Dissecting a Smear Campaign

The 27-page federal grand jury indictment charging lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to the FBI. An analyzed of the indictment’s detailed factual averments that spelled out how Sussmann and others conspired to concoct a false but “plausible” narrative purportedly demonstrating the existence of a secret channel of internet communications between the Trump Organization, owned by Donald Trump, and the Russian Alfa Bank. The article ended at the point where Sussmann was about to meet with James Baker, the general counsel of the FBI.

At the meeting, Sussmann allegedly delivered to Baker deceptive “white papers,” documents and computer data that were calculated to trigger an FBI investigation of the purported Trump-Alfa Bank connection. According to the indictment, once the FBI began its investigation, Sussmann, the top echelon of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (“Clinton Campaign”) and others publicized the fact that the FBI was investigating possible ties between Trump and Russia. Moreover, the indictment also avers that, even before his September 19, 2016, meeting with Baker, Sussmann disseminated the fabricated Trump-Alfa Bank narrative to the media. Quoting billing records and emails from Sussmann’s law firm (“Perkins Coie” which represented the Clinton Campaign), the indictment gives the following examples of how the smear was spread:

• On “about August 30, 2016, Reporter-1, who worked for “a major U.S. newspaper (‘Newspaper-1’),” emailed Sussmann: “I’m back in town. I see Russians are hacking away. [A]ny big news?” To this Sussmann replied: “Mind reader!… Can you meet Thurs and Fri?”
• On Thursday, September 1, 2016, Sussmann met with Reporter-1. He “billed his time for the meeting to the Clinton Campaign under the broader billing description ‘confidential meetings regarding confidential project.’”
• On September 12, 2016, Sussmann spoke with “Campaign Lawyer-1” (identified elsewhere as Sussmann’s law partner, Marc Elias, who represented the Clinton Campaign) by telephone regarding the Trump-Alfa Bank narrative. Sussmann and Elias each billed the call to the Clinton Campaign with Elias using the billing description “teleconference with M. Sussmann re: [Newspaper-1]” and Sussmann using the description “work regarding confidential project.”
• On September 15, 2016, Elias “exchanged emails with the Clinton Campaign’s campaign manager, communications director, and foreign policy advisor concerning the [Trump-Alfa Bank allegations] that Sussmann had recently shared with Reporter-1.” Elias “billed his time for this correspondence to the Clinton Campaign with the billing entry, ‘email correspondence with [name of foreign policy advisor], [name of campaign manager], [name of communications director] re: the [Alfa Bank] Article.’”

Now hit the pause button and consider this. These examples — as with so many other averments in the indictment — quote Perkins Coie’s billing records as well as emails between Sussmann, Elias, and others. They are direct, real-time, and devastating proof of overt acts and statements made in the course and in furtherance of the illegal but thus-far uncharged conspiracy outlined in the indictment. The fact that Durham has obtained this type of closely guarded evidence speaks to his skill, tenacity, and seriousness of purpose, and spells serious legal trouble for all those who participated in concocting and spreading the Trump-Alfa Bank smear. So, what happened when Sussmann met with Baker? The indictment avers some very unusual circumstances.

First, according to the indictment, when Baker and Sussmann met, “[n]o one else attended the meeting.” (Emphasis added) How did that happen? When interviewing even the lowliest witness, the FBI always works in pairs. One agent does the questioning while the other takes notes. But here, when a lawyer from a “major international law firm” representing the Clinton Campaign met with the FBI’s top lawyer during the Presidential campaign, no one else was present to document what transpired. Why? Did Baker know in advance why Sussmann wanted to meet? If so, why wouldn’t Baker require the presence of a witness to document what was to transpire?

Second, why did Baker even agree to the meeting? Doesn’t the FBI have plenty of trained, perfectly competent special agents who gather facts and document their findings? Why wasn’t Sussmann’s contact handled by way of the FBI’s regular interview process? The indictment explains that Sussmann’s meeting with Baker wasn’t his first interaction with the FBI. It states that “[i]n or about April 2016, the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) retained Sussmann to represent it in connection with the hacking of its email servers by the Russian government. In connection with his representation of the DNC as the victim of the hack, the defendant met and communicated regularly with the FBI, the DOJ, and other U.S. government agencies. In or around the same time period, Sussmann was also advising the Clinton Campaign in connection with cybersecurity issues.”

Sussmann would play a role in the FBI’s bizarre, pretend investigation of the DNC hack in which the FBI opted not to conduct its own forensic examination of the DNC’s server. Instead, it relied on Crowdstrike, a private company reportedly retained by Sussmann, to examine the server. Suffice it to say that prior to meeting with Baker, Sussmann had interacted with the FBI. Also, as Baker later told congressional investigators, he and Sussmann had “a preexisting relationship.” The particulars of that relationship remain unclear. But, before Congress, Baker testified in reference to Sussmann, “I had a personal relationship with Michael.” The indictment describes what happened at the meeting as follows:

• Sussmann stated falsely that he was not acting on behalf of any client, which led Baker to understand that Sussmann was conveying the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations as “a good citizen and not as an advocate for any client.”
• He stated that he had been “approached by multiple cyber security experts” concerning the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations. He provided the names of three cyber experts but did not mention “the Clinton Campaign, or any other person or company referenced” in the indictment.
• He “described the allegations of a secret Trump Organization server that was in communication with” the Alfa Bank.
• He “stated that media outlets were in possession of information about the Trump Organization’s secret server, and that a story would be published on Friday of that week.”
• Sussmann provided to Baker two thumb drives and hard copy “white papers” drafted by Sussmann and others as well as Fusion GPS. The white papers “contained no date or author’s name.” He also provided eight files containing Alfa Bank data and other “purported data and information relating to the mail`1.trump-email.com domain.”

Immediately after the meeting, Baker spoke with the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division (identified elsewhere as William Priestap) concerning his meeting with Sussmann. Priestap took contemporaneous handwritten notes which reflect Sussmann’s statements to Baker, and state, in relevant part: Michael Sussman[n] – Atty: Perkins Coie – said not doing this for any client. Represents DNC, Clinton Foundation, etc. Been approached by Prominent Cyber People (Academic or Corp. POCs) People like: [three names redacted]. According to the indictment, in the days following Sussmann’s meeting with Baker, and as a result of that meeting, the FBI opened an investigation of the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations.

During that time, Sussmann is alleged to have to have coordinated with Fusion GPS and his law partner, Marc Elias, who represented the Clinton Campaign, to disseminate the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations to the media.  He continued to bill his time for such work to the Clinton Campaign. For example, “on or about October 10, 2016, Sussmann is alleged to have emailed Reporter-1 a link to an opinion article which asserted, in substance and in part, that Newspaper-1’s investigative reporters had not published as many stories regarding Trump as other media outlets.” The subject line of Sussmann’s email was “for your editors,” and the body stated, “You should send this link to them.” According to public sources, Reporter-1 was working on an article about the Trump-Alfa Bank narrative, but his editors at Newspaper-1 had not yet authorized publication of the article.

According to the indictment, “on or about October 30, 2016,” an employee of Fusion GPS forwarded to another reporter (“Reporter-2”) a tweet which indicated that the FBI director had “explosive information about Trump’s ties to Russia.” The GPS employee’s email stated “time to hurry,” suggesting that Reporter-2 should hurry to publish an article regarding the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations. The indictment avers that Reporter-2 responded by emailing the Fusion GPS employee a draft article regarding the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations along with the cover message: “Here’s the first 2500 words.”

The opening paragraphs of the indictment state that “[i]n or about late October 2016 — approximately one week before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election — multiple media outlets reported that U.S. government authorities had received and were investigating allegations concerning a purported secret channel of communications between the Trump Organization,  owned by Donald J. Trump, and” the Russian Alfa Bank. The indictment cites the article by Newspaper-1 as stating that intelligence officials possessed information concerning “what cyber experts said appeared to be a mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and” the Alfa Bank. The article further reported that the FBI had “spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server,” and that “[c]omputer logs obtained by [Newspaper-1]” showed “that two servers at” the Alfa Bank “sent more than 2,700 ‘look up’ messages … to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring.” According to other articles, this information had been assembled by an anonymous computer researcher who used the moniker “Tea Leaves.” (Identified as “Originator-1” in my previous article.)

