John Durham is slated to testify before the GOP-led House in both a public hearing and behind closed doors in June, addressing his special counsel investigation into the Trump-Russia investigators and the findings of his bombshell report.
Durham will testify in a public hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee, which is led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), on June 21, GOP congressional staffer Russell Dye told the Washington Examiner, and the special counsel will also speak behind closed doors with the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the day prior on June 20.
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Durham’s report revealed that evidence of Trump-Russia collusion never materialized and that British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier was linked to Russian sources. It also concluded that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign played an outsize role in pushing such collusion claims to the media and the FBI.
Jordan formally invited Durham to testify before his committee the day the special counsel’s report was released.
The House Judiciary Committee tweeted the day the Durham report was released that “they all lied to us” in reference to fired FBI Director James Comey, fired FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, key figures in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as well as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who pushed baseless claims of Trump-Russia collusion and read portions of Steele’s discredited dossier into the congressional record in early 2017.
“The Durham Report revealed that the FBI dropped four criminal probes into the Clintons, but had no problem at all pushing a fake dossier to take down Trump,” Jordan tweeted last week. “What happened to equal justice under the law?”
Durham’s report revealed that then-vice president and now-President Joe Biden was briefed in the summer of 2016 by former CIA Director John Brennan about an alleged plan by Clinton to tie former President Donald Trump to Russia to distract from her own use of an illicit private email server while secretary of state.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, referred to it as “the discredited Durham report” and to the special counsel as “the discredited Mr. Durham” during a House hearing last week.
Durham will speak with the House Intelligence Committee in private the day before he is questioned by Jordan and Nadler.
“The report confirms that FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded critical protections established to protect the American people from unlawful surveillance,” Turner said in a statement the day after the Durham report was released. “Such actions should never have occurred, and it is essential that Congress codifies clear guardrails that prevent future FBI abuses and restores the public’s trust in our law enforcement institutions.”
There have also been hints of frustration with Durham’s investigation by Republicans, too.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to Durham, noting that “it seems odd that individuals would be allowed to avoid fully cooperating with your office, particularly given your authority to compel testimony and records.”
The GOP letter specifically pointed to the refusal by Comey, Strzok, fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, former assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, convicted ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to either fully cooperate with Durham or to even cooperate at all.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed in 2017 to investigate claims of Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election between Trump and Clinton. Mueller “did not establish” any criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. His congressional appearances in the summer of 2019 disappointed Democrats and were widely panned by Republicans.
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“We conducted an extensive investigation over two years. In writing the report, we stated the results of our investigation with precision. We scrutinized every word,” Mueller said. “I do not intend to summarize or describe the results of our work in a different way in the course of my testimony today. As I said on May 29: The report is my testimony. And I will stay within that text.”
Durham was appointed by former Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to investigate the origin of the FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia collusion claims. Durham’s final report did not recommend any new criminal prosecutions.
