Glenn Simpson (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)

Back in May, we reported on the fight brewing in a DC federal court, where Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson were trying to keep secret their internal correspondence and records relating to their role in pushing the Alfa Bank/Trump hoax. New court filings indicate Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson improperly failed to disclose some of their most damning e-mails.

Overview

For background, the fight arises out of a lawsuit – Fridman, et al. (Alfa Bank) v. Bean LLC a/k/a Fusion GPS, and Glenn Simpson, where the owners of Alfa Bank have sued Fusion GPS and Simpson for falsely accusing “the Plaintiffs—and Alfa (“Alfa”), a consortium in which the Plaintiffs are investors—of criminal conduct and alleged cooperation with the ‘Kremlin’ to influence the 2016 presidential election.”

The case was filed in October 2017. Litigation has been ongoing for over four years – with Alfa Bank still fighting to obtain written discovery from Fusion GPS that is material to its case. Our previous report had to do with that very discovery dispute. Back in May, Alfa Bank “filed a motion to compel, asking the Court to require Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson to produce nearly 500 critically important documents improperly withheld as privileged.” (More background here.)

These documents included e-mail correspondence within Fusion GPS regarding the “Alfa Playbook” and showed the early development of the Fusion GPS/Simpson work on Trump/Russia. One would assume this entails the early or emerging thought process of the “intelligence” group as they sought to falsely accuse the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.

(…) The Latest Developments

Today, the attorneys for Alfa Bank filed this, their “Supplement to Plaintiffs’ Second Motion to Compel Defendants to Produce Documents Improperly Withheld as Privileged.” The motion was filed to inform the court that Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson (and/or their attorneys) “possess numerous documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ RFPs [requests for production] that [Fusion/Simpson] neither produced nor included in their privilege log.”

Alfa v Fusion – PL Third Mo… by Techno Fog

(Brief interlude: generally, the parties request and exchange documents in a federal civil case like this. A party can avoid producing documents where they claim a privilege – they just need to typically submit a “privilege log” to the other side. This doesn’t mean the privilege will ultimately prevail.)

What does the latest filing by Alfa Bank reveal?

Fusion GPS/Glenn Simpson (or their attorneys) failed to submit in the privilege log certain communications ultimately uncovered by Special Counsel John Durham. I’ll let the Alfa Bank motion explain:

(Read more: Techno Fog, 12/03/2021)  (Archive)

FAILED presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shared the victory speech she thought she would deliver on November 8, 2016.

(…) Hillary will share the full speech during her MasterClass on Thursday. She shared parts on The Today Show:

“Today with your children on your shoulders, your neighbors at your side, friends old and new standing as one, you renewed our democracy,” she says. “And because of the honor you have given me, you have changed its face forever. I’ve met women who were born before women had the right to vote. They’ve been waiting a hundred years for tonight.

“I’ve met little boys and girls who didn’t understand why a woman has never been president before. Now they know, and the world knows, that in America, every boy and every girl can grow up to be whatever they dream — even president of the United States.

“This is a victory for all Americans. Men and women. Boys and girls. Because as our country has proven once again, when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.”

She also addresses the deep partisan divide in the country.

“If you dig deep enough through all the mud of politics, eventually you hit something hard and true,” she says. “A foundation of fundamental values that unite us as Americans. You proved that today.

“In a country divided by race and religion, class and culture, and often paralyzing partisanship, a broad coalition of Americans embraced a shared vision of a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America.

“An America where women are respected and immigrants are welcomed. Where veterans are honored, parents are supported, and workers are paid fairly. An America where we believe in science, where we look beyond people’s disabilities and see their possibilities, where marriage is a right and discrimination is wrong. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, or who you love.

(Read more: Legal Insurrection, 12/08/2021)  (Archive)

(…)”In parts of the speech shared with TODAY, Clinton shares the remarks she had prepared if she had won the contentious election against Trump.

“My fellow Americans, today you sent a message to the whole world,” she says. “Our values endure. Our democracy stands strong. And our motto remains: e pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

“We will not be defined only by our differences. We will not be an us versus them country. The American dream is big enough for everyone. Through a long, hard campaign, we were challenged to choose between two very different visions for America. How we grow together, how we live together, and how we face a world full of peril and promise together.

“Fundamentally, this election challenged us to decide what it means to be an American in the 21st century. And for reaching for a unity, decency, and what President Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’ We met that challenge.”