As this news broke, Hillary Clinton announced on Twitter that “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” She added that “It’s time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia.” Meanwhile, the Clinton Campaign posted a “Statement from Jake Sullivan on New Report Exposing Trump’s Secret Line of Communication to Russia.” In it, Sullivan is quoted as follows: This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal this link when it was discovered by journalists. This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin and endorsement of so many pro-Kremlin positions throughout this campaign. It raises even more troubling questions in light of Russia’s masterminding of hacking efforts that are clearly intended to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe of Russia’s meddling in our elections.”

This was by no means the end of Sullivan’s involvement. As will be documented in a later article, Sullivan, who now serves as the Biden regime’s National Security Advisor, worked assiduously on behalf of the Clinton Campaign to spread the Trump-Alfa Bank story.

The indictment also avers that “[i]n or about April 2016, the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) retained Sussmann to represent it in connection with the hacking of its email servers by the Russian government. In connection with his representation of the DNC as the victim of the hack, the defendant met and communicated regularly with the FBI, the DOJ, and other U.S. government agencies. In or around the same time period, Sussmann was also advising the Clinton Campaign in connection with cybersecurity issues.” The indictment avers that Sussmann presented the false narrative to the FBI which then opened an investigation and that the conspirators used the false narrative and the fact of the FBI’s investigation to smear Donald Trump as an undercover Russian agent.

The Mysterious DNC Email Hack

So what is the significance of that averment and why was it included in Sussmann’s false statement indictment? Consider the following timeline of events:

• On or about April 30, 2016, CrowdStrike, a California-based private cybersecurity company headed by former FBI official Shawn Henry, was retained by Sussmann to investigate the purported hack of the DNC’s email server.
• On June 15, 2016, CrowdStrike announced that it had detected Russian malware on the DNC’s server.
• The next day, a self-described Romanian hacker, Guccifer 2.0, claimed he was a WikiLeaks source and had hacked the DNC’s server. He then posted online DNC computer files that contained metadata that indicated Russian involvement in the hack.
• On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey publicly cleared Hillary Clinton of criminal charges for storing, sending and receiving “very sensitive, highly classified information” on her unclassified, private email server.
• On July 22, 2016, just days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published approximately 20,000 DNC emails.
• Much to the embarrassment of Hillary Clinton, the released files showed that the DNC had secretly collaborated with her campaign to promote her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination over that of Bernie Sanders. This caused the Clinton campaign serious political damage at the Democratic convention.
• Well after the convention, Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s public relations chief, said in a WashingtonPost essay that she worked assiduously during the nominating convention to “get the press to focus on … the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary.”
• On July 28, 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on an alleged plan by Hillary Clinton to tie Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server” ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
• Brennan’s handwritten notes (which were not declassified until 2020) state, in part, the following:
• We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED]…CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.
• Similarly, on September 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials made an “investigative referral” to FBI Director James Comey on Hillary Clinton for allegedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract voters from her email scandal. Nothing ever came of this referral.

During a 2020 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when asked about the referral on Clinton, Comey said it didn’t “ring any bells.” “You don’t remember getting an investigatory lead from the intelligence community? September 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to James Comey and [Peter] Strzok regarding Clinton’s approval of a plan [about] Trump … as a means of distraction?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Comey.

“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey replied.

“That’s a pretty stunning thing that it doesn’t ring a bell,” Graham said. “You get this inquiry from the intelligence community to look at the Clinton campaign trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent or a Russian stooge.” Graham added, “How far-fetched is that?” But enough about Comey. Let’s get back to the alleged hack of the DNC’s server. When the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI learned of the hacking claim, they asked to examine the server. But the DNC refused.

Instead, the server was examined by CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company retained by Sussmann. And Comey’s FBI made no effort to gain direct, hands-on access to the DNC server, the scene of the alleged cybercrime. Why would the DNC, the purported victim of a crime, refuse to fully cooperate with law enforcement in solving that crime? Was it hiding something? Was it afraid the server’s contents would discredit the Russia-hacking story? Why, instead of full and complete cooperation with the FBI, was the DNC having CrowdStrike and Perkins Coie run the investigation and, in effect, filter and control the flow of information regarding the server’s contents to the FBI?

The answers to those questions began to emerge thanks to an article in the August 8, 2017 issue of the Nation. By no means a pro-Trump publication, the Nation published an exhaustive report about an exacting forensic investigation of the DNC hack by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), an organization of former CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and military intelligence officers, technical experts, and analysts.

In its analysis of the purported DNC hack, VIPS brought to bear the talents of more than a dozen experienced, well-credentialed experts, including William Binney, a former NSA technical director and cofounder of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, former NSA technical director for the Office of Signals Processing; and Skip Folden, a former IBM information technology manager as well as other computer-system designers, program architects, and analysts. VIPS concluded that the DNC data were not hacked by the Russians or anyone else accessing the server over the internet. Instead, the data were downloaded by means of a thumb drive or similar portable storage device physically attached to the DNC server.

How was this determined? The time stamps contained in the released computer files’ metadata established that at 6:45 P.M. on July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes (not megabits) of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. This took 87 seconds, which means the transfer rate was 22.7 megabytes per second, a speed, according to VIPS, that “is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack.” Such a speed could be accomplished only by direct connection of a portable storage device to the server. Accordingly, VIPS concluded that the DNC data theft was an inside job by someone with physical access to the server. VIPS also found that, if there had been a hack, the NSA would have a record of it that could quickly be retrieved and produced. But no such evidence has been forthcoming. Can this be because no hack occurred? VIPS also determined that the files published by Guccifer 2.0 on June 16, 2016, had been “run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints.” In other words, the files were deliberately altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian agents.

Thanks to the VIPS experts, the Russia-hacking claim — the very prologue of the Trump-Russia conspiracy story — appeared to have been affirmatively and convincingly undercut. Moreover, even before VIPS’s findings were published, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange repeatedly denied that Russia “or any state actor” was the source of the stolen DNC data his organization published. And his denials later received confirmation in the March 5, 2018 edition of the New Yorker which featured a lengthy and sympathetic portrayal of Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who was employed by Fusion GPS — yet another entity retained by Perkins Coie — to investigate possible connections between Donald Trump and Russia. Buried toward the end of the article comes the revelation that, on July 26, 2016 (four days after WikiLeaks published the DNC emails), “Steele filed yet another memo” in which “Steele’s sources claimed that the [DNC] digital attack involved agents ‘within the Democratic Party structure itself…’”

The Russian hacking narrative further unraveled on December 5, 2017, in an executive session of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”). It was then that Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, testified under oath that his company’s contract was not with the DNC but “with Michael Sussmann from Perkins Coie.” (Emphasis added.) Consequently, CrowdStrike’s findings were protected by the attorney-client privilege, an argument raised during the HPSCI proceedings by an attorney from Perkins Coie. As he explained to the HPSCI, CrowdStrike was working for Perkins Coie and was “performing work in order to help Perkins Coie advise the DNC on this matter.” Therefore, it was up to Perkins Coie and the DNC to decide what information CrowdStrike would be allowed to share with the HPSCI.

So what did Perkins Coie and the DNC allow Henry to tell the HPSCI about CrowdStrike’s findings?

The Amazing Disappearing DNC Hack

As stated previously, when the FBI learned of the alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee’s (“DNC”) emails, it asked to examine the server. In fact, at the same time as the alleged DNC hack, there were similar reports regarding the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (“DCCC”) server as well as DNC Chairman John Podesta’s personal email devices. In testimony before the Senate, FBI Director James Comey stated the following:

Question (by Senator Burr): Did the FBI request access to those devices [the servers and Podesta’s devices] to perform forensics on?

A: Yes, we did.

Q: And would that access have provided intelligence or information helpful to your investigation in possibly finding … including to the Intelligence Community Assessment?

A: Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that’s involved. So, it’s the best evidence.

Q: Were you given access to do the forensics on those servers?

A: We were not. We were … a highly respected private company eventually got access and shared with us what they saw there.

Q: But is that typically the way the FBI would prefer to do the forensics or would your forensic unit rather see the servers and do the forensics themselves?

A: We always prefer to have access hands on ourselves, if that’s possible.

Q: Do you know why you were denied access to those servers?

