022. Michael Sussmann's key exhibit proving that even if he lied it couldn't be material is a tweet that Jim Baker sent just after Trump promised to solicit foreign help getting elected again in 2019.

And as I’ll show, Sussmann’s team may have something very special in store to make their materiality argument.

Regarding whether his statement that he was not there “on behalf of any client,” I think Sussmann has made a very good case that he meant his comment to Jim Baker on September 18 that he wanted to help the FBI. Both Marc Elias and Robbie Mook testified that sharing advance warning of a story they wanted to come out was the last they would have wanted or approved, because Jim Comey had done so much to damage the campaign. Particularly if Eric Lichtblau testifies, Sussmann will have a powerful story about all the damage that going to the FBI did to the campaign.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: DOJ under Merrick Garland cannot be trusted to rifle through J6 Committee files, Wayne Madsen, left, syndicated columnist, author of 21 books, former Navy intelligence officer and special temporary FBI agent, May 19-20, 2022.

When it was recently revealed that the Department of Justice had requested the House January 6 Select Committee to provide it with transcripts of committee interviews with individuals involved in the attempt to overthrow the government, this editor's reaction was for the committee to be careful about what it would be sharing.

There are several reasons why the J6 Committee should distrust DOJ. The first is that [Attorney General Merrick] Garland, right, has shown himself to be completely untrustworthy and bordering on incompetent. His failure to prosecute the January 6 perpetrators at an early stage is one reason. Garland has also permitted federal prosecutors to offer sweetheart plea deals to some of the January 6th insurrectionists, some of whom were extremely violent in both word and action.

Another reason for distrusting Garland is his failure to fire two prosecutors who are on fishing expeditions on behalf of Donald Trump. One is Special Prosecutor John Durham, left, who was appointed as one of the last acts by Trump Attorney General William Barr to investigate an alleged massive conspiracy theory dreamed up by Trump and his associates that the "Russia collusion" investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign was a hoax concocted by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and then-President Barack Obama.

Durham is a right-wing ideologue and hack who previously served as U.S. Attorney for Connecticut. Durham is also accused of committing acts of major prosecutorial misconduct in cases in Connecticut. So why is he still on Garland's DOJ team? The answer says more about Garland than it does the corrupt Durham, trying to flog a dead horse on behalf of Trump and his conspiratorial musings.

CNN, Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says, Marshall Cohen, May 20, 2022. Hillary Clinton personally approved her campaign's plans in fall 2016 to share information with a reporter about an uncorroborated alleged server backchannel between Donald Trump and a top Russian bank, her former campaign manager testified Friday in federal court.

Robby Mook said he attended a meeting with other senior campaign officials where they learned about strange cyberactivity that suggested a relationship between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which is based in Moscow. The group decided to share the information with a reporter, and Mook subsequently ran that decision by Clinton herself.

"We discussed it with Hillary," Mook said, later adding that "she agreed with the decision."

National Review Daily, Commentary: Why Did Sussmann’s Attorneys Put Robby Mook on the Witness Stand? Andrew C. McCarthy, May 20, 2022. Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of "Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency."

In 20 years as a prosecutor, it never ceased to amaze me how often a defense case at trial ends up helping the government far more than it helps the defense. Is that what happened today when, as Isaac Schorr reports, Michael Sussmann’s defense called Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, Robby Mook?

Probably. That is to say, it looks like a harebrained move now.

In this telling, Sussmann essentially betrayed the campaign, out of personal loyalty to the FBI and a personal, patriotic sense of duty developed in his years as a Justice Department national-security lawyer. Ergo, even though he may technically have been representing the campaign, Sussmann wasn’t really representing the campaign when he went to the bureau.

This is where Robby Mook comes in.

The defense called Mook (shown via a file photo from Fox News) to elicit his claim that there was no way that the campaign he was managing would agree to bring any evidence about Trump and Russia to the FBI. The Clinton campaign “did not trust” the FBI, Mook inveighed. Remember, the Clintonistas continue to claim that the bureau’s then-director, James Comey, hung Clinton out to dry with his damning public statements about her email scandal (though they conveniently omit that Comey also publicly decreed that she should not be indicted).

In putting Mook on the stand, the defense wanted an assertion from the highest official in the Clinton campaign that the campaign would not have approved Sussmann’s bringing the information to the FBI. Mook delivered, and further elaborated that Hillary Clinton herself approved the leak to the media. This supports the defense theme that the Clinton campaign wanted the Trump–Russia collusion narrative to be a media-driven story, not an FBI investigation.

May 19

Emptywheel, John Durham's Lies With Metadata, emptywheel, right, May 19, 2022. In April, John Durham provided evidence he was going to lie about what time on October 5, 2016 key emails involving Fusion GPS were sent. Yesterday, he appears to have done just that. I’d like to thank John Durham for showing us back in April how he was going to mislead the jury with metadata.

He appears to have done just that, yesterday, with several exhibits entered into evidence. And I fear that unless Durham’s lie is corrected, he will gravely mislead the jury.

Emptywheel, With A Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs The Table, emptywheel, right, May 19, 2022. Andrew DeFilippis has engaged in a series of stunts in an attempt to salvage his case against Michael Sussmann. One of them involved setting a perjury trap for Laura Seago.

Andrew DeFilippis has done several arguably unethical things in an attempt to win the Michael Sussmann trial.

He repeatedly attempted to get Marc Elias to repeat something Elias shouldn’t have said in the first place: that the only way to understand whether Sussmann had gone to the FBI to benefit the Hillary campaign would be to ask him (in response to which stunt Sussmann is asking for a mistrial).

DeFilippis also set up a ploy to get a non-expert to offer opinions that only an expert should offer (more on that later).

At times (such as during Neustar employee Steve DeJong’s testimony), DeFilippis seemed more focused on eliciting testimony that might help him make a case against Rodney Joffe than obtain a guilty verdict against Sussmann.

Washington Post, Key witness in Sussmann trial recounts 2016 meeting, Devlin Barrett, May 19, 2022. The central witness against a well-connected lawyer accused of lying to the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign insisted in court Thursday that accused attorney, Michael Sussmann, had made the claim that is at the heart of the case brought by special counsel John Durham.

Politico, Former FBI official recounts alleged lie at heart of Sussmann trial, Josh Gerstein, May 19, 2022. A former top official at the FBI told a federal jury on Thursday that he was “100 percent confident” that Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer, said he wasn’t acting on behalf of any of his clients when he gave the FBI information weeks before the 2016 presidential election about an alleged data link between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.

The daylong testimony from former FBI General Counsel James Baker in federal court in Washington backed the central claim of the narrow false-statement case special counsel John Durham brought against Sussmann last year: that he lied to Baker by hiding the involvement of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in promoting the alleged link.

On the stand as a prosecution witness on Thursday, Baker said unequivocally that Sussmann denied during a September 2016 meeting that he was acting on behalf of any particular client.

Jurors also saw a text message that Baker said he discovered on his phone earlier this year in which Sussmann requested the meeting about a “time-sensitive (and sensitive)” issue and said he was “coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau.”

However, the indictment doesn’t charge Sussmann with lying in a text message, only at the in-person meeting.

And Baker conceded on Thursday that he’d made an “inconsistent” statement about the critical fact of Sussmann’s statements there on at least one prior occasion, and that his memory on the point had evolved over time. By the end of the day, Baker’s overall testimony provided significant fodder for Sussmann’s defense and perhaps enough uncertainty to produce the reasonable doubt that could lead to Sussmann’s acquittal.

New York Times, Key Witness in Durham Case Offers Detailed Testimony of 2016 Meeting, Katie Benner, May 19, 2022. A former F.B.I. official testified on Thursday that when he met in 2016 with Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Mr. Sussmann told him that he had come to the F.B.I. on his own.

The testimony bolsters the case brought by the special counsel, John H. Durham, against Mr. Sussmann, who has been accused of lying about his reason for bringing his suspicions to the F.B.I. about a possible secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian financial firm with ties to the Kremlin.

CBS News, In Durham trial, former top FBI lawyer details 2016 meeting behind unsubstantiated data linking Trump to Russian bank, Robert Legare, May 19, 2022. When noted cyber attorney Michael Sussmann came to FBI headquarters in September 2016 to hand over now-debunked data purportedly linking Trump Tower to Russia's Alfa Bank, the FBI's general counsel, James Baker, said the information concerned him, and he viewed it as a "potential national security threat," Baker told a Washington, D.C. jury on Thursday.

Sussmann is now on trial for lying during that 2016 meeting, accused by special counsel John Durham of hiding his alleged connection to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the technology executive who provided him the data. He has pleaded not guilty and will call witnesses next week to help him mount a full defense against the single charge of lying.

The Hill, Opinion: Tale of Two Trials: How Sussmann is Receiving Every Consideration Denied to Flynn, Jonathan Turley, right, May 18, 2022. The criminal trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann began this week with a telling warning from prosecutors to the D.C. jury: “Whatever your political views might be, they cannot be brought to your decisions.”

The opening statement by Deborah Brittain Shaw reflected the curious profile of the Sussmann case. Prosecutors ordinarily have a massive advantage with juries despite the presumption of innocence. When pleas are counted, federal prosecutors can report as high as 95 percent conviction rates. However, with Sussmann, prosecutors clearly have concerns over whether they, rather than the defendant, will get a fair trial.

Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the FBI is being heard in the same District of Columbia federal courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and others faced the very same charge brought by another special counsel.

May 18

Emptywheel, The Founding Fantasy Of Durham's Prosecution Of Michael Sussmann: Hillary's Successful October Surprise, emptywheel, right, May 18, 2022. John Durham prosecutor Brittain Shaw made a claim that the Hillary campaign executed a successful October Surprise in 2016 the cornerstone of their entire prosecution of Michael Sussmann.

I’m still waiting on the second transcript from the Michael Sussmann trial, after which point I’ll lay out what Andrew DeFilippis already did to give Sussmann cause for appeal, if he were to lose.

Until then, I want to share the unbelievably crazypants belief that Durham’s prosecutors are attempting to sell to a jury. AUSA Brittain Shaw laid out the framework Durham’s team will use this way:

So what will the evidence show? The evidence will show that defendant’s lie was all part of a bigger plan, a plan that the defendant carried out in concert with two clients, the Hillary Clinton Campaign and Internet executive Rodney Joffe. It was a plan to create an October surprise on the eve of the presidential election, a plan that used and manipulated the FBI, a plan that the defendant hoped would trigger negative news stories and cause an FBI investigation, a plan that largely succeeded.

And Durham’s entire prosecution is based on the opposite, that the story that most infuriates Democrats was, instead, entirely the point.

Emptywheel, Like The January 6 Investigation, The Mueller Investigation Was Boosted By Congressional Investigations, emptywheel, right, May 18, 2022. Midway through an article on which Glenn Thrush — who as far as I recall never covered the Russian investigation and has not yet covered the January 6 investigation — has the lead byline, the NYT claims that it is unusual for a congressional committee to receive testimony before a grand jury investigation does.

That’s simply false. This is precisely what happened with the Mueller investigation, and there’s good reason to believe that DOJ made a decision to facilitate doing the same back in July, in part to avoid some evidentiary challenges that Mueller had difficulties with, most notably Executive Privilege challenges.

First, let’s look at how Mueller used the two Congressional investigations.

We should assume the same kind of thing is happening here. All the more so given the really delicate privilege issues raised by this investigation, including Executive, Attorney-Client, and Speech and Debate.

Politico, Former FBI official takes stand in trial of former Democratic Party lawyer, Josh Gerstein, May 18, 2022. Michael Sussmann is accused of lying to the official, former FBI General Counsel James Baker, in a 2016 meeting in which he relayed information about possible ties between Russia and candidate Donald Trump.

Jurors at the trial of a former Democratic Party lawyer accused of lying to the FBI in 2016 while trying to gin up an investigation damaging to candidate Donald Trump heard for the first time, on Wednesday, from the former official on the receiving end of the alleged falsehood: former FBI General Counsel James Baker.

Baker took the witness stand on behalf of the prosecution in the late afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, but quickly made clear that he considered the defendant — former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann — a friend and wasn’t testifying out of any desire to see Sussmann punished.

Washington Post, Prosecutor says Sussmann used connections to share Trump dirt with FBI, Devlin Barrett, May 18, 2022 (print ed.). “This is a case about privilege,” prosecutor tells a D.C. jury on the first day of testimony in Michael Sussmann's trial for allegedly lying to the FBI.

A lawyer working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign used his connections with top FBI officials to fuel an investigation into Republican nominee Donald Trump, a prosecutor told jurors on Tuesday during opening statements at the attorney’s trial for allegedly lying to the bureau.

The lawyer in question, Michael Sussmann, is in D.C. federal court for the first trial to arise out of the work of special counsel John Durham, who has spent three years investigating whether the federal agents unfairly probed the 2016 Trump campaign for possible ties to Russian election interference.

New York Post, Editorial: Why the media is ignoring trial at center of the real Russiagate scandal, Editorial Board, May 18, 2022. Why are most media basically ignoring the trial of Michael Sussmann, when it centers on a huge political scandal — an effort to frame a presidential candidate for treason?

In her devastating opening statement, prosecutor Deborah Brittain Shaw explained, “It was a plan to create an October surprise . . . that was designed to inject the FBI into a presidential election.”

Sussmann’s charged with falsely claiming to have been acting as a concerned citizen when he told a top bureau official of a supposed secret Donald Trump channel to the Kremlin, when in fact the lawyer was billing the Hillary Clinton campaign for his dirty work.

Indeed, Brittain Shaw noted, that lie was “part of a bigger plan carried out in concert with two clients, the Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe,” the tech executive (and Sussmann client and would-be Clinton appointee) who created the “evidence” of Trump skullduggery.

The Wall Street Journal, Editorial:: The Liberals Who Saw Through Russiagate, Editorial Board, Vice, May 18, 2022. Not all of us were in the bag, writes the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, Holman Jenkins, Jr. has for the past several years done an admirable but thankless job exposing the Russiagate fraud by focusing on the sleazy and now thoroughly discredited Steele dossier, which posited a conspiracy between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.

But when he writes about the cowardice of the “90% of the media and 100% of the foreign-policy class in Washington” that encouraged Russiagate to bloom and poison our politics (“What Did the Steele Dossier Hoax Cost America?” Business World, May 14), he should take a moment to credit the 10% that didn’t go along for the ride, even before the Steele dossier was published in January 2017 by BuzzFeed and its feckless editor, Ben Smith.

Andrew Cockburn’s cover story in the December 2016 issue of Harper’s Magazine blew the whistle loud and clear on the Clintons’ drive to blame Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory on Vladimir Putin instead of on Hillary and Bill Clinton themselves

It was the most successful disinformation campaign in living memory, and the liberal media were at best willing dupes in that success. Maybe it’s not such a surprise they don’t much care to cover the trial that’s beginning to bring it all to light.

Politico, Prosecutor: Lawyer lied to FBI on behalf of Clinton 2016 campaign, Josh Gerstein, May 17, 2022. Special counsel opens first trial by arguing that attorney Michael Sussmann misled FBI while trying to spur probe of Trump ties to Russia.

A federal prosecutor argued Tuesday that an attorney working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign sought to use the FBI as a “political pawn” by lying to the law enforcement agency’s top lawyer while passing off information damaging to then-candidate Donald Trump just before the 2016 election.

The jury trial that opened in Washington against former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann is the first courtroom test for Special Prosecutor John Durham, who was appointed by former Attorney General William Barr to explore the origins of the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia.

However, Sussmann’s defense said their client never misled the FBI and that the false-statement case against the former federal prosecutor is riddled with fatal flaws.

New York Times, Clashing Views of Cybersecurity Lawyer as Trial in Special Counsel’s Case Opens, Charlie Savage, May 17, 2022. Michael Sussmann, a prominent lawyer with Democratic ties, is accused of lying to the F.B.I. in a case with broader political overtones.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed in opening arguments on Tuesday in the trial of Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to Democrats who has been charged by a Trump-era special counsel with lying to the F.B.I. in 2016 when he brought the bureau a tip about possible Trump-Russia connections.

Deborah Shaw, a prosecutor working for the Trump-era special counsel, John H. Durham, told a federal jury that Mr. Sussman was in part representing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign at the time. But he claimed to the F.B.I. that he was not bringing the tip on behalf of any client because he wanted to conceal his ties to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

The Hill, Sussmann’s defense lawyer calls Durham prosecution an ‘injustice,’ Harper Neidig, May 17, 2022. An attorney defending Michael Sussmann, the lawyer with deep ties to the Democratic Party charged with lying to the FBI in 2016, called the prosecution by the Trump-era special counsel John Durham an “injustice” on the first day of arguments in Sussmann’s trial Tuesday.

Michael Bosworth, a member of Sussmann’s defense team, argued in his opening statement that his client had no reason to lie about who his clients were when he met with the FBI’s top lawyer in 2016.

Sussman met with the FBI to present data that appeared to show suspicious internet traffic connecting former President Trump’s business with the Russian financial institution Alfa Bank.

Bosworth portrayed Sussmann as a veteran federal prosecutor and cybersecurity lawyer whose reputation as a partner at the major law firm Perkins Coie depended on the relationships he had established at the FBI and other agencies in the national security establishment.

“Michael Sussmann didn’t lie to the FBI,” he said. “Michael Sussmann wouldn’t lie to the FBI.”

“His whole livelihood depended on his credibility with these agencies and he’d never throw that away.”

May 16

Emptywheel, Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses, emptywheel, right, May 16, 2022. In this post, I laid out the elements of the offense, a single count of a false statement to the FBI, which will drive the outcome of the Michael Sussmann trial, in which jury selection begins today. As I showed, John Durham has to prove that:

• Michael Sussmann said what Durham has accused him of saying, which is that he was not sharing information with the FBI on behalf of any client
• Sussmann said that on September 19, not just September 18
• Sussmann meant his statement to be understood to mean that no client of his had an interest in the data, as opposed to that he was not seeking any benefit for a client from the FBI
• The lie made a difference in how the FBI operates

In this post I’d like to say a bit about the expected witnesses. Before I do, remember the scope of the trial, as laid out in several rulings from Judge Cooper.

Politico, Opinion: John Durham Has Already Won, Ankush Khardori (Ankush Khardori, an attorney and former federal prosecutor, is a Politico Magazine contributing editor), May 16, 2022. The Trump-era special prosecutor begins his first trial this week, but the verdict hardly matters.

Most people are probably not looking for a reason to revisit the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but if you are, then you’re in luck this week.

Beginning Monday morning in Washington, special counsel John Durham — the prosecutor who was appointed in 2019 by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation in the wake of the Mueller report — finally gets to present his case to a jury in federal court. Though it’s come to represent much more in the public imagination, the actual charge is quite narrow. The defendant is Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who worked at the outside law firm representing the Clinton campaign, and he is facing a single count of lying to the FBI’s top lawyer in the run-up to the election in order to instigate a criminal investigation into Trump.

Since Durham’s appointment, however, a clear dynamic has dominated his investigation — namely, a palpable desire among right-wing operatives, commentators and media outlets to use Durham’s work, no matter how thin or nebulous the underlying evidence may be, to try to vindicate the theory that Trump was grievously victimized by the Democratic Party in an effort to defeat him and later hobble his presidency. When it comes to perpetuating that narrative, whether or not the jury ultimately rules in his favor, Durham has effectively already won. If the investigation has revealed anything of note, it is just how secondary the law has come to be in politically-charged prosecutions like this one

Sinclair Broadcasting via WKRC-TV (Cincinnati), Former Clinton campaign lawyer in court for special counsel John Durham's probe, Kristine Frazao, May 16, 2022. A nearly three-year investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe turned a new page Monday with its first criminal trial.