Clinton then talks about the significance of what becoming the first female president in U.S. history would have meant. (Read more: Today, 12/08/2021)  (Archive)

David Corn and Michael Isikoff in a 2018 interview for their book “Russian Roulette.” (Credit: BUILD Series/YouTube)

(…) In the wake of the Durham revelations, the Washington Post has retracted or corrected sections of no fewer than 14 stories about Millian and the dossier. The Wall Street Journal, which first made the connection based on a single anonymous source in a January 2017 story by Pulitzer-winning reporter Mark Maremont, now concedes that the indictment raises “serious questions” about its reporting. ABC News, which aired a January 2017 story by former correspondent Brian Ross and producer Matthew Mosk identifying Millian as a key dossier source, said it is “reviewing” its reporting “in light of new developments.”

Igor Danchenko: His fabrications left egg on a lot of journalists’ faces. (Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

Corn, the Washington bureau chief for the leftist political magazine Mother Jones, and Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, were among the first journalists to press the Steele dossier in the media, starting in the fall of 2016. Answering critics on Twitter last month, Isikoff claimed he had disavowed the dossier years ago: “I already did, some time ago (before [Justice Department IG Michael] Horowitz and Durham),” referring to remarks he made to USA Today in 2018.

In that interview, Isikoff indicated blandly that some of the information he was fed was wrong, stating that some of the dossier’s “more sensational allegations are likely false.” He summed up the dossier as a “mixed record.” Now he knows for certain what he reported was incorrect and yet he has issued no corrections or mea culpas.

Isikoff once tweeted a link to his book “Russian Roulette” to President Trump, arguing “here is what is true, Mr. President.” Currently atop his Twitter page, Isikoff still has a pinned 2018 tweet thanking MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for helping propel the book to No. 1 on Amazon.

The e-book was updated for the first Trump impeachment but remains uncorrected in light of the Danchenko indictment. (Credit:Twelve Books)

In an attempt to face up to his own part in pushing the dossier fables, Corn last month penned a lengthy piece in Mother Jones arguing that just because the dossier turned out to be fiction doesn’t mean the Russiagate narrative is a hoax. He insisted Trump is still “guilty” of betraying America by cozying up to Russia.

Corn avoided mentioning Millian a single time in his 4,000-word essay and even cited “Russian Roulette” in his defense. In his telling, the fact that he and Isikoff showed some skepticism by reporting that the Justice Department watchdog revealed Steele may have exaggerated his most sensational allegations, makes up for repeating those stories in their book. Corn also continues to feature “Russian Roulette” as the backdrop to his Twitter page.

Corn admits he “chased after some of the allegations” but “couldn’t nail anything down.” Even so, he called on the FBI to investigate Millian in a Jan. 19, 2017, Mother Jones story. Months earlier, Corn gave a copy of the dossier to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, whom he knows socially. (The magazine has appended an editor’s note to that article, stating: “Earlier Mother Jones reporting noted that Sergei Millian was reportedly a source for the Steele dossier … Content making reference to Millian has been appropriately updated.”)

In an RCI interview, Millian said that in addition to correcting the record, both men owe him an apology.

“Isikoff and Corn played a role in spreading evil rumors and gossip about innocent American citizens,” Millian said, noting he’s retained a libel attorney. “Now they are simply ducking reasonable questions about their role, as if they were not a part of harming people.”

Neither Corn nor Isikoff responded to requests for comment. (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 12/09/2021)  (Archive)

Business Insider graphic (Credit: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call; Marie Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call; Skye Gould/Insider)

(…) At a time when millions of Americans are struggling financially, members of Congress have traded extraordinarily well during the pandemic. This juxtaposition has led directly to the public sentiment that the trading activity of Congress must be curbed. The problem lies in the fact that members of Congress typically possess information that the public does not. The pandemic highlighted this issue, as Congress was briefed on the risks of COVID-19 before the public and before the March 2020 market crash.

Lawmakers were likely aware of the FDA’s approval of the COVID-19 vaccine before the news broke to the public. Approximately 93 senators and representatives held stock in Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer stock once the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Several spouses of these lawmakers held stock in Moderna in 2020 as well and traded thousands of dollars worth of company stock throughout the pandemic. Moderna and Pfizer stocks typically tended to fluctuate throughout the pandemic, but when talk of vaccine approval began, these stocks rose exponentially. In January 2020, Moderna stock sold for roughly $20 a share; in September 2021, the stock hit $455.

