Andy McCarthy over at National review says he now thinks Durham's case goes much deeper

quote:

---

There is a long game and a short game going on in special counsel John Durham’s indictment of Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann on a false-statements count.

The short of it is this: A false statement was allegedly made by Sussmann to the FBI’s then-general counsel, James Baker, on September 19, 2016. In federal law, the false-statement crime has a five-year statute of limitations, meaning it had to be charged by this Sunday (September 19, 2021). Consequently, even if Durham would probably have preferred to wait until his full investigation was concluded before filing indictments, by delaying beyond Sunday, he would have lost what appears to be an eminently provable felony charge. If he was going to indict Sussmann on this conduct, it was now or never.

Now, more critically, the long game.

It is unusual for a one-count false-statement charge, which can be alleged in a paragraph, to be presented as a 27-page speaking indictment. But Durham wrote a highly detailed account of the facts and circumstances surrounding the false-statements charge. It is significant in that it tells us far more about his investigation.

---

quote:

---

Here is where the prosecutor appears to be going: The Trump–Russia collusion narrative was essentially a fabrication of the Clinton campaign that was peddled to the FBI (among other government agencies) and to the media by agents of the Clinton campaign — particularly, its lawyers at Perkins Coie — who concealed the fact that they were quite intentionally working on the campaign’s behalf, and that they did not actually believe there was much, if anything, to the collusion narrative. It was serviceable as political dirt but would not amount to anything real for criminal or national-security purposes.

---

quote:

---

What Durham describes in the indictment will confirm many people in their most cynical perceptions of a sinister Washington deep state. Tech Executive-1 owned Internet companies that offered Domain Name Service “resolution services.” The indictment explains that these involve the lucrative business of translating recognizable Internet domain names (e.g., LINK to numerical IP addresses (e.g. 123.456.7.89.). These private companies have arrangements with the government that provide them with access to a great deal of nonpublic information about Internet traffic.

The government provides this privileged access because the companies are supposed to help with cybersecurity. But Tech Executive-1 and Perkins Coie are said to have exploited this access for political purposes.

---

quote:

---

In a nutshell, then, people closely connected to the Clinton campaign use privileged access to nonpublic information for political purposes. They concoct it into a political narrative that they know is baseless but can be convincingly spun to suggest Trump is in cahoots with Putin. They then simultaneously peddle that story line to the media and the FBI — the latter of which opens an investigation of Trump because the Clinton team, in this instance Sussmann, misrepresents its intentions. Sussmann was supposedly bringing this alarming “evidence” to the FBI not for political purposes but because he and his associates were well-meaning citizens concerned about national security. Naturally in this cozy world, Sussmann is a former Department of Justice cybersecurity official who traded on his long-standing professional relationship with Baker, the Bureau’s lawyer.

---

quote:

---

There is one last thing that I find interesting but that is not in the indictment. Among the many risible aspects of the Steele dossier is that Steele, the great Russia expert, obviously doesn’t know much about Alfa Bank . . . which he repeatedly misspells as “Alpha” Bank. One of Steele’s “intelligence reports” from September 2016 makes extravagant claims about connections and favors exchanged between the owners of Alfa Bank and Putin. Consequently, the owners sued Steele for libel in London.

In British court, Steele was deposed. He related that he didn’t know about any Alfa Bank–Trump connection. So why put it in the dossier? Well, he was told about the alleged corrupt Alfa Bank–Trump tie by . . . wait for it . . . yes . . . Michael Sussmann.

---

quote:

---

So, the Clinton lawyers at Perkins Coie give information to Steele, who folds it into the collusion tall tale he presses on the FBI, without telling the Bureau that he’s working for the Clinton campaign (through his cut-outs, Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS). Simultaneously, the Clinton lawyers are getting suspect information from a cyber-exec client who is hoping for a big job in the anticipated Clinton administration, and one of the lawyers — Sussmann — presses it on the FBI while allegedly lying in order to conceal that he’s actually working for both the Clinton campaign and the selfsame cyber exec who’s hoping for a job in the Clinton administration.

---

quote:

---

Meantime, having orchestrated the creation of all this smoke, the Clinton campaign exploits it to tell the media and the American people, “See, Trump is a Kremlin mole!”

I suddenly think the eventual Durham report could be very interesting reading.

---