'The FBI might have taken any number of different steps'

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U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who promoted the false Russia collusion conspiracy theory (Video screenshot)

What if the powers that be in the FBI and other agencies had known and recognized at the outset that the "Russiagate" conspiracy theory about President Trump was a political scheme, that it was funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign and it essentially was made up?

There likely would have been a different course for the United States, according to a new court filing from special counsel John Durham, who was tasked with uncovering the origins – and crimes – connected to the now-debunked rumors circulated during the administration of Barack Obama, and after, about Trump.

According to a new court filing obtained by Just the News, Durham assessed the situation in the filing.

"Had the defendant truthfully informed the FBI General Counsel that he was providing the information on behalf of one or more clients, as opposed to merely acting as a 'good citizen,' the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel might have asked a multitude of additional questions material to the case initiation process," Durham wrote in the filing.

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"Given the temporal proximity to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the FBI also might have taken any number of different steps in initiating, delaying, or declining the initiation of this matter had it known at the time that the defendant was providing information on behalf of the Clinton campaign and a technology executive at a private company," he added.

Durham has been investigating, and working with a grand jury, for many months now. He's already obtained one conviction, from an FBI lawyer who admitted lying about evidence to make things look bad for President Trump.

Two others have been accused of lying, and the comments addressed the charges against Michael Sussman, who brought to the attention of federal investigators claims about Trump, as candidate and then president, and claimed he was doing so as a private citizen concerned about evidence he heard.

However, Sussman in fact reportedly was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign at the time.

Just the News reported, "It was an allegation that dogged Donald Trump for three years: a claim the Republican nominee-turned-president had a secret backdoor communications channel with the Kremlin. Repeated endlessly by the liberal media, the allegation was never true."

Sussman is facing a lying charge for claiming he was not working on behalf of any clients at the time – when he delivered to James Baker, then the general counsel for the FBI – wild claims about Trump's purported links to the Kremlin.

"Sussmann recently asked the judge in his case to dismiss a charge of lying to the FBI, arguing his alleged false statement to the FBI was not material to the case and was protected by the First Amendment," Just the News reported.

Now Durham has released a rebuke to Sussmann's demands.

"Far from finding himself in the vulnerable position of an ordinary person whose speech is likely to be chilled, the defendant — a sophisticated and well-connected lawyer — chose to bring politically charged allegations to the FBI's chief legal officer at the height of an election season," Durham explained to the court.

"He then chose to lie about the clients who were behind those allegations. Using such rare access to the halls of power for the purposes of political deceit is hardly the type of speech that the Founders intended to protect. The Court should therefore reject defendant's invitation to expand the scope of the First Amendment to protect such conduct."

He said at a trial he could deliver testimony from FBI and government witnesses that Sussman's false statement was, in fact, material and relevant and even could have influenced the course of the "Russia collusion" claims.

In fact, the material in the case created by Democrats against Trump was assembled using their own Russian sources – and is now suspected of being the product, at least partly, of Russia disinformation.

According to Just the News, Durham explained, "The expected testimony of multiple government witnesses will refute the defendant's argument that the defendant's false statement was immaterial. As noted above, the government expects that current and former FBI employees will testify at trial that understanding the origins of data and information is relevant to the FBI in multiple ways, including to assess the reliability and motivations of the source.

"None of this is novel. An evaluation of a source can (and often does) influence the FBI's decisions regarding its initial opening decisions and subsequent investigative steps. That alone is sufficient to establish materiality."

WND has documented that dozens of senators have told the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, not to interfere with Durham's work.

Warning that Durham's investigation is revealing "highly concerning, and potentially criminal, manipulation and exploitation of federal law enforcement resources," 46 GOP senators have written to Garland insisting he respect the independence of Durham's work.

The warning comes as legacy media outlets have turned from ignoring the newest court filings that suggest Hillary Clinton hired cyberspies to infiltrate the computer servers at Trump Tower, and the White House after Trump took office, and now are claiming that those statements are lies.

Sussman was, in fact, Clinton's campaign lawyer, and Durham has alleged there were campaign links to a tech company hired to "mine" Trump servers "for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump."

That conspiracy theory by Democrats, highlighted by the infamous Steele dossier of unfounded claims against Trump, triggered an earlier special counsel investigation by former FBI chief Robert Mueller, who spent years looking into the evidence and found no support for the Russiagate claims.

Previous evidence has revealed that Obama was, at one point, briefed on a plan by Clinton, then a presidential candidate, to spin up the Russiagate falsehoods against Trump in order to distract American voters from her own scandal raging at the time – her use of an unsecured email system for national security secrets, including those that were classified.

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https://www.wnd.com/2022/03/durham-lies-trump-directed-russiagate-probe/