Former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussman was in court as part of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry. The charge against Sussman is "lying to the FBI."

Prosecutors say that in 2016, Sussman passed on a tip to them about suspicious ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia and said he was not working on behalf of any client. Prosecutors say that in fact, he was and that those clients included the Hillary Clinton campaign.

This case is being closely followed by many in and outside of Washington not just because of the legal ramifications but for the political ones as well.

Fox News, Jury selected in Durham-Sussmann trial: Opening arguments, testimony from Democratic lawyer Marc Elias to come, Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson, May 16, 2022. Sussmann is charged with making a false statement to the FBI and has pleaded not guilty.

A jury was seated Monday in the trial of former Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann — the first trial stemming from Special Counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe — and opening arguments are expected to be presented by both the government and the defense Tuesday morning, as well as testimony from Democratic lawyer Marc Elias.

May 15

U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham, left, and defendant Michael Sussmann, a cyberlaw attorney and former federal prosecutor whose trial begins on May 16 on a false statement charge in Washington, DC's federal court.

CNN, Who's who in the Michael Sussmann trial, Marshall Cohen, Updated May 15, 2022. The trial of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann kicks off Monday in Washington, DC, and will feature a cast of characters related to the 2016 election.

Sussmann was indicted last year by special counsel John Durham, the Trump-era prosecutor who has spent the last three years reviewing the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation.

Here's a breakdown of the key figures that will be featured prominently at Sussmann's trial.

John Durham

Durham, right, is the Justice Department special counsel who charged Sussmann. Former Attorney General William Barr tasked Durham in early 2019 with reviewing the Trump-Russia investigation.

He had a reputation as an apolitical fact-finder who took on tough cases. But some legal experts have criticized his handling of the current investigation, which has become a cause célèbre in right-wing circles. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly hyped up the Durham probe, suggesting without proof that it could lead to indictments of top Democrats, even Clinton herself.

May 13

Emptywheel, Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense, emptywheel, right, May 13, 2022. As “scene-setters” for the Michael Sussmann trial next week, Devlin Barrett makes two significant errors. First, he misrepresents what Sussmann said in a text to James Baker on September 18, 2016.

New York Post, Opinion: One lie that hides an enormous conspiracy: Inside the trial that exposes Clinton’s plot to slander Trump, Andrew C. McCarthy (senior fellow at National Review Institute), May 13, 2022. Special Counsel John Durham appears to have methodically built a case of historic consequence. It’s just not the case he has brought against bigshot Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Jury selection begins in Sussmann’s trial on Monday, in Washington, DC. It will be the first trial to arise out of the Russiagate probe, which began over three years ago. That’s when former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr assigned Durham, a longtime Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to investigate how, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign and based upon scant evidence, the FBI came to suspect one of the candidates of being a clandestine agent of the Kremlin — to the point of opening counterintelligence and criminal investigations targeting Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

According to court filings in the Sussmann case, Durham has fingered the Hillary Clinton campaign as the culprit. The problem is that Durham has not charged that fraudulent scheme. Yet, he wants to offer evidence of the sweeping scheme in order to prove a comparatively minor and narrow offense — namely, that Sussmann lied to the FBI at a single meeting, on September 19, 2016.

Durham theorizes that the Clinton campaign concocted a political smear that Trump was a Putin puppet, then peddled the tale to a compliant media and to the FBI. This would enable Clinton to tout the “evidence” of corrupt Trump-Russia ties as so serious that the Feds were investigating.

Durham contends that the Clinton campaign left most of the scandal-mongering to its lawyers. Thus did Sussmann become central to the scheme, as did his law partner, Marc Elias. (Both attorneys have since left their white shoe international law firm, Perkins-Coie.) The deployment of lawyers in their schemes and scandals is a time-tested Clinton modus operandi, enabling them to claim attorney-client privilege to cover their tracks when controversy erupts and investigators start snooping around — a frequent occurrence over the last 30 years.

But, again, Durham has not charged anyone — not Hillary Clinton, her campaign, or any of its operatives — for such a sensational crime. This sets up the central dynamic of the trial: How much of evidence of the big, uncharged fraud scheme will the judge, Obama-appointee Christopher Cooper, permit Durham to introduce as proof of why Sussmann allegedly lied to the FBI?

National Review, Opinion: Durham Barred from Introducing Trove of Fusion GPS Emails at Sussmann Trial, Andrew C. McCarthy (senior fellow at National Review Institute), May 14, 2022. If the emails are probative, the jury should see them.

Justice Department special counsel John Durham has won a hollow victory in his false-statements prosecution of Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Washington Post, Sussmann trial to test credibility of controversial figures from 2016, Devlin Barrett, May 12, 2022. The first trial resulting from Special Counsel John Durham’s probe will explore claims and counter-claims of Trump-Clinton race.

After five years of accusations, investigations and recriminations, a federal jury will soon grapple with one of the legal hangovers of the 2016 presidential campaign: the trial of a politically connected lawyer charged with lying when he brought the FBI a tip about possible connections between Donald Trump’s company and a Russian bank.

New York Post, Judge orders Steele dossier firm Fusion GPS to turn over 22 emails to John Durham, Ben Feuerherd and Bruce Golding, May 12, 2022. A federal judge ordered Fusion GPS to turn over emails related to its work with former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Fusion GPS improperly withheld the 22 emails from Durham by claiming they were protected by attorney-client privilege and “work-product” privilege, Washington, DC, federal Judge Christopher Cooper, right, ruled.

The move came at the request of Clinton’s 2016 campaign, according to the 11-page decision.

But the emails, which largely consist of internal communications between Fusion employees, aren’t protected from disclosure because they “appear not to have been written in anticipation of litigation but rather as part of ordinary media-relations work,” Cooper said.

May 11

New York Post, Ex-Clinton lawyer Sussmann tries to block witness who could debunk Trump-Russia link, Ben Feuerherd and Bruce Golding, May 11, 2022. A former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer wants to prevent an expert witness from debunking computer research that purportedly showed a secret back channel between former President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 campaign.

In court papers filed Wednesday, defense lawyers for Michael Sussmann said special counsel John Durham apparently plans to use testimony from FBI agent David Martin “to cast doubt on the specific data and conclusions that Mr. Sussmann presented to the FBI.”

Emptywheel, Investigative Commentary on Igor Danchenko Durham indictment: Wall Street Journal -- Bigger Dupes of John Durham or Alexsej Gubarev? emptywheel, May 11, 2022. The Wall Street Journal claims they’ve cracked the Steele dossier!

In a 4,300-word romantic comedy, they claim that, “many of the dossier’s key details originated with a few people gossiping after they had been brought together over a minor corporate publicity contract.” There are several incorrect aspects of this fairy tale.

May 10

New York Post, Ex-Hillary lawyer wants jurors in Dem-centric DC to know he’s Trump foe, Ben Feuerherd, Steven Nelson and Bruce Golding, May 10, 2022. Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann wants to make sure the jurors at his upcoming trial in heavily Democratic Washington, DC, know he was working against former President Donald Trump — even before they hear any evidence in the case.

In court papers filed ahead of jury selection set for Monday, Sussmann’s lawyers asked federal Judge Christopher Cooper to include an explicit reference to Trump in his preliminary instructions for the trial.

May 9

Washington Post, Lawyer charged with lying to FBI may call ex-NYT reporter as witness, Devlin Barrett, May 9, 2022. The May 16 trial is part of special prosecutor John Durham’s probe of the 2016 FBI investigation into Russian election interference.

Lawyers for Michael Sussmann, an attorney with ties to the Democratic Party who is about to go on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI in the heated final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, say they plan to call a former New York Times reporter as a witness to help show Sussmann is not guilty.

Sussmann allegedly told the top lawyer at the FBI in September 2016 that he had information to share about possible cyber links between Republican nominee Donald Trump’s business and a Russian bank. He faces a single count of lying to the FBI because he allegedly claimed he was not bringing them the information on behalf of any client, but was doing so at the behest of two of his clients: Hillary Clinton’s campaign team and a technology executive named Rodney Joffe.

The trial is scheduled to begin next week in D.C. federal court. Sean M. Berkowitz, a lawyer for Sussmann, said in court Monday that the defense team plans to call former Times reporter Eric Lichtblau to testify about his communications with Sussmann and Joffe.

Berkowitz also said he plans to call Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, left,, who examined the FBI’s handling of investigations into Hillary Clinton and a former campaign adviser to Donald Trump, and issued reports sharply critical of the FBI’s work in both those cases.

Berkowitz said he will call Horowitz as a witness to talk about how Sussmann provided “information to the inspector general that also involved Mr. Joffe.”

The Sussmann trial will be a closely watched legal confrontation pitting John Durham, a holdover special counsel from the Trump administration, against a longtime Democratic lawyer. The former president and his supporters have trumpeted the case against Sussmann as evidence the FBI abused its investigative powers and mistreated the Republican candidate for president, while Democrats have argued that Durham is chasing conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.”

John Durham has a stellar reputation for investigating corruption. Some fear his work for Barr could tarnish it.

Legal Schnauzer, Dubious past actions by Trump-appointed Special Counsel John Durham raise questions about the prospects for justice in Michael Sussmann trial, Roger Shuler, May 8, 2022. Perhaps the most politically charged criminal trial of the 2000s is fast approaching, and a citizen might like to think the prosecutor bringing the case is the kind of honorable, bipartisan sort fit for such a task.

But Special Counsel John Durham, appointed by Trump Attorney General William Barr, has incidents in his past that suggest he might not be the right guy to oversee the case against Hillary Clinton-aligned attorney Michael Sussmann, who is charged with lying to the FBI.

That's from investigative reporting by Andrew Kreig at the Justice Integrity Project (JIP). And it suggests the Sussmann trial might produce plenty of political fireworks -- based in the RussiaGate scandal of the 2016 presidential election and even touching on the U.S. attorneys firings of the George W. Bush era. But will the jury trial, set to begin May 16, produce justice? Kreig's reporting produces serious doubts about that. From Kreig's post at JIP, under the headline "On Eve of 'RussiaGate' Trial, Questions Loom About Special Counsel Durham":

May 7

Politico, Judge spares Clinton camp in Sussmann ruling, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, May 7, 2022. The decision issued Saturday afternoon limits evidence and testimony prosecutors can offer against attorney Michael Sussmann at a jury trial set to get underway later this month.

A federal judge has turned down a request from Special Counsel John Durham for a ruling that a lawyer facing trial on a false statement charge was part of a wide-ranging “joint venture” involving Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Democratic operatives, private investigation firm Fusion GPS and various technology researchers.

The decision issued Saturday afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, right, limits evidence and testimony prosecutors can offer against attorney Michael Sussmann, below left, at a jury trial set to get underway later this month.

The ruling spares the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee the potential embarrassment of a federal judge finding they were part of a coordinated effort to level since-discredited allegations that candidate Donald Trump or his allies maintained a data link from Trump Tower to Russia’s Alfa Bank. The Clinton campaign disseminated that claim amid a broader effort to call out Trump’s ties to Russia at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies had revealed efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

May 2

Global Strat View, Investigation: On Eve of ‘RussiaGate’ Trial, Questions Loom About Special Counsel Durham, Andrew Kreig, May 2, 2022.  With final preparations underway this week for one of the most politically explosive federal prosecutions in years, U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel John H. Durham’s record reveals legal error that undercuts his image as straight-shooting seeker of justice.

In a 2008 ruling that has never been reported by a major news outlet, a New York federal appeals court vacated bribery, wire fraud and racketeering convictions because a team led by Durham, left, then the Deputy U.S. Attorney in Connecticut (and Acting U.S. attorney for supervising the prosecution), illegally withheld evidence that could have helped federal defendant Charles Spadoni defend himself in a corruption case.

In another case, a Connecticut federal judge overturned a conviction in 2003 because of what she ruled in a 57-page decision was Durham’s repeated prosecutorial misconduct at trial, a sanction that authorities stated is extremely rare in the federal system.

Global Strat View: An independent media group based in Washington, DC. The team of professional journalists spans the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and North America, dedicated to fact-driven reporting and analysis that enriches and contributes to our democratic conversation.

April 28

Vice, Docs: Prominent Journo Showed Draft of Narrative-Driving Russiagate Story to Oppo Firm, Tim Marchman, April 28, 2022. Accidentally unsealed court docs seem to show Franklin Foer sending a draft of a story to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier.

April 27

Justice Integrity Project, Commentary: Sussmann Prosecutors Seek Legally Dubious "Tactical Advantage" At Trial, Defense Claims, Andrew Kreig, April 27, 2022. Defense lawyers for cyberlaw attorney Michael Sussmann argued in a pre-trial hearing today in federal court that federal prosecutors seek unfair advantage in presenting evidence at his upcoming false statement trial.

The trial judge, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, said he would issue rulings shortly in advance of the trial scheduled to begin May 16 in Washington, DC.

Among the issues raised, defense counsel said Special Prosecutor John H. Durham's team has left open the possibility of prosecuting a key defense witness, cyber expert Rodney Joffe, formerly an executive of Neustar, therefore likely preventing him from testifying without a grant of immunity even though any relevant conduct by the witness occurred in February 2017, thereby exceeding a presumed statute of limitations. Prosecutors responded that they need to keep their options open and a court should not be able to force prosecutors to make decisions, including granting Joffe immunity.

Also, defense lawyers requested the judge to block prosecution efforts to introduce at trial large quantities of emails subpoened from Sussmann's former law firm, Perkins Coie, or to introduce the name of former British intelligence Russian desk spy chief Christopher Steele at trial. Defense counsel said neither the emails nor Steele had anything directly relevant regarding the false statement allegation, with Sussmann having met Steele, right, just once in a non-substantive context.

Prosecutors invoked the concepts of conspiracy law to assert that they wanted to show the law firm, the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and various independent researchers were all part of a conspiracy to make false allegations against Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and later president.

Defense counsel responded that prosecutors were seeking "tactical advantage" on legally dubious grounds because there is nothing inherently illegal about varied people communicating with each other when they have no common goal, much less one that's illegal. The counsel said prosecutors were seeking a "mini-trial within a trial" to expand the indictment's narrow claim that Sussmann falsely told the FBI he wasn't representing a client (a claim Sussmann denies) into a more elaborate trial of the veracity of Trump denials that Russians influenced his election.

Joffe and Steele, who is not expected to be a witness, got involved because of their suspicions that Russian interests were involved in disseminating materials stolen from Clinton campaign or Democratic National Committee computers. Defense counsel said that Steele had been a consultant to the FBI on various matters and his communications with the agency did not arise from any activity involving Sussmann.

Hartford Courant, U.S. Senate confirms Vanessa Avery as Connecticut’s first Black female U.S. Attorney, Edmund H. Mahony, April 27, 2022. Avery replaces former U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, who left office following the election of President Joseph P. Biden and U.S. Attorney Leonard C. Boyle, whom the district court judges appointed to serve in the transition.

April 19

Politico, Trump suit against Clinton could sustain secrecy on origins of dossier, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, April 19, 2022. Lawyers contend the former president’s new court foray backs their claims of attorney-client privilege.

The sprawling lawsuit that former President Donald Trump filed recently against former rival Hillary Clinton could, perversely, boost Clinton allies’ ongoing legal efforts to shield details of their anti-Trump political efforts from public scrutiny.

Lawyers for private investigation firm Fusion GPS argued in court filings released Tuesday that Trump’s newly filed racketeering suit bolsters their effort to conceal specifics of the firm’s work with the 2016 Clinton campaign via attorney-client privilege. Trump and his allies have long targeted Fusion, which commissioned the controversial Steele Dossier making salacious and at times unsupported allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia.

Now, top Clinton allies argued in legal papers Tuesday, the details of confidential discussions about the dossier should remain secret in part because Trump’s famous litigiousness — underscored by his new, factually questionable lawsuit — was at the heart of Democrats’ decision to hire Fusion in the first place.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC have long maintained that the dossier prepared for Fusion by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was part of legal work done by the campaign’s general counsel, Marc Elias, left. However, Elias has never publicly explained what work that was or precisely how Fusion GPS fit into it.

April 13

Washington Post, Judge lets Durham case against Democrat-connected lawyer go to trial, Matt Zapotosky, April 13, 2022. The judge rejected Michael Sussmann’s motion to dismiss the case.

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to dismiss Special Counsel John Durham’s criminal case against Democratically connected lawyer Michael Sussmann, right, paving the way for the matter to head to trial.

The six-page ruling was highly technical, and the judge did not offer a resounding endorsement of the special counsel’s case. But it was an undeniable win for Durham, and sets the stage for a high-profile courtroom showdown next month.

Sussmann was charged in September with lying to the FBI. By Durham’s account, Sussmann claimed he was approaching the bureau’s general counsel in 2016 with potentially damaging information about then-candidate Donald Trump on his own, when in fact he was doing so on behalf of a tech executive he represented and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

John Durham, left, has a stellar reputation for investigating corruption. Some fear his work for Barr could tarnish it.

Sussmann has pleaded not guilty in the case and argued in a motion to dismiss the case that even if he did as Durham alleged, that would not be a federal crime.

April 6

New York Times, More Evidence Bolsters Durham’s Case Against Democratic-Linked Lawyer, Charlie Savage, right, April 6, 2022 (print ed.). Separately, defense lawyers asked a judge to block the Trump-era special counsel from making the Steele dossier a focus of next month’s trial; New Filing by Counsel Might Strengthen Case In Trump-Era Inquiry; The lawyer, Michael Sussmann, right, is accused of lying to the F.B.I.

The Trump-era special counsel scrutinizing the Russia investigation has acquired additional evidence that may bolster his case against a Democratic-linked lawyer accused of lying to the F.B.I. at a September 2016 meeting about Donald J. Trump’s possible ties to Russia, a new court filing revealed.

In the politically high-profile case, the lawyer, Michael Sussmann, is facing trial next month on a charge that he falsely told an F.B.I. official that he was not at the meeting on behalf of any client. There he relayed suspicions data scientists had about odd internet data they thought might indicate hidden Trump-Russia links.

The new filing by the special counsel, John H. Durham, says that the night before Mr. Sussmann’s meeting, he had texted the F.B.I. official stating that “I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the bureau.”

The charge against Mr. Sussmann, which he denies, is narrow. But the case has attracted significant attention because Mr. Durham has used filings to put forward large amounts of information, insinuating there was a conspiracy involving the Hillary Clinton campaign to amplify suspicions of Trump-Russia collusion. Mr. Durham has not charged any such conspiracy, however.

March 11

Washington Post, Judge seeks to defuse legal fight that raised Trump’s ire, Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky, March 11, 2022 (print ed.). An obscure legal filing that sparked a political tempest was just ‘a sideshow,’ the judge declared.

A federal judge on Thursday sought to calm a political tempest whipped up by a recent court filing in a case arising out of the 2016 presidential election, telling prosecutors working for Special Counsel John Durham, left, that the new details they revealed would have “come out in the wash anyway.”

The standoff sparked furious accusations and counter-accusations of political chicanery, but U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper called the legal question “a sideshow” to the upcoming trial of lawyer Michael Sussmann, an expert in cybersecurity who has long represented Democrats.

 In response to a court filing by Durham last month, Sussmann’s legal team accused the prosecutor’s office of using a pedestrian pretrial legal question about potential conflicts of interest to make misleading assertions. Trump and his allies immediately seized on those assertions to accuse Democrats and former officials of misconduct and “spying.”

At Thursday’s hearing, Cooper said he didn’t understand why Durham’s team included those details in the filing, but assumed the decision was made in good faith, noting “much, if not all, of the challenged material is likely to come out anyway” before or at trial.

