An "inside" perspective on the Durham investigation
September 27, 2021
Mike Huckabee
Kash Patel, former lead investigator for the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, appeared on EPOCH TV over the weekend to talk about the Sussmann indictment. This video provides a concise overview of what we’ve been talking about the past week and offers additional details as well.
For example, Patel said that Sussmann and Marc Elias were the two top lawyers at Perkins Coie overseeing all legal issues of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Sussmann is not some peon.
He also commented, as we have, about the unusual length of the indictment, saying this is not at all a typical indictment for one count of making a false statement, which might run a couple of pages, This runs 27 pages and is what’s known as a “speaking indictment.”
Sussmann and Elias brought in “tens of millions of dollars” to handle “everything from election law to campaign finance to any criminal allegations that might come up, to state law...” Indeed, we saw how Elias jetted around to different states before the election with a brigade of attorneys filing lawsuits to change state election laws.
Patel described Perkins Coie as a “behemoth.” It had to be one, to handle all the legalities –- and illegalities, ha –- of the Democrats’ run for President. These two attorneys also went out and hired “internet research” (campaign dirt) firm Fusion GPS, paying founder Glenn Simpson million of dollars for whatever his team could come up with, including the “Russia” stories. Of course, Simpson hired Christopher Steele. As you and I knew, it all traces back to Hillary Clinton.
Patel laid all this out in a most understandable way, so if you know people who are confused by all the twists and turns, just send them our summary, which includes the link, above.
He noted that opposition research is a normal part of political campaigns, and I can tell you from experience that this is true. Candidates even run oppo research on themselves, just to see what comes up. If they find something that might be an issue, their opponent certainly will.
It was just a few days before the election that the phony Alfa Bank story hit. And Hillary tweeted: “It’s time for Trump to answer some serious questions about his ties to Russia.” There was no basis in fact here at all, but the tweet included these fake bullet points:
1. Donald Trump has a secret server. [Aside: I know. That was HRC!]
2. It was set up privately to communicate with Putin-tied Alfa Bank.
3. When a reporter asked about it, they shut it down.
4. One week later, they created a new server with a different name for the same purpose.
As we now know, the FBI used this information in its FISA request for surveillance. Sussmann was the one who passed it to them. And then he lied about working on anyone else's behalf.
In examining what happened, Patel did what we like to do, which is to turn it around and ask “what if” the Trump campaign were found to have hired a law firm to research and “find” a connection between Clinton campaign headquarters and the Russian government, created a fake story about the Clinton campaign “pinging” back and forth through a bank to coordinate with the Russians, and released this to the media and the FBI right before the 2016 election?
“That would’ve been international headline news,” he said, and we all know that’s true. But it’s just the opposite when the CLINTON campaign is found to have done this. The media give it the tiniest bit of coverage possible. But Patel doesn’t think they can get away with that much longer.
He noted in this interview that Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation was charged with (among other things) finding out how the Alfa bank story fit in and if there was really anything to it. The House Intelligence Committee was looking into this at the same time and hadn’t come out with their report, as they were “just staffers on the Hill,” operating without subpoena power, etc. Mueller had sweeping subpoena power and cooperation from law enforcement.
Patel puts this Sussmann indictment together with that of Kevin Clinesmith, whom you’ll recall was charged with altering an official record that was used against Carter Page in the FISA warrant to spy on him. When looking at both of these, he sees that together they cover “two big components” of the investigation into the Russia Hoax. The former deals with the phony media campaign, outside the government, and the latter with the phony investigation going inside the government. “So, I think there’s a larger conspiracy at play here,” he said.
He sees this in the long “speaking indictment” that Durham has filed. Though most of the conspirators aren’t named, he's pretty confident of most of those identities, “if not all of them.”
“I think he’s just started,” Patel said of Durham.
IMPORTANT POINT: One thing the media are saying right now is that Durham’s investigation has gone on so long, he’s coming to the end of his official funding in just a few days and needs to wrap it up. (They wish!) According to Patel, the investigation cannot be shut down because Durham has just issued a federal indictment and this case has to be adjudicated in some fashion, by plea or by trial, which typically takes 12-18 months. In the meantime, Durham gets to continue his work. “So, I laugh at anyone in the media who tells me they’re worried about Durham being defunded,” he said. “He literally CAN’T, because he’s in the middle of a federal prosecution.”
It occurs to me that this might be another reason for Durham’s under-the-wire timing of the Sussmann indictment.
One concern Patel does have is a potential conflict of interest for the judge assigned Sussmann’s case: U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper. His wife, prominent DC attorney Amy Jeffress, is a former top aide to then-Attorney General Eric Holder. She has represented...(drum roll, please)...Lisa Page, who reported to Andrew McCabe and, along with him, is one of the most central figures in this scandal. She worked for FBI general counsel James Baker, who is the one who reviewed the FISA applications, and also teamed (very closely) with Peter Strzok, who led “Crossfire Hurricane”!
I’m sorry, but that big a conflict just will not fly. How did this judge GET the case, anyway?
As Patel pointed out, Lisa Page might very well be a witness in Sussmann’s trial. (I would add that apparently there WILL be a trial, as Sussmann has already pleaded “not guilty.”) Conflicts of interest can be cited simply over the possibility of such things happening. As wild as it seems, unless the case is reassigned, we could easily have a situation in which a witness in the case has been represented by the judge’s wife.
The judge should recuse himself, or the attorney general should reassign the case. But with Merrick Garland at the helm, how do we trust this process?