In March of 2020, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the trading activity of Senators Richard Burr, and Kelly Loeffler, among others. While those investigations are now closed, and no charges were initiated against any lawmaker, the issues raised are troubling, to say the least. For example, Senator Burr and his wife traded between $628,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock in thirty-three transactions while at the same time stating to the public that the government had the coronavirus pandemic under control. At a minimum, signaling to the public that all is well while trading on the information in his possession raises ethical issues.

Ending Trading for Congress

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (whose stock trading, along with her husband, has come under scrutiny), initially opposed (I know, shocking) a stock trading ban, citing that the market is a “free market economy” and lawmakers “should be able to participate,” in trading on the market. She has since reversed her position on the issue — it appears that public sentiment is putting pressure on the hypocrisy of Congress to act on a long overdue issue.

While the Ethics Reform Act continues to collect dust, only time will tell if we see a long overdue change to the status quo, which has allowed members of Congress to enrich themselves while simultaneously undermining the trust of the American people. (Read more: Warren Law, 8/23/2024)  (Archive)

This video can be viewed on X but is private on YouTube:

Watch the full show HERE:https://t.co/veXCxi0Jr9

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) April 11, 2024

CLAY: We’re joined now by Miranda Devine, who has got a fantastic book out. She writes at the New York Post. The book is called Laptop from Hell, and, Miranda, thanks for taking the time to join us here. I believe in the years ahead the collusion to cover up the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop is going to be seen as one of the greatest failures in the history of independent American media. Do you agree based on all the things that you’ve seen inside of this laptop and that was covered up? How massive was this story, and maybe more wildly, how massive was most of the media’s cover-up for this story?

DEVINE: You’re absolutely right. And thank you very much for having me on, both of you, Clay and Buck. Look, I think we understood that three weeks before the election when we published the first of the emails from the laptop that were so damning of Joe Biden, we knew it was a bombshell. And we expected that the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN and all this sort of media organizations that were in the tank for Joe Biden that just would do anything to get rid of Donald Trump.

We knew that they would ignore it, but what was so shocking was the power of social media, of the Big Tech oligopolies, Facebook and Twitter. And within a couple of hours of our story going online at 5 a.m. October 14, Facebook had come out and said that they were blocking it pending a fact check, which still — more than a year later — has never happened. And then Twitter followed suit and locked the New York Post’s account the next two weeks until a few days before the election and people couldn’t even share the story in true and correct message.

Kayleigh McEnany was the then president’s press secretary. She was canceled or suspended from Twitter for trying to share the story. It was really sort of lost at the time, but when you look back now, it was such a display of power and such an intervention into the election by these faceless, unaccountable, global corporatists that it’s really frightening. And, you know, shortly after that, of course, they de-platformed the sitting president of the United States.

And that prompted even Emmanuel Macron from France to say, “Whoa, this is rather frightening for all of us.” The whole world should realize that these companies have become more powerful than the leaders of countries, and they are still the same. I mean, nothing’s changed since then. And we know from polls taken after the election that almost half of Biden voters knew nothing about the scandal that was on the laptop.

The evidence of the influence peddling that was going on with Joe Biden, the evidence that Joe Biden had met with Hunter Biden’s business partners from overseas was compromised, in China and Russia and elsewhere. If they had known that, about one-tenth of Biden voters would have changed their vote. And so in an election that was won by 45,000 votes across a handful of battleground states, the censorship of our story could have made a difference.

BUCK: Absolutely. Miranda Devine, everybody. Laptop from Hell is her book. Miranda, it’s Buck. I want you to… I was at TheHill.com when a lot of stories were being broken about the relationship with Hunter Biden and Ukraine, and this has been around for a while. We didn’t have the laptop. We didn’t have the Laptop from Hell. What should people know?

Because the suppression story which Clay started out with is enormous and may very well have — likely did, I believe — change the trajectory of the election, and it was dishonest and a disgrace what the Big Tech and media did together. What do people need to know about the corruption aspect of it? We always say if this were Donald Trump Jr., they might actually cover this more than the January 6 insurrection at CNN. What did Hunter Biden actually do, and where is the real corruption that we know of from this laptop?