Sussmann’s lawyer had asked the court to strike from the record those parts of Durham’s filing. The judge declined to do so, though he also cautioned prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis that he should be careful going forward about what he includes in court papers.

“Striking it will not unring the bell and will probably make the bell even louder,” Cooper said. “Keep in mind,” he told DeFilippis, “that the pleadings in this case are under a microscope. … Be mindful of that as we go forward.”

Feb. 18

PressRun, Commentary: The media and Durham’s corrupt “spying” investigation, Eric Boehlert, right, Feb 18, 2022. Ken Starr II. Fox News has lost its mind. Again.

Looking for a partisan outrage to promote as Covid cases plummet and the U.S. economy continues to soar, Fox News, Trump and the ferocious Right Wing Noise Machine have gone all-in claiming Hillary Clinton’s campaign six years ago “spied” on the Republican candidate. The dreamt-up allegation comes courtesy of special counsel John Durham’s dishonest handiwork and his Trump-sanctioned investigation into Russiagate and the hollow claims that Trump had been the target of a massive deep state conspiracy.

The current caper has more holes than the GOP’s Benghazi production, but it’s sucking up lots of Beltway oxygen and generating right-wing hysteria which is the whole point — to create a spectacle of Democrat lawbreaking. (Trump’s demanding Durham’s defendant be executed.)

The good news is the mainstream media are not blindly repeating bogus claims about Clinton “spying,” for the simple reason that nobody has offered any proof.

The bad news is the same elite news outlets are stepping lightly around the real story at the center of the right-wing mob — the unethical nature of Durham’s work and how he’s clearly working with the far right to try to manufacture controversy where none exists.

In the ABC News report, it wasn’t until the ninth paragraph that that network spelled out, “nowhere in Durham's filing does he state that lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to "infiltrate" servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House.” That crucial debunking should have been found in the first paragraph, if not the headline.

Durham is Ken Starr II, and the press still hasn’t learned any lessons.

Here’s a quick example of the type of joke investigation Durham is overseeing. Last year, his shining moment was indicting Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussman, right, on a single count of making a false statement to an FBI agent, five years after the fact. (The indictment had nothing to do with FBI misconduct, which was supposedly under investigation.)

Durham’s indictment, which is based on the testimony of one witness who has contradicted himself, claims Sussmann committed perjury by denying he was working for the Clinton campaign at the time he brought his information about Trump’s Russian ties to the FBI in 2016. The false statement claim is a laughably small crime to serve as the centerpiece of Durham’s $4 million investigation, which has produced two indictments. (By contrast, Robert Mueller indicted 34 people as part of his Russia probe.)

As blogger Marcy Wheeler details, Durham’s allegation is based on the central claim that Sussman had secretly “coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton Campaign.” When Sussman’s lawyers in a court filing last October demanded to know with whom Sussman had directly plotted with on the Clinton campaign, Durham refused name anyone. That’s because at the time, Durham had not interviewed anyone with the Clinton campaign to see if Sussman had coordinated with them.

It’s amateur hour. “There’s tons of instances of where Durham demonstrably failed to do basic investigative work before charging Sussmann five years after a claimed lie,” notes Wheeler, who’s been picking apart Durham’s shoddy work for years.

Feb. 17

Washington Post, Amid high-profile dispute with prosecutors, lawyer charged by Durham asks court to toss his case, Matt Zapotosky, Feb. 17, 2022. The lawyer charged by Special Counsel John Durham with lying to the FBI when he passed along information about then-candidate Donald Trump has asked a judge to dismiss the case — saying that even if he did what Durham alleged, it was not a crime.

Attorneys for Michael Sussmann, argued in a motion to dismiss on Thursday that Durham’s case was virtually unprecedented and, if allowed to proceed, might dissuade other tipsters from coming forward. Durham, they asserted, has not charged Sussmann with giving false information to the FBI, but rather, with lying about whether he was approaching the bureau on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach,” Sussmann’s lawyers wrote. “The law criminalizes only false statements that are material — false statements that matter because they can actually affect a specific decision of the government.”

A spokesman for Durham, left — appointed in 2019 to review the FBI’s investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia — declined to comment.

At the core of Sussmann’s indictment is a September 2016 meeting in which he gave the FBI data showing possibly nefarious computer connections between the Trump Organization, which is the former president’s business entity, and a Russian financial institution known as Alfa Bank.

By Durham’s account, Sussmann claimed he was not sharing the information on behalf of any clients, but was in fact acting on behalf of two: a tech executive and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The FBI investigated the matter but ultimately could not prove the computer data showed anything nefarious.

Feb. 14

New York Times, News Analysis: Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track, Charlie Savage, right, Feb. 14, 2022. When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.

But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.

Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.

The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham, left, filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.

The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

Mr. Sussmann, right, had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.

Citing this filing, Fox News inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid a technology company to “infiltrate” a White House server. The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr. Trump’s White House office. And when mainstream publications held back, Mr. Trump and his allies began shaming the news media.

“The press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday. “This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful and so important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world.”

There were many problems with all this. For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.

Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.

“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”

Feb. 13

New York Post, Editorial: Eyes turn to Hillary Clinton, not Trump in the Russiagate scandal, Editorial Board, Feb. 13, 2022. Democrats are calling for Clinton to be investigated for her role in Russiagate.

Russiagate, the collective delusion that Donald Trump was secretly a Russian agent aided and abetted by the Kremlin, the topic of uncountable inches of Washington Post and New York Times copy and the entire primetime lineup of MSNBC, was a dirty trick by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Not just part of it. All of it. One of the most diabolical, successful misinformation campaigns ever concocted.

We already knew that the Steele dossier was garbage. Christopher Steele was paid indirectly by the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt, which he did by turning to other Clinton operatives, laundering every outlandish rumor about Trump he could find into an “investigative” document.

He shopped it to the FBI, which couldn’t verify his sources or any of his stories, but the agency dragged out the investigation to cast maximum suspicion on the new president. In the meantime, Steele found willing accomplices in the media to push his propaganda. The dupes at BuzzFeed even decided to print the whole pack of lies, with the flimsy rationale of “Well, why not?”

We got to the point where New York magazine was running a cover story that was one long piece of fan fiction that Trump was secretly a real-life version of “The Americans,” a sleeper agent now seated in the highest office in the land. The Times and Washington Post won a freaking Pulitzer!

A made-up story

Now another piece of Russia, Russia, Russia is kaputski. A computer server operated by Trump’s company was secretly communicating with a Russian firm, claimed Slate magazine and endless Twitter threads of would-be tech experts.

But as outlined in his latest indictment, special counsel John Durham believes that was just a story made up by tech executive Rodney Joffe, who desperately wanted a job with the Clinton administration. He monitored and cherry-picked privileged Internet data he had access to, and molded it to look like something nefarious.

2021

Dec. 23

Washington Post, Since October 2020, special counsel John Durham has spent $3.8 million probing Russia investigation, Matt Zapotosky, Dec. 23, 2021 (print ed.). Special counsel John Durham’s review of the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government has cost U.S. taxpayers about $3.8 million since October 2020, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday.

From April through September, Durham reported a tab of about $2.36 million, including about $1.89 million his team spent and about $471,000 recorded by other Justice Department offices as being in support of his work.

Dec. 15

Washington Examiner, Steele source Igor Danchenko gets new lawyers and tries to delay trial, Jerry Dunleavy, Dec. 15, 2021. The alleged main source for Christopher Steele has obtained new lawyers and is seeking to delay his criminal trial as special counsel John Durham’s team raises possible conflict of interest concerns about the new defense firm.

Igor Danchenko, a United States-based and Russian-born researcher, was charged “with five counts of making false statements to the FBI.” Durham claimed he made these statements about the information he provided to British ex-spy Steele for the discredited dossier, which the FBI relied upon when seeking secret surveillance and conducting its flawed Trump-Russia investigation.

Danchenko, sitting between his two new lawyers, appeared for a status conference hearing at a federal courtroom in Alexandria on Wednesday morning.

Durham prosecutors Michael Keilty, Andrew DeFilippis, and Jonathan Algor were present in court, with U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia presiding.

The prosecution said it believed there was a “possible attorney conflict issue” but that it also thought it was likely “waivable.” The defense team said the issue raised by the prosecution was Robert Trout, who had helped represent Hillary for America, but that it didn’t believe it was a conflict of interest. The judge asked the prosecution to provide its position by the end of the week and asked the defense to have Danchenko sign a waiver about it.

RUSSIAN LINKS TO OPERATIVES BEHIND STEELE DOSSIER

Defense lawyers Stuart Sears and Danny Onorato took over as Danchenko’s attorneys earlier this month. Trout is of counsel at their firm.

When he was at another firm, Trout represented former Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta during his December 2017 appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. When Podesta appeared before the same committee in June that year, he had been represented by Clinton campaign General Counsel Marc Elias, who had hired the opposition firm Fusion GPS, which then hired Steele, and who had met with the Briton during the 2016 election.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded in December 2019 that Steele's dossier played a "central and essential" role in the FBI's effort to obtain wiretap orders against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The DOJ watchdog determined the FBI’s investigation was filled with serious missteps and errors and concealed potentially exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and it said Danchenko undermined Steele’s claims of a “well-developed conspiracy” between former President Donald Trump and Russia.

Danchenko’s previous defense attorney, Mark Schamel, was replaced this month. Schamel had previously claimed that Durham’s indictment “presents a false narrative designed to humiliate and slander a renowned expert in business intelligence for political gain.”

Schamel is also the lawyer for Georgia Institute of Technology computer scientist Manos Antonakakis, identifiable in Durham's indictment of Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann as "Researcher-1."

Sussmann is a defendant in a separate Durham case who has been accused of lying to the FBI’s top lawyer in September 2016 about who his client was as he pushed debunked claims about a secret back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

Danchenko’s defense team also asked for the April trial date to be pushed back to at least September of 2022 due to the amount of discovery and the desire on the part of the defense to conduct its own investigation. The lawyers pointed out that the trial for Sussmann was set for May 16. The defense team wanted Danchenko's trial to happen months after that, and the judge said he would consider it.

The prosecution noted that the protective order for unclassified discovery had already been approved by the judge, and the proposed protective order for classified discovery, which was filed last night, was approved by the judge during court.

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Both defense lawyers already have security clearances, and the prosecution said it is working on getting the defense paralegal a security clearance, too. The judge said the prosecution should provide a report by Dec. 24 detailing its plans for providing classified information and its estimated calendar for producing discovery to the defense team, and he set the next status conference for Jan. 12.

The defense also asked for permission for Danchenko, his wife, and their three children to go on a trip to an undisclosed place at an undisclosed time, as well as to travel freely around Virginia, which the prosecution did not object to and the judge approved contingent on pretrial services having no problem with it.

Nov. 19

OpEdNews, Analysis: The Steele Dossier and the J. Mayer Analysis: Revisited, Steven Jonas, right, Nov. 18, 2021. Oh my. The "Steele Dossier" has resurfaced, by the magic hand of that Barr/Trump creation designed to supposedly "set things right about Trump and the investigations of him," John Durham.

And so, I decided to go back and take a look at some of what I wrote about Steele Dossier at the time it all was the rage (figuratively and literally). In what I thought is well-summarized in a column in which I reviewed an in-depth study of the Dossier, its origins, and sources, written by the very careful The New Yorker journalist, Jane Mayer.

Let me first say that, unlike many of my friends on the Left, some of them quite good friends, I fully believe that Trump and the Trumpites colluded with the Russians to help them win the election. Indeed I have believed that that could have been possible from the time the first rumors about the possible compact began to appear in the summer of 2016, and certainly when David Corn's first article on the matter, in the context of the "Steele Dossier," was published in October, 2016.

Nov. 17

New York Times, Guest Essay: How Did So Much of the Media Get the Steele Dossier So Wrong? Bill Grueskin (Mr. Grueskin is a professor of professional practice and former academic dean at Columbia Journalism School. He has held senior editing positions at The Wall Street Journal, The Miami Herald and Bloomberg News), Nov. 15, 2021. 

On Jan. 10, 2017, BuzzFeed News published a photo rendition of a 35-page memo titled “U.S. Presidential Election: Republican Candidate Donald Trump’s Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship With the Kremlin.”

Those who were online that evening remember the jolt. Yes, these were just allegations, but perhaps this was the Rosetta Stone of Trump corruption, touching everything from dodgy real estate negotiations to a sordid hotel-room tryst, all tied together by the president-elect’s obeisance to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Sure, the memo provided little hard evidence or specific detail, but, BuzzFeed said, it had “circulated at the highest levels of the U.S. government” and had “acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers and intelligence officials.” This, along with tantalizing tidbits like “Source A confided” or “confirmed by Source E,” gave it a patina of authenticity, especially to those unaware that spycraft often involves chasing unverified information down dead ends. Any caveats — even BuzzFeed’s own opening description of the allegations as “explosive but unverified” — could be dismissed as a kind of obligatory cautiousness.

That memo, soon to become known as the “Steele dossier” when a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele was publicly identified as its author, would inspire a slew of juicy, and often thinly sourced, articles and commentaries about Mr. Trump and Russia.

Now it has been largely discredited by two federal investigations and the indictment of a key source, leaving journalists to reckon how, in the heat of competition, so many were taken in so easily because the dossier seemed to confirm what they already suspected.

Many of the dossier’s allegations have turned out to be fictitious or, at best, unprovable. That wasn’t for want of trying by reporters from mainstream and progressive media outlets. Many journalists did show restraint. The New York Times’s Adam Goldman was asked by the Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple about two years ago how reporters should have approached an unverified rumor from the dossier. He responded, “By not publishing.”

Proof via Twitter, Investigative Commentary: Major media must stop enabling far-right lies about the Steele dossier and the Trump-Russia scandal, Seth Abramson, left, Nov. 17, 2021. Both these lies and those enabling them give aid and comfort to a neofascist insurrection. This thread debunks the New York Times oped above, Guest Essay: How Did So Much of the Media Get the Steele Dossier So Wrong?, by former Columbia Journalism School dean Bill Grueskin (30-part Twitter thread):

There's no proof in this article [by Grueskin], nor could there be, of how media "got the Steele dossier so wrong" — as the media never reported that *any* part of the dossier had been conclusively confirmed, never misreported its origins and wrote on the dossier far less than is now claimed.

Indeed, the supposed smoking gun with respect to media reporting on the Steele dossier is that one news outlet received a leak from a source close to the Mueller investigation indicating that Mueller had found *some* evidence that *one* claim in the dossier might be accurate.

It turns out that that leak—not the outlet's reporting that it'd received a leak—was incorrect, and Mueller found no evidence to substantiate that component of the dossier. This component remains neither confirmed nor denied, though Trumpists lie and say it has been disproven.

1/ As I know from hard experience, columnists often don't get to write their own headlines. But what this means is that someone at the New York Times either wrote or specifically approved this headline, which is not just a lie but an easily disproven one, at that. And here's why:

2/ There's no proof in this article, nor could there be, of how media "got the Steele dossier so wrong"—as the media never reported that *any* part of the dossier had been conclusively confirmed, never misreported its origins and wrote on the dossier far less than is now claimed.

3/ Indeed, the supposed smoking gun with respect to media reporting on the Steele dossier is that one news outlet received a leak from a source close to the Mueller investigation indicating that Mueller had found *some* evidence that *one* claim in the dossier might be accurate.

4/ It turns out that that leak—not the outlet's reporting that it'd received a leak—was incorrect, and Mueller found no evidence to substantiate that component of the dossier. This component remains neither confirmed nor denied, though Trumpists lie and say it has been disproven.

5/ The same Trumpists who say that this component of the dossier—a claim about Michael Cohen and Prague—has been "disproven," and say so on the basis of Cohen's denials and his alibi for a tiny sliver of the time-period in question, *also* say Cohen is a *liar* and a *scoundrel*.

6/ So what do the journalists that "got the Steele dossier so wrong" say of the Cohen-Prague claim? The truth—no more, no less. Which is that it remains neither proven nor disproven, but that Steele told the FBI his dossier was 30% incorrect, and this *could* be part of that 30%.

7/ The simple fact is this: though media bent over backwards—with the exception of a single outlet, the fringe, left-leaning, non-mainstream Mother Jones—to *not* report on the dossier before the 2016 election, Trumpists are angry that its existence was ever reported on at *all*.

8/ More than that, we *know* what Trumpists wanted media to do: lie to voters about the dossier. How do we know? Because Trumpists *celebrate* a late October 2016 NYT article in which the FBI denies the existence of any evidence in its possession—e.g. the dossier—on Trump-Russia.

9/ So even as media made sure the raw, unconfirmed intel in the Steele dossier would play *no part* in the 2016 election—then reported on the dossier's *existence* without saying any of it had been proven, and reporting on its origins—*critics* wanted a *disinformation campaign*.

10/ Here comes the first twist in this thread: I agree with the NYT headline. I fervently believe major media got Steele's dossier "so wrong." Media got the dossier "so wrong" by refusing to report on how much of it had been confirmed or corroborated and misreporting its origins.

11/ It took a fringe digital rag, The Daily Caller—not major media!—to reveal that the Ritz-Carlton Moscow allegation (the "pee tape" allegation) was fully briefed by Fusion GPS in fall 2015 (not a typo) via funding from *GOP sources* and *before Steele was contracted by Fusion*.

12/ Are you hearing the information I just wrote for the first time? Probably. That's because major media "got the Steele dossier so wrong" by falsely reporting it was the indirectly DNC-funded Orbis that unearthed the "pee tape" issue in 2016, not the GOP-funded Fusion in 2015.

13/ Moreover, Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson testified under oath—something almost no Trumpist will do (and those who do perjure themselves)—that at the time Fusion contracted with Steele and Orbis in June 2016, Steele *didn't know* who was funding him or who his ultimate client was.

14/ Steele himself has since testified—again (notice a trend?) voluntarily and under oath—that what Simpson testified to was true: Steele didn't know his funder or his client when he took on the work. Yet those who say media "got the Steele dossier so wrong" claim otherwise. Why?

15/ There's never been any evidence Steele or Simpson perjured themselves on this point—yet the very people who claim to be so concerned that media "got the Steele dossier so wrong" routinely say Steele *explicitly agreed with the DNC and Clinton campaign* to find dirt on Trump.

Washington Post, Fact Checker Analysis: The Steele dossier: A guide to the latest allegations, Glenn Kessler, Amy B Wang and Marianna Sotomayor, Nov. 17, 2021. On Jan. 10, 2017, BuzzFeed News took the unusual step of publishing what it described as memos containing “specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump [campaign] aides and Russian operatives.”

This dossier, alleging a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, was assembled by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, working under contract for a private investigation firm at the behest of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Many of the memos, which suggested deep sourcing within Russia, had quietly circulated in media and law enforcement circles for months before BuzzFeed made them public.

Nov. 4

Foreign affairs analyst and consultant Igor Danchenko, above left, who's been described as the Steele dossier's primary researcher, was arrested as part of an investigation by John Durham, above right, the special counsel appointed by Trump’s Justice Department to investigate the origins of the Russia probe.

New York Post, Editorial: The real ‘collusion’ was the creation of ‘RussiaGate’ out of absolutely nothing, Editorial Board, Nov. 4, 2021. They all knew – and did nothing to stop the Russia collusion hoax.

If you haven’t been paying attention to all the ins and outs of RussiaGate and the so-called “collusion” scandal, that’s all you need to know about Thursday’s arrest of Russian analyst Igor Danchenko.

The Hillary Clinton campaign hired a bunch of shady operatives to put together a collection of lies and innuendo about Donald Trump and shop it to the FBI. It was the ultimate political dirty trick, one that was aided and abetted by the media long after Trump took office.