A: I don’t know for sure. Um, I don’t know for sure.

Q: Was there one request or multiple requests?

A: Multiple requests at different levels and ultimately what was agreed to is that the private company would share with us what they saw.

So, instead of using a search warrant or some other legal process to perform a direct, hands on forensic examination of the DNC server, the FBI agreed to base its investigation on the findings of a private cybersecurity company. And, as discussed in the previous article, that company, CrowdStrike, was to do the investigation pursuant to its contract with Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Think about that. When presented with allegations of a devastating foreign cyber attack on one of the two major political parties, the FBI meekly agreed to allow CrowdStrike and Perkins Coie to do the forensic examination and, for all intents and purposes, run the investigation.

Not even the lowliest local police department would agree to such an absurd arrangement. What if this was a murder case? Would the Smallville PD allow a private investigator and lawyer hired by the murder victim’s family to process the crime scene, do the autopsy, and tell the police and district attorney what they supposedly found? Wouldn’t such findings be subject to attack in court as coming from sources that may have had an interest in shaping and tailoring the investigative results to suit the needs and desires of their client? Wouldn’t there be legal problems with the evidence’s provenance, chain of custody, and the reliability and comprehensiveness of the investigative work that supposedly produced it? Would the police and district attorney ever allow themselves to get roped into such a bizarre, ridiculous, nightmarish, and self-defeating arrangement?

Of course not. No rational person or organization intent on conducting a serious investigation would. But that, in effect, is precisely what the FBI — the self-proclaimed greatest investigative agency in the world — did when faced with this purportedly monumental foreign attack on the Democrat Party apparatus. Now keep Comey’s testimony in focus as we review the remarkable appearance of Shawn Hanry, president of CrowdStrike Services, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”).

The HPSCI convened in closed executive session on December 5, 2017. Present were Henry, the Committee members and staff, as well as a lawyer representing CrowdStrike and a lawyer from Perkins Coie. Under questioning, Henry confirmed that CrowdStrike’s examination of the DNC server was done pursuant to its contract with Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie. Consequently, as explained by the Perkins Coie lawyer, CrowdStrike’s findings were protected by the attorney-client privilege. Therefore, it would be up to Perkins Coie, acting on behalf of the DNC, to decide what information Henry would be allowed to share with the HPSCI.

First up was Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) who wanted to know why the FBI hadn’t taken “the lead in this investigation.” And that’s when the fun and games began. Once it was established that the FBI did not have access to the server, Stewart asked, “Could they [the  FBI] conduct their own investigation in a thorough fashion without access to the actual hardware?”

To that Henry went out on a limb and firmly replied, “Maybe.” Undeterred, Stewart asked, “Are you comfortable that someone could complete a thorough investigation, using other tools, without direct access to the hardware or equipment?” Up to the challenge, Henry proceeded to answer a question that wasn’t asked.

“Could they come to a conclusion? You’re asking a nuanced question. And I’m not being cagey. I want to be clear, because this is an important point.” But would it be better if the FBI had access? Henry replied, “The more information you have access to, the better any investigation. But it doesn’t mean that a lack of a piece of information precludes you from coming to a conclusion.”

The determined Stewart tried again. If you “could have a better investigation if you had access to all of the equipment or hardware” would there be “reasons for not making that available [to the FBI] that override the benefit of having a more conclusive investigation?” To which Henry replied, “You’re asking me to speculate. I don’t know the answer.” At which point, an exasperated Stewart said to the Perkins Coie lawyer, “By the way, you need to pay him well, because he’s obviously serving you well today as you guys have your conversations back and forth.”

So just what evidence did CrowdStrike find on the DNC server? Over the course of the hearing, Henry grudgingly gave ground with answers such as these: “Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data [the DNC emails] was (sic) exfiltrated [taken by hackers off the server]. We did not have concrete evidence that data was (sic) exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated…. There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence … we didn’t have direct evidence. But we made a conclusion that data left the network.” (Emphasis added.)

Okay, there was no direct, concrete, or other proof that the emails were actually taken from the DNC computer. But what were these “indicators” that led CrowdStrike to conclude that the emails were hacked? According to Henry, CrowdStrike found “indicators of [server] compromise, which are pieces of malware, et cetera.” He then explained that CrowdStrike’s investigative report states that the data [emails] were “staged for exfiltration” by the purported Russian hacker.

He added, “There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears that it (sic) was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.” (Emphasis added.) Got that? With no evidence that the emails were actually hacked, CrowdStrike nevertheless concluded that the Russians hacked the e mails.Despite the spin, the whole DNC hack story had just flat-lined.

But there was one more issue to be addressed: exactly what evidence was shared with the FBI? I will spare you the tedious details of the interrogation. The questioners kept asking Henry what information CrowdStrike provided to the FBI, and he repeatedly said that they got whatever they asked for. But the problem with this line of questioning is that it failed to consider the fact that CrowdStrike was working for Perkins Coie. Consequently, the questions should have focused on what information Perkins Coie allowed to be transmitted to the FBI.

The closest anyone came to getting at this issue was when Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) asked, “Did the DNC restrict anything that you shared with the FBI or that the FBI asked for? Did they tell you ‘no’ at any point?” Henry replied, “No, I have no recollection. Again, I know that there are redacted reports and there was some restriction on the reports. That’s the only thing that I can recall.”

Wait. What? Redacted? Restriction? Does this mean that the DNC withheld some of CrowdStrike’s findings and work product from the FBI?

The answer to that question can be found lurking in the pre-trial pleadings in the case of United States v. Roger Stone. In an effort to debunk the DNC hack story, Stone’s lawyers requested that the Department of Justice produce the full, unredacted CrowdStrike investigative report. And that’s when the cowpie hit the fan. It turned out that, in addition to not examining the DNC server, neither the FBI nor the DOJ actually saw the full, final CrowdStrike report.

The following is lifted directly from the prosecution’s response to Stone’s discovery request:

Ponder  that carefully. The referenced “counsel for the DNC and DCCC” is Perkins Coie. The reports provided were marked “draft” and had redactions. But the FBI and DOJ had the assurances of Perkins Coie that the  drafts were, in fact, the last version of the report and “no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.”

So, was there a hack of the DNC server? Don’t ask the FBI or the DOJ. They only know what Perkins Coie — which was representing a client that was heavily invested in spreading the Russian hack story — allowed them to know. But thanks to the release of Shawn Henry’s testimony before the HPSCI, what we now know is that CrowdStrike never found any “direct,” “concrete,” or other evidence that proves the DNC emails “actually left” the DNC server.

Or, as we used to say in the old Justice Department: turn out the lights, the party’s over.

The indictment spelled out Sussmann’s involvement in a thus-far uncharged conspiracy to create a false narrative that was calculated to demonstrate a secret channel of internet communications between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa-Bank. Recently Sussmann’s lawyers moved for a bill of particulars alleging that the indictment lacks sufficient detail and clarity for their client to prepare his defense. Special Counsel John Durham’s brief in opposition pointed out that the 27-page indictment amply satisfies the legal requirement that it need only include a plain, concise, and definitive written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Moreover, Durham’s opposing brief also points out that the prosecution has already provided the defense with ample clarification by way of expansive and massive discovery.

According to Durham, on October 7, the government “made its first production of discovery to the defense” which “included more than 6,000 documents, comprising approximately 81,000 pages.” The documents were “received in response to grand jury subpoenas issued to fifteen separate individuals, entities, and organizations — including among others, political organizations, a university, university researchers, an investigative firm, and numerous companies.” The prosecution is also “working expeditiously to declassify large volumes of materials” which it expects to provide to the defense “[w]ithin approximately two weeks” which will include, “among other things,” the following:

• More than 30 declassified reports of interviews conducted in the course of Durham’s investigation;
• Emails and other documents shown to witnesses during the interviews;
• Investigators’ notes taken during the interviews;
• Transcripts of grand jury testimony for multiple witnesses;
• The majority of the FBI’s electronic “case file” pertaining to its investigation of the now discredited Trump-Alfa Bank allegations which Sussmann is accused of presenting to the FBI’s General Counsel;
• Emails, memoranda, reports, and other records obtained from “Agency-2” (identified elsewhere as the CIA), including “write-ups” of Sussmann’s meetings with CIA personnel in which Sussmann is accused of providing the false Trump-Alfa Bank allegations.