DEVINE: Look, the importance of the laptop is really not Hunter Biden, who is this sort of tragic figure: Drug addicted for most of the nine years the laptop covered, crackhead. The story is actually about Joe Biden and what the laptop tells you about his involvement in not just Hunter’s about his younger brother Jim’s scheme around the world to monetize his power, Joe Biden’s power, and what Joe Biden did in return for that money and how he financially benefited.

So we know that for the last two years of his vice presidency, Hunter Biden and his partners and Jim Biden were doing work overseas around the world using Joe Biden’s name to open doors. And we know that that was being done with Joe Biden’s OK, imprimatur, full involvement. The money, however, was going to come after Joe Biden left office. And this was why Tony Bobulinski was brought in to become CEO of their latest joint venture with China and sort of regularize and make everything, you know, squeaky clean.

Because by that stage, Joe Biden was a private citizen, future president. And, you know, it wasn’t just that the Bidens were doing business or had a joint venture with someone in China. They were in partnership with a company called CEXE, which is the capitalist arm of President Xi’s belt-and-road initiative. And this is the imperialist push by China into corrupting, buying up, paying off, putting into servitude poorer countries around the world — and the Bidens were involved.

They were using Joe Biden’s name to help the Chinese Communist Party push into the rest of the world at great expense to the United States, to America’s national interests, to America’s national security. And the other element, I think, is there is some evidence to show that Joe Biden financially benefited. We know Hunter Biden had been complaining about having to give half his salary to his dad.

We know about an email saying 10% of equity in this private venture was going to be held by Hunter Biden for “The Big Guy,” which Tony Bobulinski says is Joe Biden, and other documents on the laptop show was Joe Biden. But there’s also evidence of commingling of finances between Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, shared bank accounts, shared debit cards. Also, there’s a little bit of evidence — just a tip of the iceberg, I imagine, but it is there — showing that Hunter Biden was paying regular household bills for Joe Biden. (Read more: The Clay Travis & Bud Sexton Show, 12/14/2021)  (Archive)

George Nader and Hillary Clinton (Credit: Zero Hedge)

“Convicted pedophile, UAE adviser and central witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, George Nader, has pleaded guilty to his role in helping the UAE funnel millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions into US campaigns during the 2016 presidential election, according to The Intercept, citing federal court documents filed last month.

In a December sentencing memo, federal prosecutors disclosed that Nader had agreed months early to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the US government by pumping millions in donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign – concealing the foreign origin of the funds.

Nader conspired to hide the funds “out of a desire to lobby on behalf and advance the interests of his client, the government of the United Arab Emirates,” according to the prosecutors’ sentencing memo. Nader received the money for the illegal donations from the UAE government, the memo said. The filing marks the first time that the U.S. government has explicitly accused the UAE, a close ally, of illegally seeking to buy access to candidates during a presidential election.

Nader’s guilty plea opens a new window into the efforts of the United Arab Emirates and its de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and shape subsequent U.S. policy in the Gulf. The government’s memo notes that Nader and Los Angeles businessperson Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja also sought to cultivate “key figures” in the Trump campaign and that Khawaja donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. It is unclear where that money came from. – The Intercept

Nader is accused of taking instructions from UAE Crown Prince MBZ, and gave regular updates on his efforts to get close to Clinton.

In total, Nader transferred nearly $5 million from his UAE business to Khawaja – CEO of a Los Angeles-based payment processing company. According to prosecutors, the funds were disguised as a routine business contract between the two men. Of the total transferred, more than $3.5 million came from the UAE government and was given to pro-Clinton Democratic political committees. Prosecutors have yet to publicly identify what happened to the remaining $1.4 million Nader transferred to Khawaja.

In 2016, Khawaja co-hosted an August fundraiser for Clinton which included a laundry list of high-profile guests, including Univision owner Haim Saban, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and basketball legend Magic Johnson, according to the report. According to the indictment, Khawaja conspired with six other individuals to conceal his excessive contributions. Others who were indicted were also linked to donations to Clinton and other Democrats.

The indictment quotes an alleged encrypted message that Nader sent an official from Foreign Country A via WhatsApp after Khawaja contributed $275,000 and invited Nader to attend and April 16, 2016, event for presidential Candidate 1.

Wonderful meeting with the Big Lady . . . Cant wait to tell you about it, Nader allegedly wrote, in an apparent reference to Clinton.

