Republican senators are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to allow John Durham to continue his investigation after the special counsel put forward allegations that information was mined at Trump properties and the White House and used to weave a phony Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
The senators called upon Garland to write back with assurances that Durham would be allowed to continue his work, saying the special counsel’s findings already “include the highly concerning, and potentially criminal, manipulation and exploitation of federal law enforcement resources to target American citizens, including a presidential candidate, based upon fabricated evidence that had been procured and disseminated by individuals closely connected with a rival political campaign.”
“We write to seek your assurance that you will continue to respect the prosecutorial independence of Special Counsel John Durham and his staff, while also ensuring he is provided all resources necessary to fully, thoroughly, and completely pursue the investigation for which he was appointed,” the letter signed by every Republican senator except Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bill Cassidy read.
Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of concealing his clients, including Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, from the FBI when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Sussmann has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty. Durham revealed last week that he has evidence showing that Sussmann’s other client, known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe, “exploited” domain name system internet traffic at Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President.
“We hope you agree that those responsible for that manipulation and exploitation must be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by Special Counsel Durham,” the GOP senators said Friday. “We further expect you will support his important work until all those responsible for the fraud committed upon the American people are brought to justice.”
SUSSMANN USES ARGUMENTS FROM STRZOK TO TRY TO DODGE DURHAM CHARGES
Garland testified before the Senate in October and seemed to indicate Durham would be allowed to continue his inquiry.
“We’re now in a new fiscal year, and as everyone knows, Mr. Durham is continuing. So I think you can readily assume that his budget has been approved,” Garland said at the time, adding that “you would know if he weren’t continuing to do his work.”
Durham’s Friday filing pointed to the 2021 indictment of Sussmann, charging that Joffe “exploited his access to nonpublic and/or proprietary internet data” and tasked researchers to mine internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying Trump to Russia. Durham said Joffe indicated he was doing this to please certain Clinton campaign “VIPs.”
The special counsel said Sussmann claimed to the CIA in 2017 that the data he had access to “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.” Durham emphasized that he found “no support for these allegations.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also said to Garland Wednesday that “the Clinton Campaign’s criminal enterprise also includes many individuals currently serving in the Biden Administration” — allegedly including Garland’s own office. The senator said the indictment “implicates” former Clinton campaign adviser and current Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, whose wife, Margaret Goodlander, is Garland’s counsel.
“I am calling on you to set a clear example and instruct Ms. Goodlander, and all of your other employees potentially implicated in the Clinton Campaign, to formally recuse from the Special Counsel’s investigation,” Hawley said.
There’s no question that the Clinton campaign sought to use the groundless claim Trump was communicating with the Russian bank to discredit its political opponent.
“Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank,” Clinton tweeted on Halloween in 2016.
“This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan said, adding, “We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection.”
But DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in his December 2019 report that the FBI “concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links.” Sullivan continued to push the Alfa Bank claims in 2017.
Garland revealed in October that Susan Hennessey, a DOJ National Security Division official who criticized Durham’s special counsel investigation before joining the Justice Department, has “nothing whatsoever to do with” the inquiry.
Also this week, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson called upon Garland to declassify Trump-Russia documents.
“We remain concerned that over one year from the date then-President Trump directed the Justice Department to declassify certain Crossfire Hurricane records the Justice Department has not only failed to declassify a single page, the Department has failed to identify for Congress records that it knows with certainty to be covered by the declassification directive,” they said in a letter to Garland.
The presidential memo from Trump said he had “determined that the materials should be declassified to the maximum extent possible.” Trump said in January 2021 that he would “accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI” and ordered the rest of the documents to be declassified and made available by the Justice Department.
Trump had previously called for all of the Russia investigation documents to be made public.
“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” Trump tweeted in October 2020, adding that “all Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago.”
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But following a federal court order, Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows told a judge that month that the president’s tweets were not declassification orders.
Grassley said in December that the Biden DOJ’s intransigence on declassifying Trump-Russia records was akin to Garland saying, “Screw you, senators.”