Igor Danchenko, the guy who supposedly gathered all the spurious “dirt” in the infamous Steele dossier, is accused of lying at least five times to investigators, special counsel John Durham alleges. Those lies were to cover up the fact that he really had no sources for his claims — or, in some cases, the sources were Clinton associates.

How’s that for a vicious circle? Clinton officials feed their Russian stooge disinformation, it gets laundered through British spy Christopher Steele, and the FBI uses it as the basis for wiretapping the future president’s team.

Nov. 1

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigative Commentary: Durham's phony investigation a waste of scant DOJ resources, Wayne Madsen, left, syndicated columnist, author of 21 books, former U.S. Navy Intelligence officer and NSA analyst, and former featured public affairs commentator on both Russian and American broadcast news networks, Nov. 1, 2021.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, below right, who has become the least popular member of President Biden's Cabinet, is continuing to allow a holdover special prosecutor from the Trump administration to engage in a costly and time-consuming "investigation" of absolutely nothing rising to a level of criminality.

On October 19, 2020, just a few weeks prior to the 2020 election, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham was secretly appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr as special counsel to investigate Trump's alleged "Russia Hoax." Durham was originally tasked by Barr in April 2019 to investigate the Justice Department's ongoing internal probe of federal law enforcement surveillance activities of the Trump campaign for connections to Russia. Trump falsely insisted that the investigation was a "witch hunt."

Durham has been permitted by Garland to continue with a fool's errand of an investigation that has resulted in two dubious indictments. It is clear that Durham's targets now include the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, the Robert Mueller investigation of that campaign, and anything else that Durham (and his puppeteer Trump) decides is worthy. Garland has failed to show any desire to order Durham to wrap up his investigation or be shown the door.

Essentially, Durham has become a new Ken Starr. Starr was the independent Whitewater counsel who began an investigation into Bill Clinton's involvement in an Arkansas real estate deal and ended with a dubious probe of Clinton for receiving a blowjob in the Oval Office from White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Durham is operating under a mandate to "broadly examine the government's collection of intelligence involving the Trump campaign's interactions with Russians." Durham has now turned the investigation on to top Democrats.

In November 2019, Durham succeeded in obtaining a guilty plea by FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith for altering an email request for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The FISA request was part of the FBI's CROSSFIRE HURRICANE probe of the 2016 Trump campaign.

In December 2019, the Justice Department's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, right, concluded in a 400-page report on CROSSFIRE HURRICANE that the investigation had a proper criminal predicate.

In a highly-unusual move, Barr and Durham immediately denounced the IG report's findings. However, Durham has obtained no evidence that the IG report was incorrect. Nevertheless, Durham, an extreme right-winger with ties to the fascist Roman catholic Opus Dei order, continued with his own witch hunt against top intelligence officials of the Obama administration, including CIA director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. New York magazine reported that Durham also launched criminal probes of former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, the latter being Trump's 2020 presidential opponent.

Finding no criminality on the part of Brennan, Clapper, Obama, or Biden, Durham turned his attention to the Clinton Foundation. Eventually, Durham began investigating Perkins Coie law partner Michael Sussmann. On September 16, 2021, Durham was able to return an indictment of Sussmann for falsely telling the FBI that he was not representing the 2016 Clinton campaign when he told them about the suspicious nature of communications between network servers of Russia's Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. Durham was splitting hairs in the indictment. While Sussmann had represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the case of its email servers being hacked in 2016, he was not an official of the Clinton campaign, as alleged by Durham's twisted logic contained in his indictment.

It was clear that Durham's political target is another Perkins Coie partner, election attorney Marc Elias, left, who had also commissioned Fusion GPS to conduct 2016 opposition research of the Trump campaign. Elias continues to be the primary attorney challenging Trump charges of election fraud in various states, as well as new GOP-enacted state laws designed to restrict voter suffrage, particularly among ethnic minorities. Another Durham political target is Jake Sullivan, the current national security advisor, who was Clinton's national security aide during the 2016 campaign.

Durham's indictment of Sussmann was also directed at four computer scientists -- David Dagon and Manos Antonakakis of George Tech; Rodney Joffe, formerly an executive of Neustar; and Zetalytics chief data scientist April Lorenzen -- who provided forensic evidence of a link between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. Durham's indictment, which labeled Lorenzen as "Originator-1," Antonakakis as "Researcher-1," Dagon as "Reseacher-2," and Joffe as "Tech Executive-1," actually states that they did not like Donald Trump, a clear indication that Durham has unethically, and, perhaps, illegally misused his office.

Durham's "over his skis" indictment charged that the scientists had "exploited" their access to Internet data to concoct a conspiracy between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. In fact, as reported by WMR on March 29, 2021, the actual conspiracy was between Barr and his Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Brian Benczkowski. Knowing full well of the Trump-Alfa Bank connection, Barr placed Benczkowksi, someone who had no prosecutorial experience, in charge of the Criminal Division to protect Trump and Alfa Bank. It just so happened that at his previous law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, Benczkowski's client had been Alfa Bank.

WMR also reported that "connected to the Alfa Bank server, which Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner wanted to secure with a Russia-supplied encryption system, was Spectrum Health of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The chairman of the board of Spectrum Health is Richard DeVos, Jr., the husband of Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, left, and brother-in-law of Mrs. DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince of Blackwater infamy. Alfa Bank has a business relationship with Amway, the firm co-founded by Richard DeVos, Sr., the father of Betsy DeVos’s husband." It was later discovered that a YotaPhone, a Russian-made smart phone not generally available in the U.S. market, was connected to transmissions from servers at the White House, Trump Tower in New York, and Spectrum Health in Michigan.

Durham has been using the Justice Department to conduct a far-right and conspiracy theory-laden crusade against Trump's political foes. It is Durham who has misused his special prosecutor position for his own political goals and interests.

 Oct. 1

New York Magazine via MSN.com, Opinion: John Durham’s Attempt to Discredit Trump’s Russiagate Enemies Is Falling Apart, Jonathan Chait, Oct. 1, 2021. When Donald Trump’s attorney general appointed John Durham to investigate what Trump insisted was a deep-state conspiracy against him, a question hovered: What exactly was Durham thinking? Durham had a respectable résumé as a prosecutor in a career that did not seem to lead straight into a role as Trump’s Roy Cohn.

Was he simply accepting the role out of diligence and the understanding that, if he found no crimes, he could put Trump’s absurd charges to rest? Or — unlikely but possible — would he uncover real proof of a criminal conspiracy at the FBI to undermine Trump? Or had Durham undergone the same Fox News–induced brain melt that has turned figures like Barr, Giuliani, and many others into authoritarian conspiracy theorists?

In the wake of Durham’s first and perhaps only indictment, we can safely rule out the first two explanations.

Durham’s indictment does not even allege that the FBI committed any wrongdoing. Instead, it charges that the FBI was lied to — by Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who passed on leads about Trump’s ties to Russia that the bureau was unable to verify. Durham’s indictment claims Sussmann committed perjury by denying he was working for the Clinton campaign at the time he brought his information about Trump to the FBI in 2016.

The first weakness in the indictment is that even if every word Durham writes is true, the charge he has amounts to a very, very small molehill. Interested parties uncover crimes all the time. There’s just no reason to believe that Sussmann’s relationship with a law firm working for Clinton would have made any difference to the FBI — which was already investigating Trump’s ties to Russia and which wound up discarding Sussmann’s lead anyway as a dry hole.

Second, the evidence that Sussmann lied to the FBI is extremely shaky. As Benjamin Wittes notes, the sole basis for charging Sussmann with perjury is the recollection by FBI official Jim Baker. Baker testified to Congress that he remembered very little about his conversation with Sussmann, i.e.:

Baker: [I]n that first interaction, I don’t remember him specifically saying that he was acting on behalf of a particular client.

Jordan: Did you know at the time that he was representing the DNC in the Clinton campaign?

Baker: I can’t remember. I have learned that at some point. I don’t — as I think I said last time, I don’t specifically remember when I learned that. So I don’t know that I had that in my head when he showed up in my office. I just can’t remember.

Jordan: Did you learn that shortly thereafter if you didn’t know it at the time?

Baker: I wish I could give you a better answer. I just don’t remember.

Yes, the “Jordan” who dug out the evidence that seems likely to undermine Durham’s case is Trump superfan Jim Jordan. Wittes concludes, “It is hard for me to understand how a criminal case against Sussmann can proceed in the face of this testimony.”

The perjury charge is merely the window dressing in the indictment. The meat of it — the part that has Trump defenders excited — is a narrative laid out by Durham attempting to paint Sussmann and the experts he worked with as liars who smeared Trump. That narrative part does not describe actual crimes, of course. Prosecutors can write whatever they want in their indictment. This one is like a Sean Hannity monologue wrapped around a parking ticket.

And even the “speaking indictment” portion of Durham’s charge is falling apart now. Today, both CNN and the New York Times reported that Durham selectively quoted from emails in order to furnish a completely misleading impression that Sussmann’s researchers lied.

Sept. 20

Former Olympian McKayla Maroney testifies about coach's abuse and FBI indifference (Pool photo by Saul Loeb of Reuters).

Washington Post, Opinion: Two miscarriages of justice reveal a sickening disparity, Ruth Marcus, right, Sept. 20, 2021. Two individuals allegedly made false statements to federal investigators. One now faces trial on a felony charge. The other does not. I defy you to read about their cases and conclude that justice is served in either instance, or that it is being applied even-handedly.

Let’s start with the person who has been let off the hook, because the decision is so infuriating and underscores so dramatically the unfairness of the other prosecution. W. Jay Abbott was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office in 2015, when it received reliable reports that USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar had sexually abused multiple gymnasts.

One of Nassar’s victims, McKayla Maroney, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week about describing how Nassar had repeatedly molested her to one of Abbott’s agents, only to have the agent reply, “Is that all?”

What happened next? For months, nothing, as far as the FBI was concerned. Abbott’s office was supposed to refer the allegations to the FBI’s Lansing, Mich., office, the city where Nassar worked. But that never happened — and Nassar went on to abuse at least 70 more young athletes until he was arrested by Michigan state police 16 months later.

During that time period, Abbott met and corresponded repeatedly with the head of USA Gymnastics, Steve Penny, about a tantalizing job prospect, heading up security for the entire U.S. Olympic Committee.

When the Justice Department’s inspector general interviewed Abbott, since retired, about the bureau’s handling of the Nassar case, he “made multiple false statements” about both the conduct of the investigation and his job talks, in violation of the federal false statements law, the inspector general concluded in a searing report released in July.

Abbott claimed he had spoken with FBI counterparts in Detroit and Los Angeles about the Nassar allegations; both agents denied such conversations, and there was no documentation they occurred.

The inspector general “found no evidence” to support Abbott’s claims — and further concluded that “Abbott’s false statements were knowing and intentional.”

But Abbott also insisted to the inspector general that he had never applied for or taken other steps to secure the Olympics job. This was, according to the inspector general, untrue, deliberately so, and stretched across two sworn interviews, including after Abbott was confronted with evidence to the contrary.

“Abbott, by his own admission, was concerned that applying for a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee posed a conflict of interest with the FBI’s handling of the Nassar investigation, which was a high profile, sensitive matter,” the report noted. “Under this circumstance and given the risk involved, we found it highly unlikely that Abbott forgot about his ultimate decision to apply for the job.”

The inspector general asked the Justice Department’s criminal division to prosecute Abbott for false statements. It declined in September 2020. The lesson? You can lie to federal investigators with impunity.

The second case, with an opposite outcome, involves Michael Sussmann, right, a Washington lawyer who represented the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a tech company executive during the 2016 election. Sussmann, a former Justice Department official with expertise in cybersecurity, sought a meeting with FBI general counsel James Baker to pass on information about digital connections between a computer linked to the Trump Organization and a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin.

Justice Department special counsel John Durham, left, appointed by former attorney general William P. Barr to probe whether there was FBI or intelligence community wrongdoing relating to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, obtained the indictment announced last week, the second criminal charge arising from his two-year probe.

It alleges Sussmann told Baker at the meeting, on Sept. 19, 2016, that he wasn’t doing work on those allegations “for any client.” That led Baker “to understand that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative,” when in fact, according to the indictment, Sussmann was acting on behalf of the tech executive and the Clinton campaign.

Sussmann’s “lie was material” — meaning that it could have affected the investigation — because it “misled” FBI officials “concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis,” the indictment alleges.

As former federal prosecutor Randall D. Eliason has noted, this single false statement, before a single witness, is about as weak as a case can get. Whatever he told them, FBI officials knew full well that Sussmann represented Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

Baker didn’t take notes of the meeting. The evidence of Sussmann’s alleged misstatement, such as it is, comes from handwritten notes of the conversation made by another FBI official later that day. Sussmann also billed the meeting to the Clinton campaign, according to the indictment, an assertion his lawyers contest.

Where, you might ask, is Attorney General Merrick Garland in all this? In an exquisitely difficult position. Even though Durham is a Barr-appointed special counsel, Garland retains the power to supervise his investigation. But stepping in to prevent Durham from seeking this flimsy indictment risked generating a political uproar, with unsettling echoes of Barr’s heavy-handedness. Now, it is too late.

While Abbott collects his government pension, Sussmann, who has resigned from his law firm, faces ruin. These twin miscarriages of justice, each wrong on its own, are sickening when taken together.

Sept. 17

Washington Post, Editorial Board: John Durham’s zombie Russia investigation produces an iffy indictment. Is this all there is? Editorial Board, Sept. 17, 2021. After more than two years and the persistent goading of former president Donald Trump, special counsel John Durham, the lawyer Trump-era attorney general William P. Barr tapped to probe the Justice Department’s 2016 Russia investigation, finally did something on Thursday. He indicted attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI.

This, to put it mildly, is not the confirmation of some broad 2016 deep-state conspiracy against Mr. Trump that the former president apparently desired.

The danger of special counsel investigations is that, given unlimited time and resources, they often find some bad action tangentially related to their original inquiry that may have had little or no substantial negative impact. Mr. Durham has uncovered alleged wrongdoing that has little to do with whether federal officials tried to sabotage the Trump campaign.

Wonkette, Analysis: Special Counsel John Durham Blows His Measly Load Trying To Make Serverghazi Happen Again, Liz Dye, right, Sept. 17, 2021. For years the wingers have promised special counsel John Durham was preparing to rain down hell on the Deep State and do LOCK HER UPS to Hillary Clinton and all the dastardly Democrats in DC.

In 2019, Attorney General Bill Barr tasked the former US Attorney for Connecticut with cobbling together evidence of a Justice Department conspiracy to frame Donald Trump for cahootsing with Putin to steal the election. But aside from one conviction of a low-level DOJ attorney for falsifying an email related to Season 1 dipshit Carter Page, it's been crickets.

Until yesterday when John Durham, left, did the home team proud by bringin' it to those Deep State conspirators for their evil attempt to bring down saintly Donald Trump by making him look like he was in bed with Mother Russia.

Just kidding! Durham indicted an outside lawyer on a single count of lying to the FBI. PFFFFFFFT.

Yesterday the special counsel announced the culmination of three years of work: one measly charge against attorney Michael Sussman for failing to disclose that he was working for the Clinton campaign and the DNC when he met with FBI general counsel James Baker to hand over information about the "Alfa Bank server" in Trump Tower that was mysteriously pinging back and forth with a server in Russia. As if anyone in DC, down to the busboys at Busboys and Poets, is unaware that Sussman's former law firm Perkins Coie is associated with major Democratic causes.

Wall Street Journal, Editorial: Durham Cracks the Russia Case, Editorial Board, Sept. 17, 2021. The special counsel’s indictment tells the real story of 2016 collusion. John Durham on Thursday indicted a Clinton campaign lawyer from 2016 for lying to the FBI, but this is no ho-hum case of deception. The special counsel’s 27-page indictment is full of new, and damning, details that underscore how the Russia collusion tale was concocted and peddled by the Clinton campaign.

Mr. Durham charged Michael Sussmann, an attorney at the Perkins Coie law firm that represented the Clinton campaign. Mr. Sussmann is accused of making false statements to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting when he presented documents purporting to show secret internet communications between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa bank.

The indictment says Mr. Sussmann assured Mr. Baker he was not doing this work “‘for any client,’ which led the FBI General Counsel to understand that SUSSMANN was acting as a good citizen merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative.” This was false, says the indictment, which documents how Mr. Sussmann was working with other Democrats (including fellow Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias ) and billing his time to the Clinton campaign.

Sept. 16

New York Times, Trump-Era Special Counsel Secures Indictment of Lawyer for Firm With Democratic Ties, Charlie Savage, Sept. 16, 2021. The defendant, Michael Sussmann, is accused of lying to the F.B.I. in a meeting about Trump and Russia. He denies wrongdoing. John H. Durham is the special counsel the Trump administration appointed in 2019 to scour the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.

A prominent cybersecurity lawyer was indicted on a charge of lying to the F.B.I. five years ago during a meeting about Donald J. Trump and Russia, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.

New York Times, Durham Is Said to Seek Indictment of Lawyer at Firm With Democratic Ties, Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and William K. Rashbaum, Sept. 15, 2021. The lawyer, Michael Sussmann, is accused of lying to the F.B.I. in a 2016 meeting about Trump and Russia. He denies wrongdoing.

April 14

New York Times, Subpoenaing the Brookings Institution, Durham Focuses on Trump-Russia Dossier, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, Updated April 14, 2021. The special counsel scrutinizing the Russia inquiry, a Trump-era leftover, appears to be retreading ground that an inspector general explored in 2019.

Exiled from Twitter, former President Donald J. Trump issued a sarcastic statement recently inquiring about the ongoing public silence from John H. Durham, the special counsel who has been investigating the Trump-Russia inquiry since May 2019.

“Where’s Durham?” said Mr. Trump, who repeatedly predicted before last year’s election that Mr. Durham’s investigation would prove a deep-state conspiracy against him. “Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report?”

Mr. Durham ignored the complaint publicly, and the scope of his inquiry remains opaque. But one aspect has come into focus recently, according to people familiar with the investigation: Mr. Durham has keyed in on the F.B.I.’s handling of a notorious dossier of political opposition research both before and after the bureau started using it to obtain court permission to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016 and 2017.

In addition to questioning witnesses who may have insight into the matter, Mr. Durham has obtained documents from the Brookings Institution related to Igor Danchenko, a Russia researcher who worked there a decade ago. Mr. Danchenko later helped gather rumors about Mr. Trump and Russia for that research, known as the Steele dossier, according to people familiar with the request.

By asking about the dossier, Mr. Durham has come to focus at least in part on re-scrutinizing an aspect of the investigation that was already exposed as problematic by a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report and led to reforms by the F.B.I. and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

March 15

Politico, Appeals court rejects academic’s libel suit over claims of affair with Flynn, Josh Gerstein, March 15, 2021. A federal appeals court handed another legal defeat Thursday to a Russian-born academic who claims she was libeled by press accounts that she says insinuated she had an affair with former National Security Adviser and Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn.

The academic, Svetlana Lokhova, sued several news organizations in 2019 over the reports and also named as a defendant Stefan Halper, shown at right in a 2010 file photo, a U.K.-based former professor who was a central figure in the FBI investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The ruling upheld an earlier district court decision throwing Svetlana Lokhova’s suit out in its entirety.

A ruling issued by the Richmond, Va.-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday upheld an earlier district court decision throwing Lokhova’s suit out in its entirety.