Moreover, Durham’s brief in opposition avers that “the government is substantially exceeding” its discovery obligations and is “engaged in ongoing conversations with the defense regarding outstanding discovery, further defense requests, and declassification issues. After producing the above-described materials, the government expects to produce additional materials in subsequent productions, which will include additional interview memoranda, emails and other records. The government will continue to meet and confer regularly with the defense on discovery matters.”

So, what does all this mean? Here are some key takeaways.

First, where, as here, you see a prosecutor bury the defense in discovery, that is a sign that he has great confidence in his case and nothing to hide. In the old Justice Department, we compared this type of eager and unbridled document production to happily using a salad shooter to spray the defense head-to-toe with incriminating evidence. As in “read it and weep.”

Second, the breadth and depth of the discovery as well as the obviously extensive and intensive efforts of the investigators to gather it indicate that there is far more to this matter than just the presently charged single count of making a false statement. Accordingly, we should expect an indictment or indictments commensurate with the scope of the present and promised discovery.

What will those charges entail? Based on what we know so far, they will most likely aver, among other crimes, a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Federal law defines a conspiracy as a combination of persons to accomplish by concerted action a criminal purpose or to accomplish a lawful objective by unlawful means. Conspiracy to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the government out of money or property, but it also includes interference with or obstruction of one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, trickery, or dishonest means.

An indictment charging a conspiracy must allege the agreement, the unlawful object of the conspiracy (e.g., to defraud the United States), and at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. An overt act need not itself be a crime. It may be an act such as having a conversation or sending an email. Whether or not the overt act is in furtherance of the conspiracy will be for a jury to decide. But proving only one overt act will be sufficient for conviction.

The statute of limitations runs from the last overt act which is alleged and proven. And prosecution for conspiracy may be had in any federal district where the agreement was made, or an overt act was committed. Where use of the mails, emails, interstate, or foreign commerce is involved, prosecution may be instituted in any federal district from, through or into which the matter involved (such as an email) moved.

Now let’s apply the above law to the Sussmann indictment which avers how Sussmann and others knowingly and illegally concocted a fake narrative of a secret internet communications channel between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa Bank which was presented to the FBI and the CIA. While Sussmann and the Clinton Campaign are identified in the indictment by name, the other participants are identified only by titles such as “Tech Executive-1,” “Campaign Lawyer-1,”  “Internet Company -1,” etc.

However, over the past month, various sources have named many of the persons and entities designated in the indictment. For example,  “Russian Bank-1” has been identified as the Alfa Bank which has ties to the Kremlin, “Law Firm-1” as the Perkins Coie firm that represented the Clinton Campaign, “U.S. Investigative Firm” as Fusion GPS, and “Campaign Lawyer-1” as Marc Elias, who was the Perkins Coie partner who represented the Clinton Campaign, and “Tech Executive-1” as Rodney L. Joffe who was the chief cybersecurity officer at Neustar, Inc., a longtime client of Sussmann’s law firm, Perkins Coie.

Sources have also identified the “university” in the indictment as Georgia Tech and the “university researchers” as Georgia Tech researchers who were receiving and analyzing internet data in connection with a government cybersecurity research contract. For purposes of clarity, wherever possible, these and other persons and entities so identified will be referred to by name instead of by the titles used in the indictment. As stated in the indictment, Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie, worked in concert with others to concoct a false but “plausible” narrative that the “Trump Organization, owned by Donald J. Trump” was using a “secret channel of communications” to interact with “a particular Russian bank” i.e., the Alfa Bank.

Sussmann is accused of making a false statement to FBI General Counsel James Baker in a September 19, 2016, meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington. At that meeting, Sussmann is alleged to have presented a so-called “white paper,” “documents,” and “data,” which purported to show secret internet communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank as well as a “white paper” by Fusion GPS alleging Alfa Bank’s ties to the Kremlin. In doing so, Sussmann is alleged to have lied to Baker when he said that he was not providing the material on behalf of a client when, in fact, he was doing so as part of his firm’s representation of the Clinton campaign.

As the indictment makes clear, the purpose of the meeting was to induce the FBI to launch an investigation of Trump’s possible ties to Russia. While the conspirators expressed doubts that their false narrative would survive serious scrutiny, they believed that it would be “plausible” enough to get the FBI to open an investigation of Trump. Once that happened, word of the investigation would be (and, in fact, was) disseminated to the news media in time to produce an electoral backlash against Trump. Sussmann’s lie to the FBI is subject to a five-year statute of limitations. Accordingly, he had to be charged before September 19, 2021. Moreover, since the alleged crime took place at FBI headquarters, the charge had to be brought in the District of Columbia, a less-than congenial venue for prosecuting prominent Democrats.

Nevertheless, the indictment also sets forth in detail how Sussmann met with employees of the CIA “at a location outside the District of Columbia.” This meeting took place on or about February 9, 2017, at which time “Sussmann provided to the CIA “(i) several white papers, and (ii) multiple data files containing purported DNS data, ranging from 2016 through early 2017.”

This meeting was one more overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful functions of the United States government by dishonest means. Consequently, the five-year statute of limitations for charging Sussmann and the others for conspiracy will not run until February 9, 2022, at the earliest. Moreover, the conspiracy charge can and likely will be filed outside the District of Columbia in a court more likely to accord fair treatment to the prosecution.

So, let’s take a look at the cast of characters and their roles in fabricating the materials Sussmann allegedly provided to the FBI, the CIA, and the media.

First is Sussmann who, according to the indictment, represented the Democratic National Committee in connection with the claimed hacking of its email servers by Russians. In that capacity, he met and regularly communicated with the FBI, the Justice Department, and other government agencies. Sussmann also advised the Clinton campaign on cybersecurity issues. His law partner, Marc Elias, represented the Clinton campaign generally.

According to the indictment, one of Sussmann’s clients, Rodney L. Joffe, was an executive of Neustar, Inc., a cybersecurity firm. According to outside sources, Joffe was also a cybersecurity adviser to the Obama White House. By virtue of his position at Neustar and other internet companies, he had access to “large amounts of internet and cybersecurity data” including so-called Domain Name System (“DNS”) data. Joffe claimed to have been offered a position in the government in the event Hillary Clinton won the Presidency and stated in a  post-election email, “I was tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they’d win. I definitely would not take the job under Trump.”

The indictment alleges that, in late July 2016, “Originator-1” [identified elsewhere as April Lorenzen, a resident of Rhode Island who helped found two tech firms that have government cybersecurity contracts] was a business associate of Joffe and “had assembled purported DNS data reflecting apparent DNS lookups” between the Alfa Bank and an email domain, “mail1.trump-email.com.”

But, according to the indictment, the significance of these data was doubtful since “mail1.trump-email.com”.was not a Trump Organization server. Instead, it was an outside domain operated by a customer relationship management company used by the Trump Organization to send out marketing emails. As for the “DNS lookups,” they were generated by the Alfa Bank server trying to validate the sender of the emails. This sort of “lookup” is commonly used by computer servers to sort out junk emails. The indictment states that Joffe tasked Lorenzen and two Georgia Tech researchers to “search broadly through Internet data for any information about Trump’s potential ties to Russia.” His announced goal was to support an “inference” and “narrative” regarding Trump that would please certain “VIPs.” But, despite their best efforts, they were unable to find any communications between Trump, his campaign, companies, or associates, and Russian interests. All they had was the virtually meaningless DNS data collected by Lorenzen which Joffe had already provided to Sussmann.

According to the indictment, “[o]n or about August 20, 2016,” Lorenzen emailed Joffe and the Georgia Tech researchers stating in regard to the DNS data that “even if we found what Joffe asks us to find, we don’t see the money flow, and we don’t see the content of some message saying, ‘send the money here.’” She then explained that it would be possible to “fill out a sales form on two websites, faking the other company’s email address in each form,” and thereby cause them “to appear to communicate with each other in DNS.” Lorenzen then concluded that, if Joffe “can take the *inference* [sic] we gain through this team exercise … then work to develop even an inference may be worthwhile…”

Joffe replied by email that the “task” he had given the group was “indeed broad” and then stated: “Being able to provide evidence of *anything* [sic] that shows an attempt to behave badly in relation to this, the VIPs would be happy. They’re looking for a true story that could be used as a basis for closer examination.”