The indictment noted that political committees that received funding unwittingly submitted false disclosure reports and were presumably victims of the plot. Still, Hillary Clinton apparently attended numerous events, including small gatherings, with Nader, who on July 19, 2016, messaged the foreign official a photograph of him with Candidate 1s spouse an apparent reference to Bill Clinton at Khawajas home. –Washington Post

Prosecutors have sought a five-year sentence for Nader – after he completes the 10-year sentence he’s currently serving for possessing child pornography, and for sex-trafficking a minor to the US “for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 1/17/2022)  (Archive) (Nader Sentencing Memo)

By: Paul Sperry

RealClearInvestigations, 12/16/2021

A former senior FBI lawyer who falsified a surveillance document in the Trump-Russia investigation has been restored as a member in “good standing” by the District of Columbia Bar Association even though he has yet to finish serving out his probation as a convicted felon, according to disciplinary records obtained by RealClearInvestigations.

Kevin Clinesmith (Credit: Facebook)

The move is the latest in a series of exceptions the bar has made for Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in August 2020 to doctoring an email used to justify a surveillance warrant targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months probation last January. But the D.C. Bar did not seek his disbarment, as is customary after lawyers are convicted of serious crimes involving the administration of justice. In this case, it did not even initiate disciplinary proceedings against him until February of this year — five months after he pleaded guilty and four days after RealClearInvestigations first reported he had not been disciplined. After the negative publicity, the bar temporarily suspended Clinesmith pending a review and hearing. Then in September, the court that oversees the bar and imposes sanctions agreed with its recommendation to let Clinesmith off suspension with time served; the bar, in turn, restored his status to “active member” in “good standing.”

Before quietly making that decision, however, records indicate the bar did not check with his probation officer to see if he had violated the terms of his sentence or if he had completed the community service requirement of volunteering 400 hours.

To fulfill the terms of his probation, Clinesmith volunteered at Street Sense Media in Washington but stopped working at the nonprofit group last summer, which has not been previously reported. “I can confirm he was a volunteer here,” Street Sense editorial director Eric Falquero told RCI, without elaborating about how many hours he worked. Clinesmith had helped edit and research articles for the weekly newspaper, which coaches the homeless on how to “sleep on the streets” and calls for a “universal living wage” and prison reform.

From the records, it also appears bar officials did not consult with the FBI’s Inspection Division, which has been debriefing Clinesmith to determine if he was involved in any other surveillance abuses tied to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, in addition to the one used against Page. Clinesmith’s cooperation was one of the conditions of the plea deal he struck with Special Counsel John Durham. If he fails to fully cooperate, including turning over any relevant materials or records in his possession, he could be subject to perjury or obstruction charges.

Clinesmith — who was assigned to some of the FBI’s most sensitive and high-profile investigations — may still be in Durham’s sights regarding other areas of his wide-ranging probe.

The scope of his mandate as special counsel is broader than commonly understood: In addition to examining the legal justification for the FBI’s “Russiagate” probe, it also includes examining the bureau’s handling of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server, which she set up in her basement to send and receive classified information, and her destruction of more than 30,000 subpoenaed emails she generated while running the State Department. As assistant FBI general counsel in the bureau’s national security branch, Clinesmith played an instrumental role in that investigation, which was widely criticized by FBI and Justice Department veterans, along with ethics watchdogs, as fraught with suspicious irregularities.

Clinesmith also worked on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the 2016 Trump campaign as the key attorney linking his office to the FBI. He was the only headquarters lawyer assigned to Mueller. Durham’s investigators are said to be looking into the Mueller team’s actions as well.

The D.C. Bar’s treatment of Clinesmith, a registered Democrat who sent anti-Trump rants to FBI colleagues after the Republican was elected, has raised questions from the start. Normally the bar automatically suspends the license of members who plead guilty to a felony. But in Clinesmith’s case, it delayed suspending him on even an interim basis for several months and only acted after RCI revealed the break Clinesmith was given, records confirm.

It then allowed him to negotiate his fate, which is rarely done in any misconduct investigation, let alone one involving a serious crime, according to a review of past cases. It also overlooked violations of its own rules: Clinesmith apparently broke the bar’s rule requiring reporting his guilty plea “promptly” to the court — within 10 days of entering it — and failed to do so for five months, reveal transcripts of a July disciplinary hearing obtained by RCI.