The appeals court said most of the articles Lokhova claimed were libelous were too old to be included in the suit she filed two years ago. Under Virginia’s one-year statute of limitations for defamation claims, the only publications that were fairly subject to the suit were a Washington Post story and some tweets sent by MSNBC National Security Contributor Malcolm Nance.

The Post reported that at a 2014 dinner, Halper and a colleague “were disconcerted by the attention the then-DIA chief showed to a Russian-born graduate student…according to people familiar with the episode.”

Writing for the appeals court, Judge Stephanie Thacker said that language could not fairly be read as an attack on Lokhova.

Flynn and Lokhova have denied any affair.

2020

Aug. 19

The Atlantic, Analysis: Russiagate Was Not a Hoax, Franklin Foer, Aug. 19, 2020. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed what the Mueller report could not.

Rereading the Mueller report more than a year after its publication is an exercise in disappointment. One gets the feeling that Robert Mueller didn’t press his inquiry to its end. Instead of settling the questions that haunt the 2016 campaign, he left them dangling, publishing a stilted document riddled with insinuation and lacunae. He rushed his work, closing up shop before finishing his assignment.

While Mueller received all the hype, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence kept its head down. Yesterday, having avoided cable speculation almost entirely, the SSCI released the fifth and final volume of a report on Russia’s attempt to sway the last election in Donald Trump’s favor. It finally delivered what Mueller either could not or would not: a comprehensive presentation of the evidence in the matter of “collusion.” The report confirms that Russiagate is no hoax. Whether or not the Trump campaign illegally coordinated with the Kremlin, Trump has no grounds for proclaiming vindication, much less that he’s the victim of a witch hunt.

Credit largely goes to Mark Warner, left, the ranking Democrat on the SSCI, who shrewdly orchestrated the proceedings. Cultivating a close relationship with the SSCI’s Republican chair, Richard Burr, he worked to keep the investigation deliberately low-key. (The committee did the bulk of its work behind closed doors, without leaks.) As a result, the committee on the whole miraculously avoided the politicization that tainted the broader debate over Russian interference. Each of its findings won bipartisan approval prior to publication. Instead of rushing forward, the committee left the incendiary question of collusion for last.

The thousand-page fifth volume doesn’t definitively settle the question, in part because the SSCI was unable to procure a full record of events. The White House engaged in gamesmanship, invoking executive privilege to deny witnesses and block access to a paper trail. A slew of important witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment. Others, such as Paul Manafort, lied relentlessly to investigators. The election of 2016 is one of the most closely studied events of recent memory, yet even the best-informed students of Russian interference don’t have a comprehensive understanding of it.

When Mueller’s prosecutors appeared in court, in February 2019, they implied that the most troubling evidence they had uncovered implicated Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman. This wasn’t a surprising admission. Throughout their filings, Mueller’s team referred to Manafort’s Kyiv-based aide-de-camp, Konstantin Kilimnik, as an active Russian agent. Manafort had clearly spoken with Kilimnik during the campaign, and had even passed confidential campaign information to him, with the understanding that the documents would ultimately arrive in the hands of oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

One of the great disappointments of the Mueller Report is that it fails to provide narrative closure after building so much anticipation for the Kilimnik story line. Mueller did not fully explain why Manafort’s relationship with his Ukraine-based adviser so bothered his prosecutors. Why had Manafort passed along the documents? And what did the oligarchs want with them?

The committee fills in the gaps somewhat. It reports that Manafort and Kilimnik talked almost daily during the campaign. They communicated through encrypted technologies set to automatically erase their correspondence; they spoke using code words and shared access to an email account. It’s worth pausing on these facts: The chairman of the Trump campaign was in daily contact with a Russian agent, constantly sharing confidential information with him. That alone makes for one of the worst scandals in American political history.

New York Post, Twitter hires former FBI lawyer James Baker to join legal team, Thornton McEnery, Jaclyn Hendricks and Emily Jacobs, June 16, 2020. Twitter has tapped former FBI general counsel James Baker, a central player in the Russia collusion investigation, to serve as counsel to the tech giant.

“Thrilled to welcome @thejimbaker to @Twitter as Deputy General Counsel,” Twitter’s chief legal officer, Sean Edgett, posted Monday.

Edgett continued, “Jim is committed to our core principles of an open internet and freedom of expression, and brings experience navigating complex, global issues with a principled approach.”

During his time with the FBI, Baker found himself involved with the early stages of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, specifically the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application against Carter Page.

Page was a campaign aide to Trump in 2016, when federal agents used the unverified Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele to convince the FISA court to grant them a warrant to spy on Page.

That warrant, as well as the circumstances surrounding it, are being looked at by US Attorney John Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William Barr to review federal surveillance abuses.

Baker has stood by his conduct during his time at the FBI and with regard to the Russia probe.

Speaking to Yahoo News in May 2019, the former general counsel said he would “welcome scrutiny” of his conduct.

“I plan to fully cooperate with the department to help them figure out what happened. Because I believe what happened was lawful, at least based on every piece of information that I have,” he said at the time.

2019

Nov. 22

Washington Post, Justice Dept. watchdog finds political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI’s Russia, Ellen Nakashima, Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett, Nov. 22, 2019. The Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to find in a forthcoming report that political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, while at the same time criticizing the bureau for systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications, according to two U.S. officials.

The much-anticipated report due out Dec. 9 from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, right, will allege that a low-level FBI lawyer inappropriately altered a document that was used during the process to renew a controversial warrant for electronic surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, the officials said. The inspector general referred that finding to U.S. Attorney John Durham, and the lawyer involved is being investigated criminally for possibly making a false statement, they said.

But Horowitz will conclude that the application still had a proper legal and factual basis, and, more broadly, that FBI officials did not act improperly in opening the Russia investigation, according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive report.

The report generally rebuts accusations of a political conspiracy among senior law enforcement officials against the Trump campaign to favor Democrat Hillary Clinton while also knocking the bureau for procedural shortcomings in the FBI, the officials said. On balance, they said, it provides a mixed assessment of the FBI and Justice Department’s undertaking of a probe that became highly politicized and divided the nation.

Nov. 4

National Review, Opinion: The Last Trusted Prosecutor in Washington, Jim Geraghty, Nov. 4, 2019. John Durham is the legendary lawman digging into how the intelligence probe of Donald Trump started.

John Durham may be the most consequential and least known figure in Washington right now.

In May, U.S. attorney general William Barr, right, selected Durham, a longtime prosecutor with a résumé so sterling it nearly glows, to investigate the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and whether it was properly predicated. Some Trump fans believe there was a vast effort by a “deep state” of high-ranking intelligence and law-enforcement officials to smear Trump or hinder his campaign by creating a perception of corrupt ties to Russia. In late October, the New York Times quoted unnamed sources who said that Durham’s probe had officially become a criminal investigation, meaning he now has the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury, and to file criminal charges.

Since he is an attorney general appointed by President Trump, almost every decision from William Barr is criticized by Democrats as a partisan abuse of law-enforcement powers. But the appointment of Durham received no backlash, and in fact received praise far and wide.

Who is Durham, this rare-as-a-unicorn figure who can reassure lawmakers, talking heads, and court-watchers on both sides of the aisle, in an era when everything seems destined to turn into a loud partisan food fight?

To say Durham is tight-lipped is an understatement; he lets his courtroom arguments speak for him and rarely talks to reporters at all. Those who have covered him for years — or, more accurately, tried to cover him — say that when he does run into reporters, he is cordial but uninformative, and almost never on the record. In Durham’s questionnaire for the Senate while awaiting confirmation to be a U.S. Attorney, he was asked to list his written work. He answered that he had never written or published any books, articles, reports, or letters to the editor. (The Senate confirmed him unanimously, with home-state senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), right, calling him “a fierce, fair prosecutor” who “dedicated his life to public service and the pursuit of justice.”) Durham is nicknamed, inevitably, “the Bull,” and his reputation makes clear he doesn’t take any of it from anyone.

‘A Passion for Anonymity’

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey, left, who appointed Durham to investigate the destruction of videotapes of CIA waterboarding, says he was recently contacted by a reporter in Connecticut who wanted to write a profile on Durham, whom the reporter said he knew. “I called John to check the accuracy of that claim, and he confirmed that he knew the reporter but made it clear and specific that he had no use for personal profiles,” Mukasey said. “He thinks about the work, period — not about how it will be received in this or that quarter, or what caricatures people with a motive or a bias may draw of his work or of him. It is for that reason that I think he will be unaffected by the pressure of how his work will be received and how he will be portrayed — indeed, how some in the media have already started to portray him.” Mukasey said Durham reminded him of the title of Franklin Roosevelt adviser Louis Brownlow’s autobiography, A Passion for Anonymity.

The only time Durham has offered public remarks on his work was in a March 2018 lecture at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, Conn. Durham was introduced by his friend of three decades and frequent prosecutorial partner, Leonard C. Boyle, the deputy chief state’s attorney in Connecticut, and Boyle observed, “At least three members of the press are here tonight, because they probably realize that this may be their only chance to hear John speak about his work, other than in a courtroom. He’s notoriously shy about speaking about himself.”

But in his subsequent remarks, Durham made it sound like his reticence to speak publicly wasn’t mere shyness so much as deliberate strategy to serve justice: “One thing that I try to bear in mind, and try to encourage in new young prosecutors, particularly those who are making their bones or cutting their teeth, is an awareness of the incredible power that is wielded by law enforcement, and perhaps federal law enforcement in particular. Issuing a subpoena can destroy somebody’s reputation. It can damage their business, hurt their families. It is an awesome power that we have, that should only be used in appropriate instances. . . . It is as important for the system as for prosecutors to protect the secrecy of proceedings, not because we want them to be secret, but because we’re not always right. Maybe accusations that are lodged against somebody are untrue, and again we can destroy a person if that information gets out.”

Oct. 24

New York Times, Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation, Katie Benner and Adam Goldman, Oct. 24, 2019. Officials are said to have shifted from an administrative review of the Russia investigation to a criminal inquiry. The move is likely to raise alarms that President Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies.

Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr, left, to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, right, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election.

Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.

Mr. Barr’s reliance on Mr. Durham, a widely respected and veteran prosecutor who has investigated C.I.A. torture and broken up Mafia rings, could help insulate the attorney general from accusations that he is doing the president’s bidding and putting politics above justice.

Oct. 4

Time, Meet John Durham, The Man Tasked With 'Investigating the Investigators,'Tessa Berenson, Oct. 4, 2019. Donald Trump’s fixation on the Mueller investigation and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election is filled with dubious characters, pitched Twitter spats and bombastic TV personalities.

But the man at the Justice Department in charge of investigating the origins of the counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign is longtime federal prosecutor John Durham — a man known for his modesty and restraint.

“John is a straight shooter,” says Stephen Robinson, who was the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut from 1998 to 2001 and had Durham as his deputy. “He is very careful, thoughtful, he’s methodical. It’s rare in today’s world, but he’s a person who runs away from the camera.”

Durham, who became the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut in 2018, has been tasked with “exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election,” Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement on Sept. 25.

His mandate, the Justice Department also said, is to determine whether “intelligence collection activities by the U.S. government related to the Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign were lawful and appropriate.” The investigation was launched in April.

Durham has a “small team” under him on this matter, according to a Justice Department official. But he also enjoys the direct support of the Trump administration.

Attorney General William Barr has traveled extensively as part of the investigation to introduce Durham to foreign counterparts, including to officials in Italy and the United Kingdom. Barr has also enlisted Trump to call other foreign leaders about the matter.

Durham would never “start an investigation with anything other than an open mind,” says Anthony Cardinale, a Boston lawyer who has known Durham for decades. “Particularly I don’t think he’s the kind of person [who] if somebody said to him, for example, ‘This is the result we want you to reach,’ I don’t he’d take the job.”

Barr chose Durham for this role because of “his credentials,” says a Justice Department official. “He has a rock-solid reputation as an investigator.”

This isn’t Durham’s first time leading a high profile, sensitive investigation.

In 1999, then-Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Durham to investigate Boston police and FBI agents’ connections to infamous mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi. Durham uncovered evidence of corrupt law enforcement officials who had been giving information to the gangsters, and helped convict one former FBI agent on federal racketeering charges.

In 2008, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Durham to investigate the destruction of CIA video tapes of detainee interrogations. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham’s mandate in 2009 to also investigate the legality of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques with detainees. Durham opened criminal investigations into the deaths of two detainees.

Durham spent two years on the tapes investigation, closing it in 2010 without recommending any criminal charges. His final report remains classified. He closed the torture investigation in 2012, also without filing any criminal charges.

Durham’s broad investigation fits into a complicated constellation of people inside and outside the government looking into both allegations of surveillance of Trump’s 2016 campaign and, separately but perhaps relatedly, whether Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

These Are the Key U.S. and Ukrainian Players in the Trump Impeachment Inquiry

President Donald Trump faces an impeachment inquiry in the wake of a recent whistleblower complaint alleging that he asked Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently completed an internal review about the FBI application for a warrant for surveillance on Trump campaign aide Carter Page during the 2016 election. That report will be declassified and released imminently, according to a Justice Department official.

A separate investigation by the U.S. Attorney in Utah, John Huber, which had been examining the FBI’s surveillance of Page, and other FBI conduct, has been “subsumed” into Durham’s, according to the Justice Department official.

The Whistleblower Complaint Raises Big Questions About Attorney General Barr—and Trump

Outside official government channels, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is also very publicly investigating Ukraine’s role in 2016 election interference — the questionable results of which the former Mayor of New York often reports on cable news.

Partly as a result of these competing endeavors, Durham’s investigation is under intense political scrutiny.

“This investigation of the investigators is a politically motivated distraction,” Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a statement on May 14 about Durham’s assignment. “And it threatens to degrade the career professionals — like John Durham — who devote their lives to law enforcement. This is an example of another very professional public servant tasked with a very unprofessional and unbecoming job.”

Blumenthal and the other Democratic Senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy have both praised Durham as a “fierce and fair prosecutor.”

Durham’s own reputation for thorough, nonpartisan work has remained intact over decades as a federal prosecutor targeting corruption. And people who know him expect him to handle this investigation honestly, despite the heated political environment.

“He is not naïve,” says Robinson. “He understands the political implications of the work that he’s been asked to do and the potential impact it could have. He’s not going to wilt under that.”

Oct. 1

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), For Trump neo-fascisti, all roads lead to Rome, Wayne Madsen, Oct. 1, 2019. In the past week, three far right personalities in the Donald Trump camp, including two Cabinet secretaries, have journeyed to Rome in order to engage in political chicanery to attack former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on foreign interference in the 2016 election and Democratic attempts to investigate foreign involvement in the 2020 election.

As news broke in Washington about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in which Trump made the delivery of U.S. weapons to Ukraine contingent on Zelensky’s government assisting Trump to dig up political dirt on potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden – Barr was in Rome.

The Attorney General, who has become Trump’s “Roy Cohn” -- a reference to the venal New York mob lawyer who represented Trump and his father, Fred Trump – traveled to Rome with John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut appointed by Barr to investigate the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign’s links to Russia.

After Barr returned to Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, who was discovered to have been a party to the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, flew to Rome. In Pompeo’s party was former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, a Hungarian neo-Nazi who now works for the right-wing Salem Radio Network as a program host.

As the old saying goes, “All roads lead to Rome.” In this case, Rome has also served as a nexus for the alt-right activities of former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Gorka’s one-time boss at Breitbart News. Also present in Rome is Callista Gingrich, the wife of former House Speaker and Trump television surrogate Newt Gingrich, who serves as the U.S. ambassador to Vatican City.

Italy is not as welcoming a place for fascists like Bannon, Gorka, Pompeo, and Barr as it was just a few weeks ago. Bannon’s fellow neo-fascist, Matteo Salvini of the Lega party, lost his job as Interior Minister after his party’s coalition with the populist Five Star Movement collapsed in early September. Five Star opted for a coalition with the center-left Democratic Party. The coalition’s Economy Minister is Roberto Gualtieri, a former member of the Italian Communist Party. Salvini’s replacement as Interior Minister is Luciana Lamborghese, a former police prefect of Milan and Venice. Given Milan’s role in the controversial U.S. “extraordinary rendition” program involving kidnapping Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11, Lamborghese would not be keen on cooperating with her U.S. counterpart, Barr, in digging up political dirt on Trump’s opponents.

Italy was to have been ground zero for a fascist training academy led by Bannon and his international neo-fascist group called “The Movement.” However, when Pope Francis caught wind of Bannon’s interactions with the theo-fascist Opus Dei sect of the Roman Catholic Church, former Pope Benedict XVI, and arch-conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke to oust Francis as pontiff, Francis had Italian and Vatican authorities pull the plug on Bannon’s lease of the Certosa de Trisulti monastery as a training and education center for fascists from around the world. Barr is a member of Opus Dei, which maintains a heavy degree of influence over conservative Catholics in Washington, DC, including Newt and Callista Gingrich; Abu Dhabi-based mercenary leader Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy De Vos, is Trump’s Education Secretary; and Trump 2016 campaign foreign policy adviser and liaison to Ukrainian mercenary groups and Saudi intelligence, Joseph Schmitz. These include Trump’s so-called Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback. It is not known who Barr met with while staying at Marriott Gran Flora Hotel in Rome, but Bannon has been frequently traveling between the United States and Rome over the past year.

As for Pompeo and Gorka, Rome is not their only stop during their European venture. It is now known that Trump and Barr have tried to enlist other countries, in addition to Ukraine, in their political operation against Biden and the Democratic Party. These include the government of Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Britain and right-wing Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Australia. Johnson is the first baptized Catholic to occupy Number 10 Downing Street. Morrison is Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister and he shares his evangelical fundamentalist faith with Pompeo, an evangelical Presbyterian, which is a doctrinaire splinter sect from mainstream Presbyterianism. It is also known that Trump and Barr have enlisted the assistance of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the operation targeting the Bidens.

It is noteworthy that following Italy, Pompeo and Gorka are traveling to Montenegro and North Macedonia, formerly known as Macedonia. Montenegro is the location of expensive villas owned by a number of Russian oligarchs affiliated with Trump. Trump’s convicted and currently imprisoned former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, worked for oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Montenegro in support of a 2006 referendum on independence from Serbia. Deripaska has maintained his super-yacht at Porto Montenegro on Boka Bay. The port’s marina, which is now owned by Dubai, is home to several billionaires and their yachts. Montenegro and North Macedonia are also the home of several mafia organizations, some of which are known to carry out cyber-attacks, phishing expeditions, and political information warfare on social media. During the 2016 campaign, several cyber-disinformation boiler shops and bot farms were pinpointed in North Macedonia.

These include the Podgorički Klan in Montenegro and "CyberPython” in North Macedonia. These criminal organizations have links to other cyber-criminal groups in Serbia, Kosovo, the United States, Australia, Britain, France, and Italy.

Greece, the last country on Pompeo’s and Gorka’s itinerary, recently suffered a cyber-attack on its top-level domain registrar, ICS-Forth, the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology. By hijacking the registrar, hackers were able to launch follow-on cyber penetrations of computer systems and networks in the United States, Lebanon, Turkey, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The trips by Barr, Durham, Pompeo, and Gorka to Italy appear as an attempt to round up cyber guns for hire as much as it is to enlist foreign law enforcement and intelligence services in their crusade to ensure that Trump has at least a second term, if not a lifetime term in office.