Regarding the Alfa Bank allegations that he had provided to Sussmann, Joffe’s email stated: “[T]he prior hypothesis was all that they needed: [a] mail-server dedicated or related to [T]rump … and with traffic almost exclusively with” the Alfa Bank “was sufficient to do the job.” He continued, “Trump has claimed he and his compan[ies] have had NO dealings with .RU  [Russia] other than the failed Casino, and the Miss Universe pageant. He claims absolutely NO interaction with any financial institutions. So any potential like that would be the jackpot.” (Emphasis added.)

The next day, Joffe emailed Lorenzen and the Georgia Tech researchers urging them to “push forward” with additional research concerning Trump, which he stated would “give the base a very useful narrative.” He then expressed his belief that the “mail1.trump-email.com” domain was not a secret communications channel with the Alfa Bank, but a “red herring” noting that the host for the Trump domain “is a legitimate valid [customer relationship management] company.” He concluded that “we can ignore it, together with others that seem to be part of the marketing world.”

On August 22, 2016, one of the Georgia Tech researchers emailed the group expressing doubt about the Trump-Alfa Bank narrative that Sussmann was preparing to convey to the FBI and raised concerns about the group’s bias against Trump. Regarding the DNS data, he asked, “How do we plan to defend against the criticism that this is not spoofed traffic we are observing? There is no answer to that.” (Emphasis added.) Addressing Joffe, he wrote, “you do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag to even make a very weak association?”

“The only thing that drive[s] us at this point is that we just do not like [Trump]. This will not fly in the eyes of public scrutiny. Folks, I am afraid we have tunnel vision. Time to regroup. “Despite these expressed reservations and objections, Sussmann, Joffe, Lorenzen, and the Georgia Tech researchers began to draft, review, and revise a “white paper” summarizing the Alfa Bank allegations that Sussmann later provided to the FBI, the media, and the CIA.

Five days before Sussmann met with the FBI, Joffe sent Sussmann’s draft of the proposed “white paper” to Lorenzen and the Georgia Tech researchers and asked their views as to whether the paper’s allegations would be “plausible” to “security experts,” even if the allegations were not demonstrably true. “Please read as if you had no prior knowledge or involvement, and you were handed this document as a security expert (NOT a DNS expert) and were asked: ‘Is this plausible as an explanation?’ NOT to be able to say that this is, without doubt, fact, but to merely be plausible.”

One of the Georgia Tech researchers emailed that the white paper achieved Joffe’s objective by “smartly” avoiding discussions of weaknesses or “holes” in the paper’s hypothesis. “A DNS expert would poke several holes to [sic] this hypothesis (primarily around visibility, about which very smartly you do not talk about). That being said,, I do not think even the top security (non-DNS) researchers can refute your statements. Nice!”

In a September 15, 2016, email, Lorenzen stated that the white paper’s conclusion was “plausible” in the “narrow scope” defined by Joffe. The same day, one of the Georgia Tech researchers emailed that, although questions remained, the white paper should be shared with the government. The next day, in discussing the narrative Sussmann was to convey to the FBI, Lorenzen emailed that Joffe “has carefully crafted a message that could work to accomplish the goals.”

What was their purpose? The conspirators recognized that their Trump Organization–Alfa Bank narrative didn’t hold water and couldn’t withstand analysis by DNS data experts. But they believed it would be plausible enough to trick the FBI into investigating. That was the whole point. Once the FBI started an inquiry, the fact that Trump was being investigated by the government for possible ties to Russia would be leaked to the news media.

And it was this concocted narrative with the supporting “white papers” and other documentation that Sussmann foisted on the FBI and the CIA. In short, the conspirators’ alleged campaign dirty trick became a criminal matter once it was used to trick and deceive the government into wasting its time, energy, and resources investigating the hoax. Think of it in terms of making a false report of a crime to the local police.

And, given the locations where the various conspirators allegedly committed overt acts, Durham has his choice of venues in which charges can be brought. The CIA headquarters is located in the Eastern District of Virginia. Georgia Tech is in the Northern District of Georgia. The email traffic passed through facilities all over the United States. In short, the conspiracy charges can be brought in any number of locations that will be far more receptive to the prosecution’s case than the District of Columbia where persons affiliated with the Democrat party are a seemingly protected species.

The Steele Dossier

Durham’s indictment avers that Sussmann and his law firm, Perkins Coie, presented the Trump–Alfa Bank hoax to the FBI’s General Counsel, the CIA, and the media. But Sussmann didn’t stop there. Former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele has testified under oath that Sussmann told him about the alleged secret communications channel and the Alfa Bank’s purported ties to the Kremlin.

Steele, of course, is the author of the eponymous “Steele Dossier,” which the Obama-era FBI and Justice Department used to obtain FISA warrants to spy on members of the Trump presidential campaign. The dossier consists of 17 now-discredited reports written by Steele at various times, which collectively allege that Trump was subject to blackmail by the Kremlin and that his campaign operatives were conspiring with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

When he wrote those memoranda, Steele was working under contract with Fusion GPS, a private investigations firm that had been retained by Sussmann’s law firm, Perkins Coie, to do opposition research on Trump. Steele’s part of that mission was to investigate possible ties between Trump and Russia. On September 14, 2016, Steele issued “Company Intelligence Report 2016/112 – Russia/US Presidential Election: Kremlin-Alpha [sic] Group Co-Operation” (“Report 112”).

In Report 112, Steele stated that a “[t]op level Russian official confirms current closeness of Alpha [sic] Group-Putin relationship.” The memorandum names three “leading figures in the Alpha [sic] Group” who were on “very good terms with Putin” and that “[s]ignificant favours [sic] continue to be done in both directions.” It also names two of the individuals as “still giving informal advice to Putin, especially on the US.”

The report also stated that, in the 1990s, the named individuals arranged for delivery of “large amounts of illicit cash” to Putin when he was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. When the contents of Report 112 later became public, the named individuals vehemently denied the allegations and sued Steele for defamation. On March 17 and 18, 2020, he was deposed in London by plaintiffs’ counsel concerning the contents of his memorandum. And that’s where the story becomes very interesting.

In his deposition, Steele testified that, during a meeting on July 29, 2016, Sussmann told him about suspicious internet traffic between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. “I’m very clear that the first person that ever mentioned the Trump server issue, Alfa server issue, was Mr. Sussmann,” he testified.

In addition, he testified, “I was given the instruction sometime after that meeting by Mr. [Glenn] Simpson [of Fusion GPS]” to include Sussmann’s allegation as part of the dossier investigation. According to Steele, Simpson’s directive “was absolutely, definitely linked to the server issue.” He said that, based on Simpson’s instruction, he tasked a Russian source to gather information about the Alfa Bank. Steele also testified that Sussmann’s information about the internet traffic between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank was the impetus for his writing Report 112.

In addition to being deposed, Steele was interviewed by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) as part of its review of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. According to the OIG’s report, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to investigate, among other things, “whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump or his campaign. Steele’s work for Fusion GPS resulted in his producing numerous election-related reports.” With Fusion GPS’s authorization, he “directly provided more than a dozen of his reports to the FBI between July and October 2016, and several others to the FBI through [DOJ attorney Bruce] Ohr and other third parties.”

The OIG found that that the FBI used Steele’s information to obtain FISA warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of members of the Trump campaign. In its warrant applications, the FBI advised the court that “Steele was believed to be a reliable source for three reasons: his professional background; his history of work as an FBI CHS [confidential human source] since 2013; and his prior non-election reporting, which the FBI described as ‘corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.’”

Now hit the pause button and ask yourself: Why would Sussmann feed the Trump–Alfa Bank hoax to Steele? The obvious answer is that Steele had an established track record and credibility with the FBI. What better way to get the government to investigate the hoax than to feed it to the FBI through a trusted source?

And that was how Sussmann — when he met with Steele on July 29, 2016 — prepared the way for his September 19, 2016 meeting with the FBI’s General Counsel at which he presented the Trump–Alfa Bank smear. The OIG found that, on the same day that Sussmann met with the FBI’s General Counsel, the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team — which was investigating Trump and his campaign — received the first six of Steele’s reports, which he had supplied to his regular “handling” FBI agent months before.

