Senators Urge Attorney General Not to Interfere With Durham Investigation
Forty-six senators are urging Attorney General Merrick Garland not to interfere with Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the counterintelligence probe of Donald Trump’s campaign.
Durham is investigating the error-riddled probe that plagued former President Trump for years. The investigation has led to a former FBI lawyer pleading guilty to manipulating a key email regarding a former Trump campaign associate and charges against Russian analyst Igor Danchenko and former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman.
In his latest filing, Durham revealed that the White House and Trump’s residences were surveilled while he was in office.
As Durham continues his work, Garland should respect his independence and make sure he has all the resources he needs, Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and nearly the rest of the Republican caucus in the upper chamber said in a letter (pdf) dated Feb. 16.
“As you are aware, Special Counsel Durham continues to uncover alarming information related to the origins of the FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Those findings include the highly concerning, and potentially criminal, manipulation and exploitation of federal law enforcement resources to target American citizens, including a presidential candidate, based upon fabricated evidence that had been procured and disseminated by individuals closely connected with a rival political campaign,” the senators wrote.
“The fraudulent abuse of the FBI’s investigative powers by those malign actors has left a dark stain on the reputation and credibility of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. We hope you agree that those responsible for that manipulation and exploitation must be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by Special Counsel Durham. We further expect you will support his important work until all those responsible for the fraud committed upon the American people are brought to justice.”
A request for comment from Garland wasn’t returned.
The only Senate Republicans who didn’t sign the letter were Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Durham was a U.S. attorney when he was tapped by William Barr, the attorney general under Trump. Durham resigned from the U.S. attorney position in February but maintained the special counsel role.
When being considered by senators, Garland, nominated by President Joe Biden, told them that he saw “no reason” that Durham shouldn’t be allowed to continue to probe into the botched FBI investigation.
“I don’t have any reason, from what I know now, which is really very little, to make any determination on that ground,” he said at the time. “But I have no reason to think he should not remain in place.”
In October 2021, Garland was asked during a separate hearing whether he would commit to letting the Durham investigation proceed free from political influence.
Garland said Durham’s budget was approved and that “you would know if he weren’t continuing to do his work.”
“I’m not determining what he’s investigating,” Garland added.
Hillary Clinton Responds to John Durham Court Filing
Former presidential candidate Hilary Clinton on Wednesday denied claims that her 2016 campaign spied on former President Donald Trump following a court filing submitted last week by special prosecutor John Durham.
In a Twitter post, the longtime Democrat wrote that “Trump & Fox are desperately spinning up a fake scandal to distract from his real ones. So it’s a day that ends in Y.” She added, “The more his misdeeds are exposed, the more they lie.”
On Feb. 12, Durham wrote that a technology executive who was allegedly aligned with the Democrat Party and the Clinton campaign spied on Trump’s residences and the White House when he was president.
That filing was made in connection to Durham’s case against Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee in 2016. Durham’s team alleged that Sussmann lied to the FBI when he told the bureau that he wasn’t working for any client when he provided false documents that claimed to have linked the Trump Organization to a Russian bank.
Sussmann, the filing said, “assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign,” according to the filing. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers on Monday said the filing included “prejudicial—and false—allegations” against their client.
The tech executive, identified in reports as Rodney Joffe, also “tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia,” the filing said, adding that the Joffe’s employer “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers” for Trump’s executive office.
Through a spokesperson, Joffe told news outlets this week that he is an “apolitical Internet security expert” and “legally provided access to DNS data obtained from a private client that separately was providing DNS services to the Executive Office of the President (EOP).”
Over the past weekend, in response to Durham’s court filing, Trump issued a statement saying the development vindicates his longtime claims that the Democrats and corporate news outlets unfairly and falsely linked his campaign to Russia.
“It shows how totally corrupt and shameless the media is,” Trump said in the statement. “Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and the Republicans, in particular President Donald Trump, got caught illegally spying into the Office of the President?”
He added: “All hell would break loose and the electric chair would immediately come out of retirement. The good news is, everybody is talking about not only this atrocity against our Nation, but that the press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place.”
On Monday, a White House spokesperson declined to comment on Durham’s findings.
“That’s something I can’t speak to from this podium, so I refer you to the Department of Justice,” White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