The Rise, Intrigues, Fall and Pardon of Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, as reported by The Atlantic Magazine 2017-2019

• The Atlantic, The ‘Otherwise Blameless Life’ of Paul Manafort, Franklin Foer, right, March 7, 2019. Trump’s former campaign chair has always acted with impunity, as if the laws never applied to him.
• The Atlantic, Paul Manafort’s Sentencing Isn’t a Moment of Closure, Franklin Foer, March 7, 2019. His time at the helm of the Trump campaign remains mysterious.
• The Atlantic, The Loud Silence of Mueller’s Manafort Memo, Franklin Foer, February 23, 2019. A court filing by the special counsel is filled with elegant omissions—but that doesn’t mean nothing is there.
• The Atlantic, The Mysterious Return of Manafort’s ‘Russian Brain,’ Franklin Foer, December 9, 2018. Mueller says that the former Trump campaign chairman repeatedly lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man with ties to Russian intelligence.
• The Atlantic, What Paul Manafort Knows, Franklin Foer, September 14, 2018. Paul Manafort’s decision to cooperate with Robert Mueller could clarify several of the biggest mysteries of the Russia investigation.
• The Atlantic, A Hell of a Performance by Paul Manafort, Franklin Foer, August 1, 2018 The man who once made strongmen and oligarchs look good is now tasked with rehabilitating his own image before a jury.
• The Atlantic, This Is So Much Bigger Than Paul Manafort, Franklin Foer, July 31, 2018. With Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman on trial, America is reckoning with its very serious kleptocracy problem.
• The Atlantic, The Astonishing Tale of the Man Mueller Indicted, Franklin Foer, June 6, 2018. One of the most shocking revelations from the special counsel’s investigation is the suggestion that Paul Manafort’s longtime aide is a pawn of Russian intelligence.
• The Atlantic, Paul Manafort Loses His Cool, Franklin Foer, June 5, 2018. Special Counsel Robert Mueller says the longtime Trump associate [shown at right in a mug shot] tried to tamper with witnesses while awaiting trial on conspiracy and money-laundering charges.
• The Atlantic, Paul Manafort's Fate Is Sealed, Franklin Foer, February 24, 2018. For the past decade, Rick Gates was fiercely loyal to his risk-taking boss. Not anymore.
• The Atlantic, Paul Manafort, American Hustler, Franklin Foer, March 2018 Issue. Decades before he ran the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort’s pursuit of foreign cash and shady deals laid the groundwork for the corruption of Washington.
• The Atlantic, Did Manafort Use Trump to Curry Favor With a Putin Ally? Julia Ioffe and Franklin Foer, October 2, 2017. Emails turned over to investigators detail the former campaign chair's efforts to please an oligarch tied to the Kremlin.

2018

May 14

Washington Post, Barr taps U.S. attorney to review origins of Russia probe, Matt Zapotosky and Felicia Sonmez, May 14, 2019 (print ed.). The investigation is designed to ensure the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were “lawful and appropriate.” Attorney General William P. Barr has tapped John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, to investigate the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Barr picked Durham, right, in recent weeks to work on the review, which is designed to ensure the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the decision said.

Barr had confirmed the review publicly, though the person leading it was not previously known. Durham’s selection was first reported by the New York Times.

Durham was confirmed as a U.S. attorney in February 2018 and had previously earned a reputation as a dogged career prosecutor tapped by previous attorneys general for other high-profile roles.

New York Times, Scrutiny of Russia Investigation Is Said to Be a Review, Not a Criminal Inquiry, Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos, May 14, 2019. The federal prosecutor assigned to the review, John H. Durham, has no subpoena power and cannot compel witnesses to testify. The federal prosecutor tapped to scrutinize the origins of the Russia investigation is conducting only a review for now and has not opened any criminal inquiry, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The prosecutor, John H. Durham, the United States attorney for Connecticut, is broadly examining the government’s collection of intelligence involving the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russians, the person said. The additional details about the scope and limits of his role emerged a day after The New York Times reported that Attorney General William P. Barr had put Mr. Durham in charge of scrutinizing the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation during the 2016 election.

While Mr. Durham has conducted criminal investigations into allegations of high-level wrongdoing by law enforcement and national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s handling of organized crime informants and the C.I.A.’s torture of detainees, his new review does not rise to that level, the person said.

The distinction means that Mr. Durham for now will not wield the sort of law enforcement powers that come with an open criminal investigation, such as the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify. Instead, he will have the authority only to read documents the government has already gathered and to request voluntary witness interviews.

March 10

New London Day, U.S. Attorney Durham tells mob tales during rare lecture, Karen Florin, March 10, 2018. Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham details his role as a special prosecutor in the Whitey Bulger case at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford on Monday, March 5, 2018. (Bob Thiesfeld/courtesy of The Cool Justice Report)

United States Attorney John H. Durham has kept such a low profile while handling some of the country's most infamous criminal investigations that he once made New Republic magazine's list of Washington's "most powerful, least famous people."

Durham "made his bones," as he would say, prosecuting mobsters, corrupt federal agents and former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland. He's been tapped by United States attorneys general to investigate topics as touchy as alleged torture and coverups during CIA investigations.

The 67-year-old Groton resident, nominated as Connecticut's top federal prosecutor by President Donald Trump and endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike, has confined most of his public speaking to within the four walls of federal courtrooms.

As the state's U.S. attorney, Durham takes on administration duties over the state's 68 federal prosecutors and 50-odd staff members who work in courthouses in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford. He plans to continue trying cases and has a murder trial coming up later this year.

A week after being sworn in, Durham, perhaps realizing that his new role calls for higher visibility, delivered a lecture at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, a formerly all-female school that is going all co-ed this year and ratcheting up its criminal justice program.

For about an hour this past Monday, he regaled an audience with an insider's view of the widely publicized investigations that brought down mobsters James "Whitey" Bulger, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and their corrupted FBI handler, Special Agent John Connolly Jr. It was a case that extended into Connecticut, where gambling venues for the sport jai alai were infiltrated by Bulger's Winter Hill Gang.

Bodies had been piling up in Boston throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and by 1999, after it became clear that members of Boston's FBI bureau had been compromised by the Irish and Italian mafia, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh called on Durham and others from Connecticut to help.

"It was quite the scandal that was going up there in Boston," Durham told the audience at St. Joseph's. "We were asked to go up there because we had some familiarity with the New England LCN (La Cosa Nostra) and knew some of the judges and the investigators and so forth. So the Justice Task Force was formed to investigate corruption involving the FBI and others."

Durham's longtime partner in crime-fighting, Deputy Chief State's Attorney Leonard C. Boyle, introduced the U.S. attorney to the university gathering as the person members of the Connecticut bar call when stumped by a legal question. Boyle said Durham has "an extreme work ethic" and is working all the time, whether in the office or at home.

Boyle said Durham has an uncanny ability to identify the smallest of facts in a case "and weave it together into a tapestry of detail," but joked that Durham's skill does not extend to his attire. Durham has a tendency to mismatch his suit jackets and trousers, Boyle said, and it's only when he's standing in a courtroom, addressing a jury, "when he realizes that particular day he wore the gray striped jacket with the Navy-blue pants."

Boyle seemed as amazed as anyone that his friend had agreed to the speaking engagement, since Durham is "notoriously shy about speaking about himself or what he does."

The University of St. Joseph's affiliation with the Catholic church may have helped.

"Other than an overwhelming commitment to the cause of justice, the two great devotions of John's life are his Catholic faith and his family," Boyle said. The Courant has reported several times that Durham also is an avid Red Sox fan.

Durham and his wife, Susan, have four sons — two of them prosecutors — and eight grandchildren.

Durham's lecture, delivered along with a PowerPoint presentation entitled "The Use of Informants: A Cautionary Tale," contained hints of his own restrained approach to investigations. Using criminals to gather information about other criminals is a necessity in cases where the average citizen is justifiably scared but, at best, is a "double-edged sword," Durham said.

In the Boston case, Bulger and Flemmi, both working as "Top Echelon" informants for the FBI, corrupted their handlers, and during the course of his trial, Flemmi asserted he had been told by FBI supervisor John Morris, "You can commit any crime as long as you don't 'clip' anybody," Durham said.

"The reality was that both Bulger and Flemmi were notorious, really bad actors in Boston when they were recruited by the FBI as informants in Boston," he said.

Durham said the FBI had plenty of regulations in place when the two men were signed up as informants in the late 1960s, including that they could not commit crimes, but the mobsters acted as if "they had the keys to the kingdom," bribing their handlers and using leaked information to further their control of narcotics trafficking, loan sharking and extortion in the city. The men also were responsible for about 20 murders, according to news reports.

In the aftermath of the case, regulations were put into place that require prosecutors to sign off on the use of informants.

Informants should be used as an investigative starting point, Durham said, and the information they provide should be corroborated through other means or used to convince a judge to authorize wiretaps in which a defendant's own words (during secretly recorded telephone conversations) can be used to build a case against them.

Durham's Boston team, including Boyle and FBI agents from outside of the city, worked the case for about a year before indicting Flemmi and Connolly, who had retired by then from the FBI, for racketeering and obstruction of justice. Bulger, at the time, was a fugitive from justice.

Flemmi pleaded guilty to racketeering and 10 murders and is serving a life sentence.

Connolly, right, nicknamed, "Zip," went to trial in 2002, and Durham, who prosecuted, said it was a "unique" proceeding in which the defendant was allowed to sit with his wife in the courtroom gallery. The prosecution team had made "the very difficult decision," after consulting with the U.S. attorney general and victim's families, to use as a witness John Martarano, a mob hitman who had confessed to killing 20 people.

The media followed the case closely, and while Durham saved his comment for the courtroom, he collected some of the colorful headlines generated during the Connolly trial and used them in his PowerPoint presentation. One described the once-defiant FBI agent "cowering" in the courtroom, and the Boston Herald's headline, after Connolly was convicted, said simply, "Zip Zapped."

Connolly served 10 years in that case and later was charged with providing information to Flemmi and Bulger that led to the 1982 murder in Miami of jai alai executive John Callahan. Now 77, Connolly is serving a 40-year prison sentence in Florida.

Bulger, captured in 2011 after 16 years as a fugitive and tried two years later, is serving a life sentence.

Bulger's Winter Hill Gang was decimated as a result of the federal prosecutions, Durham said, and La Cosa Nostra is "nothing like it was."

There's still plenty of work for federal authorities, though. Durham said one of the consequences of breaking up organized crime operations is that the concentration of criminal activity becomes much more diffuse.

Back in Connecticut, Durham's office prosecutes some of the state's most violent crimes and high-level narcotics cases, financial fraud and public corruption, as well as cases involving national security.

Full audio, John H. Durham: U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, in a March 5 lecture at the University of St. Joseph, speaks about his involvement in investigation that led to the takedown of James “Whitey” Bulger and associates.

2017

Russia’s official news agency photographed President Trump’s meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The American press was denied access. Credit Alexander Shcherbak/TASS, via Getty Images  

Washington Post, Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador, Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe, May 15, 2017. President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

2016

Oct. 31

Slate, Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? Franklin Foer (Franklin Foer, right, is a Slate contributing editor and the author of World Without Mind., Oct. 31 2016. This spring, a group of computer scientists set out to determine whether hackers were interfering with the Trump campaign. They found something they weren’t expecting.

The greatest miracle of the internet is that it exists—the second greatest is that it persists. Every so often we’re reminded that bad actors wield great skill and have little conscience about the harm they inflict on the world’s digital nervous system. They invent viruses, botnets, and sundry species of malware. There’s good money to be made deflecting these incursions. But a small, tightly knit community of computer scientists who pursue such work—some at cybersecurity firms, some in academia, some with close ties to three-letter federal agencies—is also spurred by a sense of shared idealism and considers itself the benevolent posse that chases off the rogues and rogue states that try to purloin sensitive data and infect the internet with their bugs. “We’re the Union of Concerned Nerds,” in the wry formulation of the Indiana University computer scientist L. Jean Camp.

In late spring, this community of malware hunters placed itself in a high state of alarm. Word arrived that Russian hackers had infiltrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee, an attack persuasively detailed by the respected cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The computer scientists posited a logical hypothesis, which they set out to rigorously test: If the Russians were worming their way into the DNC, they might very well be attacking other entities central to the presidential campaign, including Donald Trump’s many servers. “We wanted to help defend both campaigns, because we wanted to preserve the integrity of the election,” says one of the academics, who works at a university that asked him not to speak with reporters because of the sensitive nature of his work.

Hunting for malware requires highly specialized knowledge of the intricacies of the domain name system—the protocol that allows us to type email addresses and website names to initiate communication. DNS enables our words to set in motion a chain of connections between servers, which in turn delivers the results we desire. Before a mail server can deliver a message to another mail server, it has to look up its IP address using the DNS. Computer scientists have built a set of massive DNS databases, which provide fragmentary histories of communications flows, in part to create an archive of malware: a kind of catalog of the tricks bad actors have tried to pull, which often involve masquerading as legitimate actors. These databases can give a useful, though far from comprehensive, snapshot of traffic across the internet. Some of the most trusted DNS specialists—an elite group of malware hunters, who work for private contractors—have access to nearly comprehensive logs of communication between servers. They work in close concert with internet service providers, the networks through which most of us connect to the internet, and the ones that are most vulnerable to massive attacks. To extend the traffic metaphor, these scientists have cameras posted on the internet’s stoplights and overpasses. They are entrusted with something close to a complete record of all the servers of the world connecting with one another.

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

More data was needed, so he began carefully keeping logs of the Trump server’s DNS activity. As he collected the logs, he would circulate them in periodic batches to colleagues in the cybersecurity world. Six of them began scrutinizing them for clues.

Aug. 5

U.S. Department of Justice, Former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Sentenced for Perjury and Obstruction of Justice During Bulger Trial, Staff report, Aug. 5, 2016. A former Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the FBI’s Boston Office was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with perjury and obstruction of justice regarding his testimony at the 2013 trial of James “Whitey” Bulger.

Robert Fitzpatrick, 76, of Charlestown, R.I., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV to 24 months of probation and a fine of $12,500. In May 2016, Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to six counts of perjury and six counts of obstruction of justice.

Fitzpatrick, in his capacity as ASAC of the Boston Division, had overall supervisory responsibility of the organized crime program in Boston between 1981 and 1986—a time period in which Bulger, while an active FBI informant, was involved in eight murders.

Fitzpatrick, who is the author of Betrayal, Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought To Bring Him Down, was called to testify at the Bulger trial on July 29 and July 30, 2013. In pleading guilty, Fitzpatrick admitted that he lied when he testified at Bulger’s trial that he tried to end Bulger’s relationship with the FBI and target Bulger for prosecution but was overruled by higher authorities in the FBI.

Specifically, Fitzpatrick admitted that contrary to his sworn testimony at the Bulger trial:

• his assignment to Boston in 1980 as ASAC was not a special mission ordered by the Assistant Director of the FBI because there were problems in the office, but rather a routine reassignment;
• Bulger never said, “I’m not an informant” or otherwise denied being an informant when he met with Fitzpatrick;
• Fitzpatrick never tried to close Bulger as an FBI informant;
• Fitzpatrick was demoted from ASAC because he falsified official FBI reports in connection with a shooting incident, not because he reported corruption;
• Fitzpatrick did not arrest mob boss Gennaro Angiulo; and
• Fitzpatrick did not find or recover the rifle James Earl Ray used to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN in 1968.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Ronald G. Gardella, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, New York Field Office, made the announcement today. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zachary R. Hafer and Fred M. Wyshak of Ortiz’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.

May 9

Boston Globe, Former FBI agent pleads guilty to perjury in ‘Whitey’ Bulger case, Shelley Murphy Globe Staff, May 9, 2016. Former FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick portrayed himself for years as a whistle-blower who tried to end the agency’s corrupt relationship with notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

It’s a story he repeated when testifying for the defense at Bulger’s 2013 trial — except there he embellished the tale, telling jurors that when he met Bulger in 1981 to determine whether the FBI should keep him on as an informant, the gangster stunned him by saying, “I’m not an informant.”

On Monday, Fitzpatrick admitted it was all a lie. Now 76 and in ailing health, Fitzpatrick took the stand in federal court in Boston and pleaded guilty to six counts of perjury and six counts of obstruction of justice for his testimony at Bulger’s trial.

2014

Boston mob leader and convicted murderer James "Whitey" Bulger is shown in a mug shot at left along with his second-in-command, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, also a murderer.

New England Cable News (NECN), Whitey Documentary Making Boston Debut, Alysha Palumbo, Jan. 30, 2014.  James “Whitey” Bulger may not have taken the stand during his murder trial, in which he was found guilty of eleven murders, but he’s getting his side of the story out there now – in a CNN documentary premiering locally tonight at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. “I never, never, never cracked. And the Boston FBI, no way,” said Bulger in the film. Bulger, speaking on the phone to his attorney J.W. Carney, insists, as he did during the trial that he was never an FBI informant for John Connolly. Steven Davis, the brother of one of Bulger’s alleged victims, Debra Davis, says he saw the film at Sundance and was impressed with the documentary, but also surprised that the focus was more on Bulger and government corruption than the victims’ relatives. Davis says he hopes the audience who watches the film tonight remembers this is about more than Hollywood lights and storylines. “The public thinks this is a big show,” said Davis. “There’s a lot of hurting souls out there, and I’m one of them.”

The aftermath of the Aug. 12th racketeering verdict has had some of the repercussions I predicted in this space last April (see “Bulger’s immunity defense: what appearance of justice requires,” April 17, 2013). Judge Denise Casper did not take my advice, alas. She confirmed, in her own opinion, the earlier-issued opinion of Judge Richard Stearns, released shortly before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Stearns’ recusal.

Stearns denied Bulger’s request that he be allowed to present the jury with his central defense: that he had been granted immunity for the crimes charged. O’Sullivan, then-head of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force, orally delivered that immunity grant, Bulger claimed, sometime before December 1984. The immunity deal allegedly covered both past and future crimes committed until O’Sullivan left office. This extraordinary grant of immunity was supposedly bestowed upon the gangster in return for Bulger’s protection of O’Sullivan from the Italian mob.

To recap: The Bulger racketeering case had been randomly assigned to Stearns, who had previously held high positions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston. Another, earlier-filed 1995 Bulger indictment had been randomly assigned to Judge Mark Wolf, left, who, in a detailed and damning 661-page opinion in 1999, had explored the government’s corrupt relationship with Bulger and his henchmen, triggering a massive FBI scandal.

When Bulger was captured on June 22, 2011, the government dismissed the case pending in front of Wolf. The dismissal of the Wolf indictment in favor of the case to be tried by Stearns appeared, at least to me, to be designed in part to protect the DOJ from further inconvenient revelations that Wolf might elicit. This, in my view, put the credibility of the trial in question from the very beginning.

Public confidence was dealt an additional blow when Stearns then had to be ordered off the case. The 1st Circuit panel, in a memorable opinion written by none other than retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, sitting by designation, held that the appearance of justice required Stearns’ recusal.

“The period covered by the special relationship between the defendant and the FBI overlapped both the dates of the activity alleged in the defendant’s indictment and the years that Judge Stearns held supervisory positions in the federal prosecutor’s office,” Souter wrote in March 2013.

Souter went further. He also noted that when O’Sullivan testified as a witness at a congressional hearing in December 2002 that followed the public disclosure of Bulger’s relationship with the feds, O’Sullivan “was asked why the Government had sought no indictments of [Bulger] and Flemmi along with the others that were handed up,” and “O’Sullivan spoke of their minimal participation.” When the committee confronted O’Sullivan with a memo he had written, “which made it clear that the gang-leader informants were in no way minimal participants,”

O’Sullivan had no satisfactory answer, and, noted Souter, “the committee’s report branded his initial testimony as ‘false,’ not merely mistaken.”

That comment by Souter is crucial in assessing the credibility of Bulger’s claim that he had an extraordinary immunity agreement with O’Sullivan.