As for the importance of Steele’s work, the OIG “determined that the Crossfire Hurricane’s team receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and [Justice] Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.”

But wait! There’s more!

The OIG report states that Steele played a “role in a September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article entitled, U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump advisor and Kremlin.”

The OIG also found that he was quoted anonymously in an October 31, 2016 Mother Jones article entitled “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump.”

Here are bits and pieces of the Mother Jones article (emphasis added):

• “And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending that the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump — and that the FBI requested more information from him.”
• “In June, the former Western intelligence officer — who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients -was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm…. According to his sources, he says, ‘there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.’”
• “In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank,the largest private bank in Russia.

The Mother Jones article is typical of the coverage that resulted from the media briefings by Steele and Fusion GPS. In that regard, OIG found that, in October 2016, Steele provided briefings to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the U.S. State Department. In each, Steele’s credibility as an experienced former British agent who worked Russian intelligence was a material factor.

In other words, when Sussmann used Steele to help spread the Trump–Alfa Bank hoax, it was — to borrow a quotation from The Godfather’s Michael Corleone — “the smart move.”

The Friends of Igor Danchenko

The Trump-Russia collusion hoax is the most successful and destructive partisan political scam in the history of our nation. Based on lies portraying Donald Trump as a covert Russian operative, it was cited by the Obama-era FBI and Justice Department as the putative justification for using the nation’s vast intelligence apparatus to investigate Trump and concomitantly benefit Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The underlying lies were compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele upon whose “dossier” the FBI based its FISA warrant applications to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page and, by extension, Trump and his presidential campaign. The Steele Dossier consists of 17 now-discredited reports which collectively allege that Trump was subject to blackmail by the Kremlin for bizarre sexual behavior in a Moscow hotel and that his campaign operatives were conspiring with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

When he wrote those reports, Steele was working under contract with Fusion GPS, a private investigations firm that had been retained by Marc Elias, legal counsel to the Clinton campaign, to do opposition research on Trump. Well after the 2016 election, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) reviewed the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

According to the OIG’s report, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to investigate, among other things, “whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump or his campaign. Steele’s work for Fusion GPS resulted in his producing numerous election-related reports.” With Fusion GPS’s authorization, he “directly provided more than a dozen of his reports to the FBI between July and October 2016, and several others to the FBI through [DOJ attorney Bruce] Ohr and other third parties.”

The OIG found that the FBI used Steele’s information to obtain FISA warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of Page. In its warrant applications, the FBI advised the court that “Steele was believed to be a reliable source for three reasons: his professional background; his history of work as an FBI CHS [confidential human source] since 2013; and his prior non-election reporting, which the FBI described as ‘corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.’”

In other words, the FBI averred under oath that, based on Steele’s credibility, derogatory information about Trump and his campaign warranted investigation by means of electronic surveillance. The OIG also found that, in October 2016, Steele provided briefings regarding his findings to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets. In each, Steele’s credibility as an experienced former British agent who worked Russian intelligence was a material factor in establishing the credibility of the Trump-Russia collusion smear. For example, according to the OIG, Steele was  quoted anonymously in an October 31, 2016 Mother Jones article entitled “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump.”

Here are two quotations from the Mother Jones article:

• “And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending that the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump — and that the FBI requested more information from him.”
• “In June, the former Western intelligence officer — who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients — was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm…. According to his sources, he says, ‘there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.’”

Mother Jones concluded that Steele was a “credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive and important information to the US government” who had presented the FBI with “troubling” evidence of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia. At the time that Mother Jones and the rest of the media were relying on Steele’s credibility, it had yet to be revealed that he was, in effect, being paid by the Clinton campaign. So it was that a willing and enthusiastic corporate media relied on Steele’s work product to spread the Trump-Russia collusion smear without raising any question regarding its author’s possible bias or self-interest.

In its assessment of Steele’s purported credibility and reliability, the OIG did fault the FBI for failing to verify the Steele Dossier’s unsubstantiated allegations that formed the basis of the Carter Page FISA applications. In this regard, the OIG found that Steele himself was not the originating source in any of his reporting. Instead, he had relied on a “Primary Sub-Source” for information and this Primary Sub-Source used a network of sub-sources to gather information that was relayed to Steele. Moreover, the FBI accepted and used Steele’s reporting even though he never disclosed the identity of his Primary Sub-Source.

Only after placing Carter Page under electronic surveillance did the FBI tardily identify and interview Steele’s Primary-Sub-Source. As you will see below, this individual is one Igor Danchenko who has been indicted for making false statements to the FBI.

The OIG found that, shortly after the FBI filed the first Carter Page FISA renewal, it conducted a series of interviews of Danchenko that “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting.” In a January 2017 interview, Danchenko told the FBI that he had not seen Steele’s reports until they became public, and that Steele had “misstated or exaggerated [Danchenko’s] statements in multiple sections of the reporting. For example, [Danchenko] told the FBI that, while [Steele’s] Report 80 stated that Trump’s alleged sexual activities at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow had been ‘confirmed’ by a senior, western staff member at the hotel, [Danchenko] explained that he reported to Steele that Trump’s alleged unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz Carlton hotel was ‘rumor and speculation’ and that he had not been able to confirm the story.”

According to the OIG, Danchenko also advised the FBI that he “never expected” Steele to put Danchenko’s “statements in reports or present them as facts.” Danchenko said that he “made it clear to Steele that he had no proof to support the statements from his sub-sources and that ‘it was just talk.’” Danchenko added that his information came from “word of mouth and hearsay” and conversation that he had with “friends over beers.” As for the allegations of Trump’s bizarre sexual activities, they were statements he heard made in “jest.”

Despite Danchenko’s devastating revelations, the FBI did not correct the record with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or amend its FISA applications. Nevertheless, the OIG concluded that the FBI had not acted with political bias. This conclusion prompted a blistering response from Attorney General William Barr. In a December 10, 2019 interview with NBC News, Barr offered a differing view when he said that the FBI may have acted in bad faith.

“I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,” Barr said. “I think there were gross abuses … and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI. I think that leaves open the possibility that there was bad faith.”

Recall that, in May 2019, Barr had appointed John Durham, the United States Attorney for Connecticut, to “investigate certain intelligence and law-enforcement activities surrounding the 2016 presidential election.” But, in a December 1, 2020, letter to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Barr wrote, “Although I had expected Mr. Durham to complete his work by the summer of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as additional information he uncovered, prevented him from doing so.

“In advance of the presidential election, I decided to appoint Mr. Durham as a Special Counsel to provide him and his team with the assurance that they could complete their work, without regard to the outcome of the election.”

Barr stated that, when he made the appointment on October 19, 2020, he issued a “scope order” providing that, as special counsel, Durham “is authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller.”

To date, Durham’s efforts have resulted in three indictments. The first was of lawyer Kevin Clinesmith who pled guilty and received probation for doctoring a CIA email the FBI used in 2017 when it applied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to renew its Carter Page FISA warrant.

The second indictment charged Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to the FBI’s General Counsel regarding information he presented that purportedly showed a secret channel of internet communications between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa Bank.

And now comes the third indictment which cuts to the heart of the Steele Dossier by charging Igor Danchenko with making false statements to the FBI about his so-called “sub-sources” of information that Steele incorporated in his dossier.

From 2005 through 2010, Danchenko worked at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. According to the 39-page indictment, Steele “relied primarily” on Danchenko to “collect the information that ultimately formed the core of the allegations found” in the dossier. From January through November 2017, in “its effort to determine the truth or falsity of specific information” in the Steele Dossier, the FBI interviewed Danchenko “regarding, among other things, the information that Danchenko had provided to” Steele. The indictment avers that Danchenko “stated falsely that he had never communicated with a particular U.S.-based individual — who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics and was then an executive at a U.S. public relations firm (“PR Executive-1”) — about any allegations contained in the” Steele Dossier.

So, who is “PR Executive -1”? The New York Times has confirmed that his name is Charles Dolan who is described in the indictment as having “served as (1) chairman of a national Democratic political organization, (2) state chairman of former President Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, and (3) an advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign.” Moreover, it alleges that President Clinton appointed Dolan to an advisory commission at the State Department and that Dolan had “actively campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of Hillary Clinton.”

