Durham Drops Another Bombshell, Reveals FBI Lied About Hillary Clinton-Supplied Disinformation – Opinion

Michael Sussmann started his trial on Monday. Additional witnesses were called, as Special Counsel John Durham builds the case against Hillary Clinton’s lawyer.

Sussmann was charged with lying about the FBI. He allegedly concealed who he worked for and shared the now-debunked Alfa-Bank tale. After it became clear that Hillary Clinton approved of the disinformation campaign, the purpose was to make false claims about Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 elections, Sussmann was charged with lying to the FBI.

But apparently, Sussmann and Hillary Clinton by proxy weren’t the only ones lying. According to documents presented by Durham, the FBI lied about the Alfa Bank smear’s provenance, telling agents it had come from the DOJ. Sussmann actually brought the Alfa Bank smear directly to FBI. The FBI leadership was aware of the origins because it had been badly researched by political opposition researchers.

FBI wrongly told its agents Trump-Russia collusion claims had come from DOJ, bombshell document reveals https://t.co/zvjET5v4vb pic.twitter.com/08FNVhPbR5

— New York Post (@nypost) 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.

In the latest revelation to emerge from Sussmann’s trial in DC federal court on a count of lying to the FBI, special counsel John Durham’s prosecutors revealed that investigators had received an electronic communication citing a referral from the DOJ “on or about” Sept. 19, 2016, the same day Sussmann met with James Baker, then the FBI’s top lawyer.

It appears that the FBI deliberately misrepresented this situation using a fake DOJ referral in order to appear as though the Alfa Bank was from an unidentified third party. It was actually Hillary Clinton. The FBI knew who gave it the information, as well as his connections to Clinton’s campaign.

I won’t pretend to be an expert on this. It is possible for investigators to be kept secret in certain situations in order not to reveal the identity of the source. But, given the source of the information, was this a justified hold?

Ryan Gaynor from the FBI, testified on Monday for the prosecution. He said that FBI agents were kept in the dark about the source of information because it was decided by top FBI officials. He said that if he had known Sussmann worked for Hillary Clinton, he might have handled the case differently.

In one Oct. 3, 2016, email, agent Heide wrote to Gaynor, “We really want to interview the source of all this information. Any way we can track down who this guy is and how we’re getting this information?”

Supervisory Special Agent Daniel Wierzbicki followed up: “An interview with the source of info … may allow us to understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the white paper.”

Gaynor said that they were discussing it at headquarters. However, she did not identify the source.

According to him, Monday’s conclusion could have been different if Sussmann knew that Sussmann was an attorney for Clinton Campaign when he gave the information.

To summarize, the lower-level agents were asking to interview Sussmann (though, they didn’t know who he was at the time) in order to garner more information about his claim. Gaynor refused to allow this because his superiors didn’t give Sussmann all of the details. If he knew Sussmann was driven by politics it might have made things more complicated.

This leads us to the obvious question. What was the purpose of James Comey, the former FBI Director and other FBI leaders to conceal the origin of the Alfa Bank story. It was the DOJ that lied about this story. I certainly have my suspicions, and that’s putting it lightly. The only reason to do those things is to push a false narrative that otherwise wouldn’t hold up under nominal scrutiny. Comey and his aides wanted the Alfa Bank story true. They did everything they could to make it so.

It feels as though everyone is in this con and nobody is being punished. It’s a travesty, and hopefully, Durham continues to expose it for all to see.