“I did not see evidence that you informed the court,” Rebecca Smith, the chairwoman of the D.C. Bar panel conducting the hearing, admonished Clinesmith.

“[T]hat was frankly just an error,” Clinesmith’s lawyer stepped in to explain.

Smith also scolded the bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel for the “delay” in reporting the offense, since it negotiated the deal with Clinesmith, pointing out: “Disciplinary counsel did not report the plea to the court and initiate a disciplinary proceeding.” Bill Ross, the assistant disciplinary counsel who represented the office at the hearing, argued Clinesmith shouldn’t be held responsible and blamed the oversight on the COVID pandemic.

Hamilton “Phil” Fox: Disciplinary counsel who handled Clinesmith is a major donor to Democrats. (Credit: Facebook/D.C. Bar)

The Democrat-controlled panel, known as the Board on Professional Responsibility, nonetheless gave Clinesmith a pass, rubberstamping the light sentence he negotiated with the bar’s chief prosecutor, Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton “Phil” Fox, while admitting it was “unusual.” Federal Election Commission records show Fox, a former Watergate prosecutor, is a major donor to Democrats, including former President Obama. All three members of the board also are Democratic donors, FEC data reveal.

While the D.C. Bar delayed taking any action against Clinesmith, the Michigan Bar, where he is also licensed, automatically suspended him the day he pleaded guilty. And on Sept. 30, records show, the Michigan Bar’s attorney discipline board suspended Clinesmith for two years, from the date of his guilty plea through Aug. 19, 2022, and fined him $1,037.

“[T]he panel found that respondent engaged in conduct that was prejudicial to the proper administration of justice [and] exposed the legal profession or the courts to obloquy, contempt, censure or reproach,” the board ruled against Clinesmith, adding that his misconduct “was contrary to justice, ethics, honesty or good morals; violated the standards or rules of professional conduct adopted by the Supreme Court; and violated a criminal law of the United States.”

Normally, bars arrange what’s called “reciprocal discipline” for unethical attorneys licensed in their jurisdictions. But this was not done in the case of Clinesmith. The D.C. Bar decided to go much easier on the former FBI attorney, further raising suspicions the anti-Trump felon was given favorable treatment.

In making the bar’s case not to strip Clinesmith of his license or effectively punish him going forward, Fox disregarded key findings by Durham about Clinesmith’s intent to deceive the FISA court as a government attorney who held a position of trust.

Clinesmith confessed to creating a false document by changing the wording in a June 2017 CIA email to state Page was “not a source” for the CIA when in fact the agency had told Clinesmith and the FBI on multiple occasions Page had been providing information about Russia to it for years — a revelation that, if disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, would have undercut the FBI’s case for electronically monitoring Page as a supposed Russian agent and something that Durham noted Clinesmith understood all too well.

Bar records show Fox simply took Clinesmith’s word that he believed the change in wording was accurate and that in making it, he mistakenly took a “shortcut” to save time and had no intent to deceive the court or the case agents preparing the application for the warrant.

Durham demonstrated that Clinesmith certainly did intend to mislead the FISA court. “By his own words, it appears that the defendant falsified the email in order to conceal [Page’s] former status as a source and to avoid making an embarrassing disclosure to the FISC,” the special prosecutor asserted in his 20-page memo to the sentencing judge, in which he urged a prison term of up to six months for Clinesmith. “Such a disclosure would have drawn a strong and hostile response from the FISC for not disclosing it sooner [in earlier warrant applications].”

As proof of Clinesmith’s intent to deceive, Durham cited an internal message Clinesmith sent the FBI agent preparing the application, who relied on Clinesmith to tell him what the CIA said about Page. “At least we don’t have to have a terrible footnote” explaining that Page was a source for the CIA in the application, Clinesmith wrote.

The FBI lawyer also removed the initial email he sent to the CIA inquiring about Page’s status as a source before forwarding the CIA email to another FBI agent, blinding him to the context of the exchange about Page.

Durham also noted that Clinesmith repeatedly changed his story after the Justice Department’s watchdog first confronted him with the altered email during an internal 2019 investigation. What’s more, he falsely claimed his CIA contact told him in phone calls that Page was not a source, conversations the contact swore never happened.