Judge Casper then inherited the case by random draw. One of her first actions was to independently confirm the decision by her recused predecessor to turn down Bulger’s motion that he be allowed to take his immunity defense to the jury.

Stearns’ opinion denying Bulger’s motion seemed less than completely categorical with regard to the strength of the precedents. He admitted that Bulger’s proposal was in some sense unprecedented: “the issue has never been presented as starkly as it is in this case.”

Yet despite the paucity of controlling legal authority on the precise question, Stearns wrote that the “import is clear: an immunity agreement cannot as a matter of public policy license future criminal conduct.”

And, he concluded: “A license to kill is even further beyond the pale and one unknown even in the earliest formulations of the common law.”

Though this bizarre situation might have presented a case of first impression, Stearns expressed no doubt and ruled flatly against Bulger.

Casper then argued that vacating Stearns’ decision was unnecessary because the 1st Circuit had “found no actual bias on Judge Stearns’ part,” but she nonetheless, presumably out of an abundance of caution, purported to review the issue herself and affirmed that “such agreement, at least as to prospective immunity, is unenforceable as a matter of law.”

She went on to muddy the already opaque legal waters just a bit by suggesting that Bulger might consider testifying under the rubric of “related defenses.”

But those defenses each contained at least one required element that Bulger’s counsel had not indicated Bulger could satisfy, and so Casper effectively ended his effort to tell his story to the jury.

At the panel discussion following the screening of “Whitey,” I posed a question to Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly, who had bravely agreed to participate on the panel. Why was it, I asked Kelly, that the prosecution team was so adamant in opposing Bulger’s request that he be allowed to testify as to his claimed immunity conferred by O’Sullivan? If it was legally invalid, Casper would have so instructed the jury after the close of the evidence. Assertion of the defense would have involved Bulger’s taking the stand, likely subjecting him to a withering cross-examination. Without any documentation to verify Bulger’s claim of immunity from O’Sullivan, Bulger’s chances would have been vanishingly slim. And on the off-chance Bulger were acquitted in federal court in Boston, he would still face pending state capital murder indictments in Florida and Oklahoma, both death penalty states.

Kelly’s response to my question was more or less expected from a prosecutor. He said that since, in his view, the law supported his position that the immunity claim was not admissible, he wanted it kept out of the trial, period.

But cutting off the immunity defense inevitably gave the trial a sense of suspicious incompleteness, of not providing the jurors or the public with the full picture.

In particular, the question persists of how it was that Bulger, despite his myriad and well-known crimes committed over decades, was not the subject of indictment until a new generation took over in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI.

Surely Bulger’s being protected by O’Sullivan seems like one possible explanation. Whether it is a plausible explanation would depend on the jury’s assessment of Bulger’s credibility, as well as the reputation and credibility of O’Sullivan. The jury got to judge neither.

It is true, of course, that a trial is a mechanism for determining the guilt or innocence of an accused individual on a specific charge, not an historical or journalistic exercise. But given some at least small amount of ambiguity in the case law governing the admissibility of Bulger’s claimed immunity agreement, and given the judge’s power to instruct the jury on the admissibility question after the close of evidence, surely the public interest, as well as the interests of justice and the appearance of justice, would have been better and more wisely served had Casper allowed Bulger to testify as to his alleged deal. In a case rife with cover-up upon cover-up, a sense would have prevailed that, at long last, the facts were allowed to see the light of day and justice was finally done.

2013

• Lehr, Dick and Gerard O'Neill. Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss. (2013).

Associated Press via Washington Post, Bulger verdict brings closure for some victims’ families and eternal angst for others, Staff report, Aug. 12, 2013.The guilty verdicts against James “Whitey” Bulger brought catharsis and closure to relatives of the 11 victims in whose killings he was convicted of playing a role, but for the families of the eight people whose deaths couldn’t be definitively linked to the Boston mob boss, peace will be harder to come by.

Essential Books about Mafia Revelations and the Boston Mobs and Mafia

The Valachi Papers, Peter Maas, Putnam, 1968. This lives up to its reputation as,“The First Inside Account of the Mafia." As one reviewer has said: "No one outside the organization had any idea that five crime 'families' existed in New York or that the organization was divided into "families" until Valachi came along. Or that there was a national commission. Valachi exposed the Mob and put it in the spotlight for all to see. It's been there ever since and we have Joe to thank for this. And Peter Maas for turning his memoirs into a wonderful book." Maas, a longtime crime writer who broke the Valachi story, had to overcome a Justice Department injunction to publish the book based on 1,180-pages of typed notes from Valachi.

In 1969, Mario Puzo, an Italian immigrant living in New York City and writing for men's magazines, published The Godfather. Puzo's book led to the iconic film series by that name starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, among others. In 1973, My Life in the Mafia by Vincent Teresa (with Newsday investigative reporter Thomas C. Renner) provided the first-post Valachi book by another informer (albeit not a "made" member). The well-told portrait published by Doubleday is about New England operations of the Patriarca Family. The Friends of Eddie Coyle by federal prosecutor George Higgins made the best-seller lists as a debut novel in 1973 portraying a low-level arms dealer in Boston's Irish mob. The book became a highly regarded movie starring Robert Mitchum.

The Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia (Harper Collins, 1997) stands out among the many books and movies that have poured forth since then at the national level. Its author was master story-teller Peter Maas, who earlier wrote the best-seller Serpico in part because he wanted to distance himself from Mafia-writing to memorialize an Italian-Amerian, New York policeman Frank Serpico, who heroically fought internal corruption amongst law enforcers. Gravano was second in command to New York's John Gotti, and became the highest-ranking Mafia member ever to defect. "Breathtaking" said New York magazine's reivewer. The tale puts the reader right with Gotti and Gravano watching a Christmas Eve street scene in mid-town Manhattan as their four hitmen, each wearing a black fur Russian hat to distract attention, fatally shot Gotti's predecessor, Paul Castellano, as he stepped from a restaurant.

In New England, While the Music Lasts was William M. Bulger's autobiography, published by Houghton Miflin in 1996 to many positive reviews. Publisher's Weekly wrote:

Bulger was born in South Boston in 1934, the son of Irish-Catholic working-class parents. While working his way through law school, he was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1960. He found the leadership of the house inadequate and fought it so he could get his bills, most prominently his child-abuse legislation, passed. He tells wonderful stories about the famous 1962 U.S. senate race between Ted Kennedy and Eddie McCormack (he was for McCormack); his brother's prison record for bank robbery; and the legendary (at least in Massachusetts) stinginess of JFK. Bulger goes on to explain his role in the Boston busing controversies "over alleged segregation in our schools"; his election to the state senate in 1970; and his selection as senate president of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He recently was appointed to the Presidency of the University of Massachusetts. Bulger's superb storytelling ability makes this memoir not only entertaining but a primer on how local politics works.

Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, Public Affairs Press, 2000. Publisher's Weekly reviewed this Edgar-award-winning New York Times best-seller this way:

"A triumph of investigative reporting, this full-bodied true-crime saga by two Boston Globe reporters is a cautionary tale about FBI corruption and the abuse of power. Gangster James "Whitey" Bulger ruled Boston's Irish mob, and his wary collaboration with the Italian Mafia, which he detested, was the cornerstone of the city's balkanized criminal underworld. (His younger brother, Billy Bulger, was the iron-fisted president of the state senate and later president of the University of Massachusetts.) Few suspected that Whitey Bulger and his partner, crime boss Stevie Flemmi, were both FBI informants; their squealing helped the FBI to put a score of mobsters in jail and wipe out the Angiulo crime family.

Here O'Neill and Lehr (Pulitzer winner and Pulitzer finalist, respectively, and coauthors of The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family maintain that overzealous FBI Agent John Connolly, who was Whitey's handler, and Agent John Morris, Flemmi's handler, "coddled, conspired and protected the mobsters in a way that for all practical purposes had given them a license to kill." FBI agents looked the other way while Bulger and Flemmi went on a 1980s crime spree that, according to witnesses, included extortion, bank robberies, drug trafficking and a string of unsolved murders. This complex, dramatic tale climaxes with a 1998 federal hearing that found that Connolly and Morris had essentially fictionalized FBI internal records to downplay the stoolies' crimes while overstating their value to the Bureau....This in-depth look at the FBI's war against the Mafia includes the first-ever secret recording of a Mafia induction ceremony, complete with pricking of fingers and blood oaths.

Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob (Steerforth) by Edward “Eddie Mac” MacKenzie was a 2004 book written by MacKenzie, the Bulger gang enforcer, following his release from prison. Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr was a major writer also, but on the side of exposing the Bulger family via his column, top-rated Boston radio show. He vowed to try to join the University of Massachusetts board of directors in 2005 to help oust Billy Bulger as university president. His book, The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century, was published by Warner Books in 2006. Carr has followed up with Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano: Whitey Bulger's Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld, published in April. Several members of Boston gangs have published books recently also.

In some ways, the most remarkable of all the books treating the Bulgers, partly because it was published as late as 2010, might be Politics with Principle: Ten Characters with Character (Wheatmark) by Washington lobbyist Michael Kerrigan. The author says his book:

[V]alidates the belief that it is possible for public servants to achieve success in the political arena without lying, cheating, or stealing along the way. It is the author's hope that this book will deepen the reader's appreciation for all in political life who conduct themselves honorably as well as encourage future aspirants of good character to consider public service. This book shows a rising generation the extent to which their own future will depend on the character traits they build in the present. By studying the exemplary characters showcased within, students of politics will be able to imitate their virtuous habits of life, thought, and action.

The book illustrates how there are always at least two sides to any story and that idealism is still alive, even in Washington. Kerrigan's book, portrayed below, extols as one of his ten featured heroes of American civic life none other than Boston's William M. Bulger.

2012

Dec. 12

Boston Herald, William Weld unable to rule out Whitey immunity claim, Laurel J. Sweet, Dec. 10, 2012. WHAT’S REAL DEAL? As an ex-U.S. attorney, William Weld says he never heard of an alleged immunity deal that James ‘Whitey’ Bulger received from the late Jeremiah T. O’Sullivan, at right.

Former Gov. William F. Weld, who was U.S. attorney at the height of James “Whitey” Bulger’s crime reign in Boston, said he never heard of any immunity deal for the aging mobster — but he’s unable today to dismiss it.

Bulger, 83, and slated to be tried in June for 19 counts of murder, claims that while terrorizing the city in his dual role of top-secret informant for the FBI, he was granted immunity from prosecution by the late Jeremiah T. O’Sullivan, head of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force.

Weld, who was U.S. attorney from 1981 to 1986, said, “Jerry and I were very close. I know nothing about that (alleged deal). And I met frequently with O’Sullivan, every week, as the case against the Angiulos was building.”

Weld said he was kept in the dark about the full range of Bulger’s criminal activities.

“I was nowhere near that. Oh, Lord, no,” Weld, 67, told the Herald in an exclusive interview last week.

Bulger and partner-in-crime Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi were instrumental in helping the FBI crush the late Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo, his family and Bulger’s and Flemmi’s rivals in the North End-based Mafia. O’Sullivan served as acting U.S. attorney in 1989, six years before Bulger went on the lam, sparking an international manhunt that would last 16 years.

“The strike forces were semi-independent of the U.S. attorney’s office,” Weld said. “We didn’t tell O’Sullivan what to do in the development of a case.”

Weld said “the one thing” about Bulger he recalls attempting to investigate was in 1983, when his office and the Drug Enforcement Administration “wanted to target Whitey Bulger for running a marijuana operation out of Southie. Those were the days when Justice in Washington was very keen for the DEA and FBI to cooperate more fully. The word on the street, which we knew to be false, was that Whitey kept the drugs out of Southie. Maybe he kept them out of the block where he lived.” But Weld said the investigation unraveled when the FBI balked at participating.

Weld said he reached out to James Greenleaf, then special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field offices, and said, “ ‘Hey, we’d like to do this. You guys want to participate?’

“… About 10 days later — maybe even longer than that, maybe two weeks — he said, ‘OK, I’ve got some info for you.’ So he came over and he said, ‘We’re just not going to be able to participate.’ I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ I didn’t argue the point because obviously the message he was carrying was not … some thought had obviously gone into it by the FBI.”

Weld said he hasn’t yet heard if he’ll be called as a witness at Bulger’s trial.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe what I just said would be of interest to somebody.”

Boston.com, Defense lawyers name Jeremiah O’Sullivan as federal agent who granted James ‘Whitey’ Bulger immunity to commit crimes, Milton J. Valencia and Travis Andersen, Oct. 25, 2012. Lawyers for James “Whitey’’ Bulger have identified the late federal prosecutor Jeremiah O’Sullivan as the federal agent who allegedly gave the notorious gangster immunity to commit his reign of terror.

Attorney J.W. Carney Jr., of Boston, made the bombshell allegation in a court filing late Wednesday in which he again called for a US District Court judge to recuse himself from presiding over the case. He said the judge has an apparent conflict of interest as a former prosecutor who worked at the same time as O’Sullivan, a former US attorney who died in 2009 at age 66.

Carney said he may call U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns and other former prosecutors as witnesses to testify about the leeway that the leadership within the US attorney’s office gave Bulger, and their failure for years to charge him with any crimes, which he said would speak to the immunity agreement that Bulger claims he had.

Stearns was a former federal prosecutor and chief of the criminal division during part of Bulger’s alleged reign of terror, in the 1970s and 1980s. The judge was not part of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force that had an apparent relationship with Bulger at the time, however, and he has maintained he did not know that Bulger was the target of any investigation.

Carney argued that there was no line dividing work between the Strike Force and the US attorney’s office, and so prosecutors from both units shared and were aware of investigations.

The judge refused an initial request to recuse himself in July, citing the high standards that must be met for a judge to have to recuse himself for conflict of interest concerns.

“I have no doubt whatsoever about my ability to remain impartial at all times while presiding over the case,’’ the judge said in his ruling, maintaining that he had no knowledge “of any case or investigation’’ in which Bulger was “a subject or a target.’’

But Carney said Bulger’s reputation was well known, or should have been, particularly among leaders in the US attorney’s office.

He also said that the notorious gangster, now 83, will testify to support his claim. He said Bulger will provide “a detailed account of his receipt of immunity by O’Sullivan,’’ who was a member of the strike force and at one point its chief.
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In one example, Carney said, Bulger will discuss an occasion in which O’Sullivan allegedly ordered that Bulger be removed from a list of targets in a horse race-fixing scheme in the early 1980s.

Brian T. Kelly, one of the prosecutors in the case, wrote a letter to Carney on Friday in which he said the government has provided defense counsel with ample materials pertaining to O’Sullivan, as requested, calling it typical procedure in the case.

He offered on his own, however, that “the First Circuit has already held that O’Sullivan was unaware of any promise of immunity.’’

He added, “O’Sullivan himself testified under oath before Congress that he never extended immunity to either James Bulger or Stephen Flemmi.’’

Carney added that, in addition to Stearns, he would call other US Department of Justice leaders to testify as to why Bulger was never charged by the federal government. Those leaders would included FBI director Robert Mueller, who served as a federal prosecutor and chief of the criminal division in Massachusetts in the early 1980s, and with whom Stearns has a close relationship.

Carney said he will introduce evidence from a courthouse ceremony where Mueller characterized Stearns as a “friend and mentor,’’ and in which Stearns called the FBI director’s speech “the greatest tribute that a friend could pay.’’

Bulger’s lead lawyer questioned whether Stearns could remain impartial in deciding whether he and Mueller could be called as a credible witness to testify about the immunity agreement, which has emerged as Bulger’s main point of defense in a trial that could trigger the death sentence.
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“Federal law mandates in this situation that Judge Stearns recuse himself from this case,’’ Carney said in a 24-page motion filed late Wednesday. “The law – and common sense – says that a person cannot be both judge and witness. …To do so otherwise will put an irreparable taint on the public’s view of the fairness of the defendant’s trial, and allow citizens to believe that the infamous cover-up of misconduct by past members of the Department of Justice, the United State’s attorney’s office, and the FBI is continuing.’’

Carney noted that Bulger was not accused of any crimes in a federal indictment until after Stearns, Mueller, and O’Sullivan left office, and he argued that their testimony will focus on why that did not happen. That should be up to a jury to decide, he said.

Bulger was once of America’s Most Wanted until his arrest in June 2011 after 16 years on the lam. He is accused in a federal racketeering indictment of participating in 19 murders.

He is also the notorious gangster at the center of one of the most scandalous periods in the history of the FBI. A series of hearings in Boston in the 1990s exposed a corrupt relationship between him and his FBI handlers. During that time, he was allegedly allowed to carry out crimes including murders in exchange for working as a cooperating witness against the New England Mafia.

Carney has claimed Bulger was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation, though legal analysts have questioned whether anyone could have had a right to kill, as Bulger claims.

Federal prosecutors, who have argued that Stearns does not have to recuse himself, also deny that Bulger had any claim of immunity.

O’Sullivan suffered a heart attack and several strokes in 1998 when he was slated to testify about Bulger and Flemmi before US District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf. O’Sullivan was in a coma for a month.

In 2002, O’Sullivan was called before Congress during the Government Reform Committee’s investigation of the Boston FBI. He denied ever protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution for serious crimes.

O’Sullivan acknowledged dropping the pair from a 1978 race-fixing case against the Winter Hill Gang, of Somerville, because he said he considered them small-time players and was focused on gang leader Howie Winter.

Grilled by the committee, O’Sullivan said he could not go against the FBI in those days. “They will try to get you. They will wage war on you,’’ he said.

Fitzpatrick, Robert and Jon Land. Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down. (Forge / Tom Doherty Associates, 2012)

“This is a stupendous read, as electrifying as Mystic River but even more horrifying for being absolutely true. Betrayal is a page-turner of the highest order. You will not be able to put this book down—guaranteed.”
---Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Impact

“A rapid-fire tale told with a passion that is a testament to the agent with the courage to wage the decades-long battle to get to the truth.”
---Lorenzo Carcaterra, New York Times bestselling author of Sleepers

“Jon Land elegantly captures the voice of FBI chief Robert Fitzpatrick as he battles his fellow agents to get to the truth behind the blood-soaked reign of gangster Whitey Bulger. Terrifying in scope and scathing in message, Betrayal is a must-read.”
---Robert K. Tanenbaum, New York Times bestselling author of Outrage

“Jon Land writes great fiction, and Betrayal reads like the best of it. The fact that it’s true makes the story all the more riveting. . . . A sobering indictment of our law enforcement system and one man’s relentless quest to see justice done.”
---Robert Leuci, subject of the New York Times bestselling biography Prince of the City

About the Author

ROBERT FITZPATRICK spent twenty-plus years as an FBI agent and chief in a career highlighted by his involvement in the Martin Luther King, Jr. killing and the ABSCAM investigation in Miami that resulted in the indictments of numerous public officials. He played a key role in the famed “Mississippi Burning” investigation and recovered the rifle that was used in the MLK assassination and that ultimately led to the arrest of James Earl Ray.

JON LAND is the critically acclaimed author of thirty novels, including the bestselling series featuring female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong: Strong Enough to Die, Strong Justice, and Strong at the Break. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

....

John Durham, though, had only John Connolly in his crosshairs, and it should have been like shooting fish in a barrel. As it was, though, the lengthy trial resulted in more charges being dismissed than upheld, due in large part to the fact that much of the testimony presented against Connolly came from convicted hit man John Mar torano, as well as Frank "Cadillac" Salemme himself. Both had al• ready cut deals with the government and were even less credible than Connolly himself. In truth, Salemme would actually perjure himself to get Connolly. The former crime boss was an advocate of "what goes around comes around," and it was his turn to get even. Stephen Flemmi, too, from a witness chair not far removed from the jail cell where he was serving an abbreviated sentence thanks to a plea bargain, wasted no time in cutting Connolly down to size.

