Igor Danchenko, a former Brookings Institution employee and one-time suspected Russian spy, has been acquitted of four charges of lying to the FBI about his sources for the fraudulent Steele Dossier. The ragtag collection of memos, fabulist brainstorming, and fake news about peeing Russian hookers was used to frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset.
The report caused great division among the Republicans in the 2016 election. It teed up the years-long Mueller investigation, which was more about dirtying up Trump for the 2020 election than seeking the truth. Evidence and testimony in Danchenko’s trial make plain how the Russian collusion investigation was more cover-up than investigation. Hillary Clinton’s campaign got the Trump-is-a-Russian-spy fake news rolling, but it bears noting that she was the one relying on Russian assets to do her dirty work.
This case likely ends the active special counsel investigation into the origins of the fake Russia collusion narrative seized upon by its authors and disseminators: anti-Trump apparatchiks in the FBI, the CIA, the Democrat Party, and their willing handmaidens in the Fourth Estate. Special counsel John Durham is widely expected to put all of his findings — and they are damning — into a report whose ending likely was punctuated by Tuesday’s verdict.
The Virginia jury returned not-guilty verdicts in the four-count indictment of giving materially false information to the FBI about the sources of the bogus dossier after getting the case late Monday.
Don’t be misled. Durham used what he believed were the best legal arguments available to him to highlight the obvious attempt by the FBI to pursue a case it knew was bogus, while simultaneously keeping the veneer of protecting that thoroughly discredited institution.
In closing arguments on Monday, the special counsel posed “possible options on the FBI’s botching of the Trump-Russia investigation, rhetorically asking if the FBI was ‘simply incompetent,’ ‘working in coordination,’ ‘or whatever,'” according to the Washington Examiner.
The question then becomes: if you lied to the FBI, but the FBI didn’t care enough to thoroughly investigate what you lied about, do they really count as genuine lies or just lies that FBI political hacks didn’t care about?
Related: Durham Is Nearly Done and the FBI Has Some Explaining to Do About the Russia Collusion Scam
The Sussmann and Danchenko jury acquittals answer this question.
Jurors were not asked to find if the FBI and its “investigation” into “Russia! Russia! Russia!” was “incompetent” or “working in coordination” with its paid-for liars and Democrat Party. That answer appears to be clear. Is it actionable? Apparently not.
During Monday's closing arguments, both sides — especially Special Counsel John #Durham — ripped the FBI, urged jury to overlook things the agency did and didn't do in #CrossfireHurricane. https://t.co/VfJVaLD2H1
— John Haughey (@JFHaughey58) October 18, 2022
The leftist media that framed Trump as a Russian asset at the behest of the FBI, DNC, Hillary Clinton attorneys, the Obama Administration, dossier collector Christopher Steele, and others will use Durham’s one-for-three trial record as a reason to send the Russian collusion information operation to the old dustbin of history.
But after Durham’s failures to make his case in Danchenko and Sussmann’s trials, the onerous problems with America’s intelligence agencies will need a political answer, including cleaning house. Especially at the top.
In the 1970s, the Church Senate Committee culled through FBI abuses of old, including COINTELPRO, spying on anti-Vietnam War activists, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Out of that committee came some changes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which lying FBI agents badly abused in the Russian collusion case. This oversight may be the purview of a committee established by the Church Committee, the permanent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
I’ll write about that soon.
Related: Durham Trial: ‘Salacious and Unverified’ Trump-Russia Dossier Story Too Juicy for FBI to Check
In the meantime, know that Durham’s quest was to discover the origins of the Russia collusion lies and seek prosecutions where he found illegalities. Let’s hope he writes that report before the 2024 election.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member