Fox also maintained that Clinesmith had no personal motive in forging the document. But Durham cited virulently anti-Trump political messages Clinesmith sent to other FBI employees after Trump won in 2016 – including a battle cry to “fight” Trump and his policies – and argued that his clear political bias may have led to his criminal misconduct.

“It is plausible that his strong political views and/or personal dislike of [Trump] made him more willing to engage in the fraudulent and unethical conduct to which he has pled guilty,” Durham told U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg.

Boasberg, a Democrat appointed by President Obama, spared Clinesmith jail time and let him serve out his probation from home. Fox and the D.C. Bar sided with Boasberg, who accepted Clinesmith’s claim he did not intentionally deceive the FISA court, which Boasberg happens to preside over, and even offered an excuse for his criminal conduct.

“My view of the evidence is that Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said about Mr. Page was true,” Boasberg said. “By altering the email, he was saving himself some work and taking an inappropriate shortcut.”

Fox echoed the judge’s reasoning in essentially letting Clinesmith off the hook. (The deal they struck, which the U.S. District Court of Appeals that oversees the bar approved in September, called for a one-year suspension, but the suspension began retroactively in August 2020, which made it meaningless.) Boasberg opined that Clinesmith had “already suffered” punishment by losing his FBI job and $150,000 salary.

But, Boasberg assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that Clinesmith also faced possible disbarment. “And who knows where his earnings go now,” the judge sympathized. “He may be disbarred or suspended from the practice of law.”

Anticipating such a punishment, Boasberg waived a recommended fine of up to $10,000, arguing that Clinesmith couldn’t afford it. He also waived the regular drug testing usually required during probation, while returning Clinesmith’s passport. And he gave his blessing to Clinesmith’s request to serve out his probation as a volunteer journalist, before wishing him well: “Mr. Clinesmith, best of luck to you.”

Fox did not respond to requests for comment. But he argued in a petition to the board that his deal with Clinesmith was “not unduly lenient,” because it was comparable to sanctions imposed in similar cases. However, none of the cases he cited involved the FBI, Justice Department or FISA court. One case involved a lawyer who made false statements to obtain construction permits, while another made false statements to help a client become a naturalized citizen – a far cry from falsifying evidence to spy on an American citizen.

Durham noted that in providing the legal support for a warrant application to the secret FISA court, Clinesmith had “a heightened duty of candor,” since FISA targets do not have legal representation before the court.

He argued Clinesmith’s offense was “a very serious crime with significant repercussions” and suggested it made him unfit to practice law.

“An attorney – particularly an attorney in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel – is the last person that FBI agents or this court should expect to create a false document,” Durham said.

The warrant Clinesmith helped obtain has since been deemed invalid and the surveillance of Page illegal. Never charged with a crime, Page is now suing the FBI and Justice Department for $75 million for violating his constitutional rights against improper searches and seizures.

Explaining the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary process in a 2019 interview with Washington Lawyer magazine, Fox said that “the lawyer has the burden of proving they are fit to practice again. Have they accepted responsibility for their conduct?” His office’s website said a core function is to “deter attorneys from engaging in misconduct.”

In the same interview, Fox maintained that he tries to insulate his investigative decisions from political bias. “I try to make sure our office is not used as a political tool,” he said. “We don’t want to be a political tool for the Democrats or Republicans.”

Bar records from the Clinesmith case show Fox suggested the now-discredited Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation was “a legitimate and highly important investigation.”

One longstanding member of the D.C. Bar with direct knowledge of Clinesmith’s case before the bar suspects its predominantly Democratic board went soft on him due to partisan politics. “The District of Columbia is a very liberal bar,” he said. “Basically, they went light on him because he’s also a Democrat who hated Trump.”

Meanwhile, the D.C. Bar has not initiated disciplinary proceedings against Michael Sussmann, another Washington attorney charged by Durham. Records show Sussmann remains an “active member” of the bar in “good standing,” which also has not been previously reported. The former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer, who recently resigned from Washington-based Perkins Coie LLP, is accused of lying to federal investigators about his client while passing off a report falsely linking Trump to the Kremlin.

While Sussmann has pleaded not guilty and has yet to face trial, criminal grand jury indictments usually prompt disciplinary proceedings and interim suspensions.

Paul Kamenar of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, has called for the disbarment of both Clinesmith and Sussmann. He noted that the D.C. Court of Appeals must automatically disbar an attorney who commits a crime of moral turpitude, which includes crimes involving the “administration of justice.”