According to the indictment, as a public relations professional, Dolan had “spent much of his career interacting with Eurasian clients with a particular focus on Russia.” The indictment identifies by monikers (such as “Russian Press Secretary-1” and “Russian Ambassador-1”) persons who would later appear in the Steele Dossier. The indictment alleges that on or about August 19, 2016, Danchenko and Dolan had the following email exchange:

Danchenko to Dolan: “Could you please ask someone to comment on [Paul Manafort’s] resignation [as Trump’s campaign manager] and anything on the Trump campaign? Off the record of course! Any thought, rumor, allegation. I am working on a  related project against Trump.

Dolan to Danchenko: “Let me dig around on [Manafort]. Pretty sure the new team wanted him gone asap and used today’s NYT story to drive a stake in his heart.” Four days later, Dolan emailed the following:

“Hi Igor: I had a drink with a GOP friend of mine who knows some of the players and got some of what is in this article, which provides even more detail. She also told me that [Campaign Staff Member-1], who  hates [Manafort] and still speaks to Trump regularly played a role. He is said to be doing a happy dance over it.

“I think the bottom line is that in addition to the Ukraine revelations, a number of people wanted [Manafort] gone. It is a very sharp elbows crowd.”

Later that day, Danchenko replied as follows: “Thank you for this. Any additional insights will be much appreciated. It is an important project for me, and our goals clearly coincide. I’ve been following the Russia trail in Trump’s campaign. It is there so what you read in the news is hardly an exaggeration. Some things are less dramatic while others are more than they seem.”

Dolan to Danchenko: “Thanks! I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.” According to the indictment, the above information “was substantially the same as the information contained in” Steele’s report two days later. But the indictment avers that Dolan “later acknowledged to the FBI that he never met with a ‘GOP friend’ in relation to information that he passed to Danchenko, but, rather, fabricated the fact of the meeting…” Dolan admitted that he had instead “obtained the information about [Manafort] from public news sources.” He also said that he was not aware “that Danchenko’s reporting would be provided to the FBI.”

The indictment sets forth many detailed averments regarding Dolan’s connections to people and events that appear in the Steele Dossier. Among others, it describes Dolan’s June 2016 stay at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel where he toured the presidential suite and met with the general manager and staff. This was the location at which Trump was alleged in the Steele Dossier to have engaged in what the indictment terms “salacious sexual activity”.

There is much more to discuss regarding the contents of the indictment. Suffice it to say for now that the thrust of the indictment appears to be that Danchenko lied to the FBI in order to protect Dolan. In doing so, he allegedly deprived the FBI of the ability to determine Dolan’s “reliability, motivations and potential bias” in providing information about Trump and his campaign.

Maybe Danchenko’s alleged lies hampered the FBI’s investigation of the Steele Dossier. But the question still  remains: was the FBI really interested in getting at the truth? Or did it, in the words of Attorney General Barr, act in bad faith to cover up its “gross abuses” and “intolerable” and “inexplicable behavior” in its investigation of Donald Trump, his presidential campaign and administration?

Igor Danchenko’s Wet Dream 

On January 6, 2017, FBI Director James Comey met privately with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower to purportedly give a “defensive briefing” regarding salacious allegations in the Steele Dossier about Trump and urinating prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

In his testimony before Congress, Comey stated that he briefed Trump about these allegations “because we had been told by the media it was about to launch. We didn’t want to be keeping that from him. He needed to know this was being said. I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him.”

Comey testified that he told Trump, “sir, we’re not personally investigating you.”

But that was a lie. As set forth in an August 2019 report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Comey’s private warning to Trump about the peeing prostitutes was calculated to elicit a telling reaction from Trump and have him reveal additional information about the alleged incident.

In his testimony before the OIG, Comey described his one-on-one meeting with Trump as follows:

… I then executed the session exactly as I had planned.… I said the Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes at the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow from about 2013.… I said I wasn’t saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook.

Comey’s briefing pertained to the Steele Dossier’s “Report 2016/080” dated June 20, 2016, that stated, in part, the following: Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB [Russian security service] has compromised Trump through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him. According to several knowledgeable sources, his conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB…

However, there were other aspects to Trump’s engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit Trump’s personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable ‘komprommat’ (compromising material) on him. According  to Source D, where s/he had been present, Trump’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs Obama (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a “golden showers” (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed camaras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to. (Emphasis added)

The report described “Source D” as a “close associate of Trump.” As with the rest of his dossier, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele based this report primarily on the word of Russian national Igor Danchenko, a Georgetown University graduate who worked at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Steele compiled and wrote the dossier pursuant to his contract with FusionGPS which was being paid by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to conduct opposition research against Trump.

The Steele Dossier also contained the following undated report: Speaking in confidence to a compatriot in late July 2016, Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump, admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the Trump side by the Republican candidate’s campaign manager [Paul Manafort]. Who was using foreign policy advisor [Carter Page] and others as intermediaries. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom President Putin apparently both hated and feared.” (Emphasis added)

The Steele Dossier was at the core of the Clinton campaign’s smear of Trump as a Russian asset and was the basis for the FBI’s applications for FISA warrants to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

In its December 2019 report on the FBI’s Carter Page FISA warrants, the OIG found that, shortly after the FBI filed the first FISA renewal, it conducted a series of interviews of Danchenko that “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting.”

In January 2017 — around the time of Comey’s fake “defensive briefing” of Trump — the FBI interviewed Danchenko over a three-day period. At that time, he told the FBI that he had not seen Steele’s reports until they became public and that Steele had “misstated or exaggerated [Danchenko’s] statements in multiple sections of the reporting. For example, [Danchenko] told the FBI that, while [Steele’s Report 2016/080] stated that Trump’s alleged sexual activities at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow had been ‘confirmed’ by a senior, western staff member at the hotel, [Danchenko] explained that he reported to Steele that Trump’s alleged unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz Carlton hotel was ‘rumor and speculation’ and that he had not been able to confirm the story.” (Emphasis added)

According to the OIG, Danchenko also advised the FBI that he “never expected” Steele to put Danchenko’s “statements in reports or present them as facts.” Danchenko said that he “made it clear to Steele that he had no proof to support the statements from his sub-sources and that ‘it was just talk.’”

Danchenko added that his information came from “word of mouth and hearsay” and conversation that he had with “friends over beers.” As for the allegations of Trump’s bizarre sexual activities, they were statements he heard made in “jest.” But who was “Source D” who purportedly witnessed the Moscow “golden shower” show? And who was “Source E” who purportedly told about the “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between Trump and the Kremlin? And what, if anything, did they actually tell Danchenko?

The answers to those questions are to be found in the recent 39-page indictment of Danchenko on five counts of making false statements to the FBI. The product of Special Counsel John Durham’s federal grand jury investigation, the indictment cites the undated report about the Trump-Russia conspiracy attributed to “Source E” which, according to the indictment, ultimately underpinned the Carter Page FISA applications.

The indictment describes Source E as “a New York-based real estate broker … [who] previously served as president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce” and had “occasion to work on real estate projects with Trump and staff at the Trump Organization.” This description fits in all respects one Sergei Millian, who is designated in the indictment as “Chamber President-1.”

The indictment avers that, when the FBI interviewed Danchenko in January 2017, he said that, “in or around July 2016, he received a phone call from an unidentified individual who he believed to be Chamber President-1 [Millian].” He told the FBI that they “spoke for approximately 10 to 15 minutes” during which the unidentified caller said that “there was communication between the Trump campaign and Russian officials” but there was “nothing bad” about it. He added that “the Kremlin might be of help to get Trump elected.”

Danchenko claimed that, as they spoke, he and the anonymous caller he believed to be Millian made arrangements to meet in New York. According to the indictment, in September 2017, the FBI interviewed Christopher Steele for two days at which time he said that Danchenko had met “in-person with Chamber President-1 [Millian] on two or three separate occasions — at least once in New York and perhaps once in Charleston, South Carolina.”

Steele also told the FBI that “Source D,” who reportedly witnessed the Moscow pee show, “was Chamber President-1 [Millian].” The indictment avers that in FBI interviews in March, May, October, and November 2017, Danchenko repeated his prior statements regarding the anonymous phone call and planned meeting in New York.