In May 2002, Connolly was convicted of racketeering, obstruc tion of justice, and lying to an FBI agent. The jury, though, failed to find him guilty of bribery or of receiving a two-carat diamond ring from Bulger. This in spite of the fact that Connolly had many times shown the ring off and made no secret of its origin as stolen prop erty. Even agents on the OC squad heard the rumors of the infa• mous ring and winced each time Connolly ran it up the pole.

Connolly was ultimately sentenced to ten years in federal prison, stoically stewing there while prosecutors began to build a case against him in the 1982 murder of John Callahan in Miami. As that Florida trial was about to begin in 2008, I was interviewed by David Boeri for an article he was writing for Boston Magazine. In "The Martyrdom of John Connolly" (September 2008), Boeri expertly handled much of what transpired subsequent to John Connolly's 2002 conviction with a scathing, eye-opening aplomb that stressed Durham' myopic vision of the problems he'd been brought in to deal with.

"Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise," Durham insisted in the wake of Connolly's conviction, seeming to indicate a plan, at least an intention, to pursue other guilty parties.

Nothing could be further from the truth. More than a decade later now, no additional arrests or prosecutions have taken place, in spite of the fact that I and a number of other law enforcement officials laid out all the evidence of corruption and leaking for Durham. We basically served up everything he needed on a silver platter, which he apparently ignored then and has continued to ignore since.

I indicated to Boeri for his article that the Department of Justice threw Connolly under the bus. Clearly no fan or close friend of the man either then or now, I continue to stand by that statement. Connolly was the fall guy, the most convenient to go after and nothing more. But his conviction on charges that only scratched the surface of what he was truly guilty of did little to address the scope and magnitude of the corruption I'd found in Boston. Durham never charged the top leadership,including James Greenleaf or Jeremiah O'Sullivan, with a single thing. Whitey, after all, was John Connolly's guy. Connolly had long proclaimed that to be so and had ridden Bulger's coattails to a decorated career and cushy retirement. But now he was finally paying the price for it. Of course, O'Sullivan had been a willing partner ever since the 1979 Race Fix case, in which he'd let Bulger and Flemmi skate even though he knew they were guilty. That should have made them beholden to him; instead the reverse turned out to be the case.

Durham's laserlike focus on Connolly, in my mind, made him appear little better than O'Sullivan and the Department of Justice that oversaw his Strike Force. Durham gave everyone else involved in or enabling Boston's culture of corruption a pass, just as O'Sullivan had given Bulger and Flemmi a pass.

"In short," David Boeri wrote me in an e-mail months before publication of his article for Boston Magazine, "Durham protected the FBI and the very team he relied upon -the State Police and DEA agents who arrested, interrogated, and handled the major witnesses rebelled against him and consider him a fraud. They believe he could have and should have prosecuted other FBI agents. But that he chose not to investigate further."

In hearings held in 2002 and 2003, though, the House Committee on Government Reform picked up the ball Durham had dropped. In November 20, 2003, the committee approved and adopted a report entitled "Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI's Use of Murderers and Informants." "The 1979 Ciulla race-fixing prosecution memoran dum provides extremely important information about how prosecutorial discretion was exercised to benefit FBI informants James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stephen Flemmi," the report said in part. It demonstrates that former U.S. Attorney Jeremiah O'Sullivan's testimony before the Committee is subject to question. Perhaps more important, it shows that a 1997 FBI Office of Professional Responsibility conclusion that prosecutorial discretion had never been exercised by the federal government on behalf of James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi was not correct." .

Also included in the committee's report was a scathing indictment of the work of Paul Rico and Dennis Condon. Rico and Condon were the ones who'd handled informant Joseph "the Animal" Barboza, going so far as to falsely imprison four innocent men in the 1965 murder of Teddy Deegan to keep Barboza from taking the heat.

"I must tell you this, that I was outraged-outraged-at the fact that if [the exculpatory documents] had ever been shown to me, we wouldn't be sitting here," testified the lead prosecutor in the Deegan case. "I certainly would never have allowed myself to prosecute this case having that knowledge. No way.... That information should have been in my hands. It should have been in the hands of the defense attorneys. It is outrageous, it's terrible, and that trial shouldn't
have gone forward."

In October of 2003, the very same week that testimony was given, police authorities from both Miami and Tulsa arrested Paul Rico at his Florida home on charges associated with his involvement

James "Whitey" Bulger, Boston mob leader and murderer protected by the FBI and federal prosecutors because of his "informant" status, shown in a 1953 mug shot.

Daily Beast, Book Review: Robert Fitzpatrick’s Memoir Reveals Attempts to Stop Whitey Bulger, T.J. English (right, with bio below), Jan. 27, 2012. Former FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick tells his story of trying to stop the FBI from protecting crime lord Whitey Bulger.

In the two decades that James “Whitey” Bulger served as a secret FBI informant while extorting citizens, peddling cocaine, and killing people to protect his Boston-based criminal empire, there is only one federal agent who tried seriously to shut him down: Robert Fitzpatrick.

For his efforts, Fitzpatrick was frustrated at every turn, not by Bulger and his fellow gangsters, but by his own, the FBI.

After being introduced to Bulger in 1981, Fitzpatrick warned his regional supervisor that Whitey was “sociopathic … untrustworthy … likely to commit violence” and suggested that he be “closed” as an informant. Not only were his memos and recommendations ignored, some in the FBI sought to discredit Fitzpatrick and destroy his reputation.

The aggrieved former G-man finally has the opportunity to tell his side of the story in Betrayal, an explosive memoir of his years as assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office. The book has the feel of an ongoing therapy session, as Fitzpatrick seeks to make sense of a sprawling conspiracy of agents, cops, judges, criminals, and politicians who for decades enabled Bulger and made it possible for his campaign of corruption and terror to infect an entire city. Currently, Bulger awaits trial on 19 counts of murder, after having been on the lam for 16 years.

It is a sickening story, one that Fitzpatrick and his co-author, Jon Land, allow to unfold slowly, like a toxic oil spill that envelopes and destroys the surrounding ecosystem—in this case, the entire criminal justice system of the state of Massachusetts.

It is now common knowledge that Special Agent John Connolly, Bulger’s primary handler in the Bureau who is presently in prison on murder charges (and shown below in prison garb via an NBC News photo), and former state senator William “Billy” Bulger, Whitey’s powerful politician brother, formed a support system that made it possible for the Bulger era to sustain itself.

But in Betrayal, Fitzpatrick broadens the conspiracy, detailing the culpability of a vast matrix of enablers, including, most notably, the late Jeremiah T. O’Sullivan, who, as lead prosecutor for the state’s Organized Crime Strike Force, undermined potential prosecutions of both Whitey and Billy Bulger, and Lawrence Sarhatt and James Greenleaf, successive special agents in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, who buried reports, including Fitzpatrick’s recommendation that Bulger be “closed” as an informant.

Fitzpatrick does not attempt to portray himself as a hero; the dominant tone of the book is one of frustration and astonishment as the author, who was sent to Boston by FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. with the expressed task of evaluating Bulger’s “suitability” as a top-echelon informant, encounters malfeasance and corruption at every level.

Early in the book, he describes being a young boy at the infamous Mount Loretto orphanage in Staten Island, N.Y., where he encountered bullies and institutional abuse. Late at night, he sought solace by laying in the dark and listening to the popular radio program This Is Your FBI. Fitzpatrick’s belief in the FBI as both an avenue of personal salvation and an institutional force for justice haunts the book, as the reality of corruption and careerism crushes his idealism much the same way Bulger strangled, shot, and mutilated his murder victims.

Fitzpatrick came to Boston well suited to deal with subterfuge and corruption. He had gone undercover in the Deep South in the mid-Sixties in an attempt to penetrate and bring down white supremacist organizations. In the 1970s he’d been one of the lead agents on the ABSCAM investigation, a sting operation involving corrupt public officials that led to numerous high-profile arrests, including the indictment of a sitting U.S. senator.

In Boston, Fitzpatrick spent nearly a decade trying to unravel what he calls “the Bulger arrangement.” As a veteran G-man who had trained budding agents on the proper cultivation of criminal informants at the FBI academy in Quantico, VA, he recognized all the telltale signs of a disaster in the making. He saw that Connolly and his supervisor, John Morris, were too close to Bulger. Also, as Fitzpatrick noted to anyone who would listen, the Bulger situation violated one of the most basic tenets of informant cultivation; the proper strategy with informants is to get someone mid-level who can help take down the boss and therefore an entire organization. You cannot have an organized crime kingpin as an informant, because it is inevitable that person will choose to manipulate the information they reveal to their handlers as a way of staying in power.

When it became apparent to Fitzpatrick that his warnings about the Bulger relationship were being ignored, he sought to build his own cases against the mob boss. He developed informants like Brian Halloran, a sad-sack career thug who worked for Bulger, and John McIntyre, a naïve Irish Republican Army (IRA) sympathizer who partnered with Bulger on a scheme to send guns to Northern Ireland in exchange for shipments of marijuana and cocaine. Agents in Fitzpatrick’s own office leaked information to Bulger about the informants; Halloran and McIntyre were both brutally murdered by Bulger, as were other informants whose identities were compromised and revealed to local gangsters by Connolly and Morris.

In the end, Fitzpatrick’s reputation within the Bureau as a potential whistleblower and general “pain in the ass” began to wear him down. It took a personal toll on him and his wife. Fitzpatrick began to get the sense that Bulger and his gangster partner Steve Flemmi, who was also a longtime FBI informant, were more important to the local office than he was. “Apparently Bulger and Flemmi were the FBI’s ‘guys’ while I, somehow, wasn’t,” writes Fitzpatrick. “While busting [the Mafia] remained every bit a top priority in Washington, my efforts and accomplishments were being demeaned by a groupthink mentality that led to a scenario of ‘us versus them,’ with me inexplicably linked with ‘them.’”

When Fitzpatrick, frustrated and disillusioned, resigned from the Bureau in 1987, the full dimensions of Bulger’s partnership with the FBI was not yet known, even to the agent. It wasn’t until the late 1990s, when Bulger went on the lam after being tipped off by his FBI contacts that he was about to be arrested, that the truth started to come out. In a series of hearings and depositions, the Bulger cohorts who were left behind turned “rat” and testified in court. In a groundbreaking hearing presided over by Federal Judge Mark Wolf, Fitzpatrick testified, and for the first time the story of his efforts to rectify the Bureau’s sinister alliance with Bulger began to take shape.

In January 2000, after Whitey’s righthand man provided details on a series of murders, including where the bodies were buried, Fitzpatrick stood in the rain alongside Dorchester gulley as the remains of John McIntyre, his one-time informant, were dug up. “As I stood on that embankment,” writes Fitzpatrick, “steaming over confirmation of what I’d suspected ever since John McIntyre had disappeared in 1984, I never imagined I was looking at the means to achieve my long sought vindication.”

Fitzpatrick’s vindication would come in court, where he testified as part of a civil lawsuit brought by the McIntyre family — and other families of Bulger’s victims — against the FBI and the U.S. government for having underwritten Bulger’s murderous criminal career. In 2006, the McIntyre family was awarded $3.1 million in damages. All told, litigation from cases related to the Bulger debacle would result in damages of more than $20 million.

Betrayal provides the most complete overview to date of the culture of corruption that made Bulger possible. Fitzpatrick names names and offers an appendix filled with FBI memos, letters, and excerpts from depositions and court proceedings. The cumulative effect is a devastating reaffirmation of the findings of a U.S. congressional committee that declared the Bulger-FBI relationship to represent “one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement.”

The final chapter on Bulger has not yet been written. Whitey is scheduled to stand trial sometime in 2012, and Fitzpatrick will likely be called to testify. In this sordid saga of homicidal gangsters and dirty federal agents, Fitzpatrick’s perspective — and his book — offers a rare beacon of light.

T. J. English is a noted journalist, a screenwriter, and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Havana Nocturne, Paddy Whacked, and The Savage City, as well as of The Westies, a national bestseller, and Born to Kill, which was nominated for an Edgar Award. He has written for Vanity Fair, Playboy, and Esquire, among other publications. His screenwriting credits include episodes of the television crime dramas NYPD Blue and Homicide, for which he was awarded the Humanitas Prize. He lives in New York City.

2011

July 2

Justice Integrity Project, CIA Torture Investigator Plays Powerful But Mysterious Role, July 2, 2011. John Durham is the career federal prosecutor who made news June 30 when the Justice Department acted on his recommendation to narrow a probe of CIA mistreatment of detainees from 101 to two cases.

Our Justice Integrity Project revealed last July that a federal appeals court found in 2008 serious misconduct by a team of federal prosecutors supervised by Durham. Thus, the 2008 Bush and then Obama administration appointments of Durham and his prominent Connecticut colleague, Nora Dannehy, to lead major national investigations of misconduct by other federal officials smacks of politics and whitewash.

June 24

Washington Post, Publicity campaign led to mobster’s arrest, FBI says, Jerry Markon, June 24, 2011.  For 16 years, the FBI had pursued James “Whitey” Bulger, chasing the elusive Boston mobster across five continents. On Tuesday, agents tried a new approach: They blasted photos of Bulger’s longtime girlfriend, Catherine Elizabeth Greig, across television screens and Twitter. Federal officials in Boston say a tip led the FBI to begin surveillance on former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's apartment in Santa Monica, Calif.

CNN’s In the Arena, Lehr: Gangster 'Whitey' Bulger, feared leg-breaker and enforcer, killed his way to the top, Jay Kernis. June 24, 2011. Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Dick Lehr, co-author with Gerard O’Neill of “Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance between the FBI and the Irish Mob.” 

The book was a New York Times bestseller and won the Edgar Award. Both authors were reporters at The Boston Globe. Lehr is also a professor of journalism at Boston University. Question: Why do you think it took so long to capture Whitey Bulger? To me, big reasons are Bulger's age -- he's an old man now, and when you look at him you don't see the cold-blooded killer that he was during his rule of Boston's underworld. Then there's his self-discipline; he's not flamboyant and would be the last person to draw attention to himself.

Film Treatment

The Departed, a 2006 film loosely modeled on Whitey Bulger's disappearance, starred Jack Nicholson, left, as a Bulger-like figure. The movie was directed by Martin Scorsese, written by William Monahan, also starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg, among others. It won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Alan Arkin. The film takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, where Irish Mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello plants Colin Sullivan as an informant within the Massachusetts State Police. Simultaneously, the police assign undercover cop William "Billy" Costigan to infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides realize the situation, each man attempts to discover the other's true identity before his own cover is blown.  Click here for video

2010

Nieman Watchdog, New Questions Raised About Prosecutor Who Cleared Bush Officials in U.S. Attorney Firings, Andrew Kreig, July 25, 2010. Four days before Nora Dannehy was appointed to investigate the Bush administration’s U.S. attorney firing scandal, a team of lawyers she led was found to have illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case. Andrew Kreig writes that this previously unreported fact calls her entire investigation into question as well as that of a similar investigation by her colleague John Durham of DOJ and CIA decision-making involving torture.

In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, right, to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn’t politicize official corruption investigations.

But just four days before her appointment, a federal appeals court had ruled that a team of prosecutors led by Dannehy illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case in Connecticut. The prosecutors’ misconduct was so serious that the court vacated seven of the eight convictions in the case.

The ruling didn’t cite Dannehy by name, and although it was publicly reported it apparently never came up in the news coverage of her appointment.

But it now calls into question the integrity of her investigation by raising serious concerns about her credibility -- and about whether she was particularly vulnerable to political pressure from within the Justice Department.

Now, almost two years later, Dannehy has provided arguably the most important blanket exoneration for high-level U.S. criminal targets since President George H.W. Bush pardoned six Iran-Contra convicts post-election in late 1992.

The DOJ announced on July 21 that it has “closed the case” on the nine unprecedented mid-term firings because Dannehy found no criminal wrongdoing by DOJ or White House officials.

But the official description of her inquiry indicates that she either placed or acceded to constraints on the scope of her probe that restricted it to the firing of just one of the ousted U.S. attorneys, not the others -- and not to the conduct of the U.S. attorneys who weren't ousted because they met whatever tests DOJ and the White House created.

Dannehy’s probe, my reporting suggests, was compromised from the beginning.

She was appointed by Bush Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, left, on Sept. 29, 2008. On Sept. 25, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City found misconduct in a 2003 trial she had led.

The court found that the prosecution suppressed evidence that could have benefited the defendant, Connecticut businessman Charles B. Spadoni. Spadoni, right, had been convicted of bribing former state Treasurer Paul Silvester to invest $200 million of state pension money with his firm.

But the appeals court found that prosecutors had failed to turn over to the defense an FBI agent’s notes of a key interview they conducted with Silvester's attorney. In doing so, the court ruled, “the government deprived Spadoni of exculpatory evidence going to the core of its bribery case against him.”

The court reversed Spadoni’s convictions on seven counts of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud, leaving intact only an obstruction of justice conviction.

Prosecutors found by a court to have committed misconduct typically face some sort of internal investigation within the Justice Department. Whether there was any such investigation, and why or why not, is not publicly known.

As it happens, the Spadoni case also raises concerns relative to the ongoing federal probe of potential Bush administration wrongdoing in covering up torture that is being led by John H. Durham, right, another prosecutor from Connecticut. Durham supervised Dannehy’s decade-long prosecution of Spadoni.

He also was appointed by Mukasey in 2008. Durham’s initial charge was to investigate suspected destruction of torture tapes by CIA personnel. In 2009, Holder expanded that probe to other decision-making, including by DOJ personnel.

Until now, neither DOJ nor anyone else has linked Dannehy and Durham by name to the prosecutorial misconduct against Spadoni, as far as I can determine. The court decision doesn’t cite specific actions by the two. But it clearly refers to their case, and the information is readily available online in Lexis and in any good law library.

In April, as the acting U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, Durham signed a DOJ filing denying the merit of the appeals court finding of prosecution misconduct, while calling for Spadoni’s continued prosecution for the remaining charge of obstruction of justice for deleting computer files in advance of a potential subpoena.

I sought additional comment beyond the court filings from Dannehy, Durham and Thomas Carson, DOJ’s spokesman for its Connecticut office. Carson wrote me, “We have no further comment, as the matter is still pending."

2003

Connecticut Law Tribune, Attorney's Trial Tactics Impugned, Kellie A. Wagner, June 23, 2003. Judge tosses conviction.

Admonishing Deputy U.S. Attorney John Durham's trial tactics, as well as her own failure to maintain courtroom decorum, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton has taken the extraordinary step of overturning a weapons charge conviction largely on account of prosecutorial misconduct.

In granting defendant Anthony Washington's request for a new trial las month, Arterton (right) rebuked Durham for undermining the defense's key witness, while personally vouching for those who took the stand on the prosecution’s behalf, maligning defense counsel and his arguments; and aluding to highly prejudicial facts not in evidence.

The second-highest ranking federal prosecutor in the state, Durham also repeatedly interjected his personal views during closing remarks, through phrases such as "I believe" and "I would suggest to you," after vilifying defense counsel for doing the same, according to Arterton.

"The prosecutor ...proceeded to do exactly what he stated he would not," Arterton wrote in her 57-page decision of Durham first telling the jury that defense counsel Roger Sigal's arguments were improper before littering his own summation with first-person pronouns.

Durham could not be reached for comment by press time. But U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said his office will be filing a motion for reconsideration in the matter.

Though he declined to reveal the specifics of the government's objections, O'Connor acknowledged the rarity of a conviction being uprooted due to prosecutorial misconduct at the federal level, stating there have only been one or two such rulings in the past 20 years.