Special Counsel John Durham’s report details his investigation of a purported effort by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign to tie Donald Trump to Russia – and Durham concluded that it “did not, all things considered, amount to a provable criminal offense.”ĭurham reveals in a footnote that he interviewed Clinton in May 2022 as part of the probe. At closing arguments during one of last year’s trials, Durham told jurors that “the FBI failed” on many occasions. Other FBI officials described rookie mistakes that undercut the bureau’s brief inquiry into a possible Trump-Russia internet backchannel. Witness testimony exposed the FBI’s overreliance on the dossier as it sought court approval to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016. He suggested that if the FBI had taken those steps, it would have found that US intelligence agencies did not have any evidence tying Trump to Russian leadership officials.įBI failed to corroborate Steele dossier allegations: The report is critical of the Steele dossier, the explosive document that had been used by the FBI to bolster its case for probable cause to secure surveillance warrants against a former Trump campaign adviser.Ĭrossfire Hurricane investigation “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” contained in the controversial Steele dossier, which was used by the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant, Durham found. That finding was at the core of Durham’s most scathing criticism of the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation.ĭurham knocked the FBI for failing to take several steps before launching the Trump campaign investigations, such as interviewing relevant witnesses, reviewing its own intelligence databases or using “any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.” The Durham report, however, relies on many public findings - including problems with the investigation that were detailed in a 2019 investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz - to question the bureau’s decision to open a full investigation, one the watchdog found to be legal and unbiased.Īnd while Durham acknowledges the FBI did have reason to open a preliminary review or investigation, he accuses the bureau of failing to uphold its “important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”Ĭlaims FBI had no real evidence of collusion before launching probe: Durham concluded that federal investigators did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia before launching a yearslong probe into the matter. Here are t he takeaways from the special counsel’s report :ĭurham finds FBI rushed to investigate Trump: The special counsel’s office “conducted more than 480 interviews,” and “obtained and reviewed more than one million documents consisting of more than six million pages,” while also issuing 190 grand jury subpoenas, according to the report. They also say Danchenko lied when he told the FBI he never “talked” with a man named Charles Dolan about the allegations contained in the dossier.ĭefense lawyers say that Danchenko did receive a call, perhaps over an internet app, from someone he genuinely believed to be Millian, and that he was truthful when he said he never “talked” with Dolan about the information in the dossier because their relevant exchanges were over email.Special counsel John Durham released his final report on Monday in which he casts doubt about the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Prosecutors say Danchenko never spoke with Millian and that phone records show he never received an anonymous phone call at the time Danchenko claimed it occurred. In the Danchenko trial, prosecutors say he lied when he told the FBI he obtained some of his information during an anonymous phone call from a man he believed to be Millian, a former head of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. It is the first of Durham’s cases that delves deeply into the origins of the dossier, which Trump derided as fake news and a political witch hunt.ĭurham’s other two cases resulted in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation. Danchenko is the third person to be prosecuted by Durham. And that was putting pressure on Danchenko,” Helson said.ĭanchenko is being prosecuted by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate any misconduct in the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and its alleged ties to Russia. “Steele was really trying to prove it (the dossier), even during that time period, because he wanted it to be true.
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