In his March interview, which was secretly recorded by the FBI, he said that he received the anonymous call from someone he believed was “probably” Millian and said that he had to determine whether Millian was “the person who contacted me … and I probably spoke with him, but I don’t know.”

In his May interview, which was also secretly recorded, an agent reminded Danchenko that he had previously told the FBI that he “got the call from up in New York that you thought was [Millian].” Danchenko replied, “I’m not sure if I, he called, but … I just don’t remember. But I, I was at the time I was under the impression it was him … and I assumed it would have been him.… He never showed up in New York.”

In his secretly recorded October interview, Danchenko changed his story when he stated “I believe I spoke to Millian on the phone a couple of times, at least someone who I thought was him.” He added, “I scheduled a meet time and place in New York [and Millian] never showed. And that’s it. According to Danchenko, his contact with Millian — the purported witness to the Moscow pee show and source of the Trump-Russia collusion story — was limited to one or possibly two mysterious, anonymous phone calls of no material substance with someone whose identity he never established.

But, as non-existent as that sourcing may be, it gets even worse. The grand jury has charged Danchenko with lying to the FBI about the anonymous contact. Why? Because, according to the indictment, Danchenko’s contemporaneous emails conclusively establish that he never had any phone conversation with Millian. It was all a lie.

But let’s pause and look with wonder at what Danchenko managed to accomplish as Steele’s primary sub-source. Taking Danchenko at his dubious word, the Steele Dossier’s information about the Moscow pee tapes and the purported collusion between Trump and the Russians were based on “rumor and speculation,” “word of mouth and hearsay,” “jest,” and his weird anonymous phone call or calls from somebody who he “assumed” or “thought” was “probably” Trump ally Sergei Millian.

So it was that the Steele Dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and based primarily on the word of Igor Danchenko, became the basis for the FBI’s investigation of Trump and the media jihad against him. It also helped to fuel congressional investigations and an impeachment or two, as well as bitterly divide the nation. All of this while Comey’s FBI kept under hermetic seal the truth that would have debunked the dossier, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of Hillary Clinton sycophants averted their gaze from that truth while doing their best to snare Trump and his associates in perjury traps.

For setting all of that in motion, Igor Danchenko deserves a lifetime achievement award from the Democratic National Committee and a guest commentator spot on MSNBC.

The Explosive Motion

When Donald Trump claimed that he and his campaign had been spied upon by Democrat operatives, the corporate media mocked him as either a delusional paranoid or an outright liar. But now, thanks to the latest court filing by Special Counsel John Durham, it appears that once again Trump has been proven right. In the case of United States v. Michael Sussmann,  Durham has filed a motion to inquire into defense counsel’s possible conflicts of interest in which he states that his office possesses evidence proving that, while attempting to establish a false narrative tying Trump to Russia, Sussmann and others serving Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign “exploited” Internet traffic pertaining to “Trump Tower,” “Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building,” and “the Executive Office of the President of the United States (‘EOP’).” As stated in the indictment, Sussmann, a partner at the law firm which represented the Clinton campaign, worked in concert with others to concoct a false but “plausible” narrative that the “Trump Organization, owned by Donald J. Trump” was using a “secret channel of communications” to interact with “a particular Russian bank,” i.e., the Alfa Bank.

University researchers doing cybersecurity work under government contract and the company paid to maintain the White House’s servers conspired with the Clinton campaign to spy on the President of the United States.

Sussmann is accused of making a false statement to FBI General Counsel James Baker in a September 19, 2016 meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington. At that meeting, Sussmann is alleged to have presented a so-called “white paper,” “documents,” and “data,” which purported to show secret internet communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank as well as a “white paper” by Fusion GPS (an investigative firm working for the Clinton campaign) alleging Alfa Bank’s ties to the Kremlin. In doing so, Sussmann is alleged to have lied to Baker when he said that he was not providing the material on behalf of a client when, according to the recently filed motion, he “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including (i) a technology executive (‘Tech Executive -1’) at a U.S.-based Internet company (‘Internet Company-1’), and (ii) the Clinton campaign.” As the indictment makes clear, the purpose of the meeting was to induce the FBI to launch an investigation of Trump’s possible ties to Russia. While the conspirators expressed doubts that their false narrative would survive serious scrutiny, they believed that it would be “plausible” enough to get the FBI to open an investigation of Trump. Once that happened, word of the investigation would be (and, in fact, was) disseminated to the news media in time to produce an electoral backlash against Trump. But, even more damning, the indictment alleges that Sussmann met with employees of another U.S. government agency (“Agency-2”) “at a location outside the District of Columbia” after Trump had been inaugurated. This meeting took place on or about February 9, 2017, at which time “Sussmann provided to the Agency-2 Employees (i) several white papers, and (ii) multiple data files containing purported DNS [Internet] data, ranging from 2016 through early 2017.” According to the motion, Sussmann told the Agency-2 employees that “he was not representing a particular client in conveying the above allegations” when, in truth, he “was representing Tech Exceutive-1 — a fact the defendant subsequently acknowledged under oath” before Congress. The motion also states that Sussmann provided Agency-2 with data  which he claimed reflected Internet traffic between Trump Tower, Trump’s New York City apartment and the Executive Office of the President with “internet protocol (‘IP’) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider (‘Russian Phone Provider-1’).” Sussmann claimed that the data demonstrated that “Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” According to the indictment, by virtue of his position at Internet Company-1 and other internet companies, Tech Executive-1 had access to “large amounts of internet and cybersecurity data” including so-called Domain Name System (“DNS”) data. He claimed to have been offered a position in the government in the event Hillary Clinton won the Presidency and stated in an after the election email, “I was tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they’d win. I definitely would not take the job under Trump.” Durham’s motion states that, in trying to establish a tie between Trump and the Russians, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was “seeking to please certain ‘VIPS’, referring to individuals at [Sussmann’s law firm] and the Clinton Campaign.” In doing so, he “exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data” and “enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.” The motion further states that Tech Executive-1’s employer, Internet Company-1, “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP. Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.” Did you get that? These are  your tax dollars at work. University researchers doing cybersecurity work under government contract and the company paid to maintain the White House’s servers conspired with the Clinton campaign to spy on the President of the United States. By comparison, the Watergate burglary was just good-natured  juvenile horseplay. But what about the information fed by Sussmann to Agency-2? Did it, in fact, establish a link between Trump and Russia? According to the motion, the Special Counsel’s Office has found “no support” for Sussmann’s allegations that the data reflected “purportedly suspicious DNS lookups” by Trump Tower, Trump’s apartment building and the EOP with Russian Phone Provider-1’s IP address or that the data demonstrated that  “Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” To the contrary, the motion damningly states that “the more complete data that Tech Executive-1 and his associates gathered — but did not provide to Agency-2 — reflected that between approximately 2014 and 2017, there were a total of more than 3 million lookups of Russian Phone-Provider-1 IP addresses that originated with U.S.-based IP addresses. Fewer than 1,000 of these lookups originated with IP addresses affiliated with Trump Tower.” (Emphasis added) But the deception didn’t end there. The motion states that “the more complete data assembled by Tech Executive-1 and his associates reflected that DNS lookups involving the EOP and Russian Phone Provider-1 began as early as 2014 (i.e., during the Obama administration and years before Trump took office) — another fact which [Sussmann’s] allegations omitted.” (Emphasis added.) So there you have it. Durham is forging ahead and the hole is deepening for Sussmann, Tech Executive-1, and their co-conspirators. Were the “proprietary” internet and cybersecurity data exploited by the conspirators classified material? Have they violated national security laws? But, even if the data weren’t classified, how can the conspirators hope to legally justify using their officially sanctioned access to such material and White House servers for such blatantly political, fraudulent, and subversive purposes? The handwriting is on the wall. It’s no longer a question of whether there will be further charges. The only questions remaining are when and who will be next to take the fall?

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who blogs at knowledegeisgood.net. He may be reached by email at kignet1@gmail.com. 

Reprint of a series from American Spectator https://knowledgeisgood.net/

Addendum:

Office of Instpector General Report

The Steele Dossier

The Michael Sussmann indictment document

VIPS investigative report of the DNC/Podesta hacked emails

“The Nation” article – “A Leak or a Hack?”