“Clinesmith pled guilty to a felony. The only appropriate sanction for committing a serious felony that also interfered with the proper administration of justice and constituted misrepresentation, fraud and moral turpitude, is disbarment,” he said. “Anything less would minimize the seriousness of the misconduct” and fail to deter other offenders.

Disciplinary Counsel Fox appears to go tougher on Republican bar members. For example, he recently opened a formal investigation of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who records show Fox put under “temporary disciplinary suspension” pending the outcome of the ethics probe, which is separate from the one being conducted by the New York bar. In July, the New York Bar also suspended the former GOP mayor on an interim basis.

Giuliani has not been convicted of a crime or even charged with one. (RealClearInvestigations, 12/16/2021)  (Archive)

This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution. (These terms do not apply to outside articles linked on the site.)

“The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that, writes Craig Murray.

This is verbatim from the official report of the U.N. General Assembly plenary of Dec. 16:

“The Assembly next took up the report on ‘Elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ containing two draft resolutions.

“By a recorded vote of 130 in favour to2 against (Ukraine, United States), with 49 abstentions, the Assembly then adopted draft resolution I, ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’.

By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials, holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, and declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition, collaborated with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity ‘participants in national liberation movements’.”

Members of the special Ukrainian neo-Nazi police regiment Azov in 2014. (Credit: My News24, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

(…) In Ukraine, support for the Ukrainian nationalist divisions who fought alongside the Nazis has become, over the last eight years, the founding ideology of the modern post-2013 Ukrainian state (which is very different from the diverse Ukrainian state which briefly existed 1991-2013). The full resolution on Nazism and racism passed by the General Assembly is lengthy,  but these provisions in particular were voted against by the United States and by Ukraine:

• “Emphasizes the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur that ‘any commemorative celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and related organizations, whether official or unofficial, should be prohibited by States’, also emphasizes that such manifestations do injustice to the memory of the countless victims of the Second World War and negatively influence children and young people, and stresses in this regard that it is important that States take measures, in accordance with international human rights law, to counteract any celebration of the Nazi SS organization and all its integral parts, including the Waffen SS;

• Expresses concern about recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during the Second World War, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons, and in this regard urges States to fully comply with their relevant obligations, inter alia, under article 34 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949;

• Condemns without reservation any denial or attempt to deny the Holocaust;

• Welcomes the call of the Special Rapporteur for the active preservation of those Holocaust sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration and forced labour camps and prisons, as well as his encouragement of States to take measures, including legislative, law enforcement and educational measures, to put an end to all forms of Holocaust denial.”

As reported in The Times of Israel, hundreds took part in a demonstration in Kiev in May and others throughout Ukraine, in honor of a specific division of the SS. That is but one march and one division — the glorification of its Nazi past is a mainstream part of Ukrainian political culture.

Protesters in Kiev with neo-Nazi symbols – SS-Volunteer Division “Galicia” and Patriot of Ukraine flags, 2014. (Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

In 2018 a bipartisan letter by 50 U.S. representatives condemned multiple events commemorating Nazi allies held in Ukraine with official Ukrainian government backing.

There are no two ways about it. The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that. (Read more: Consortium News, 12/23/2021)  (Archive)

“The latest filings by Special Counsel John Durham reveal that lawyers for the Hillary Clinton Campaign now represent Christopher Steele primary subsource Igor Danchenko. In doing so, Durham reveals something else: that the Hillary Clinton Campaign and multiple former employees of the Hillary Clinton Campaign are under investigation.

(…) The Latest Developments

Now let’s review what’s going on in Danchenko’s criminal case. He was originally represented by Chris Schafbuch and Mark Schamel. On December 6, 2021, Stuart Sears appeared on behalf of Danchenko. Schafbuch and Schamel dropped out of the case.

According to Durham’s latest filing, Stuart Sears is a partner at the law firm Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears. Notably, the firm is currently representing the 2016 “Hillary for America” presidential campaign (the “Clinton Campaign”), as well as multiple former employees of that campaign, in matters before the Special Counsel.”

Did you catch that? I’ll emphasize:

The Hillary Clinton Campaign and its employees are subject to “matters before the Special Counsel.”

Durham notices the potential conflict of interest, informing the court that Danchenko’s trial might raise the following issues:

1. the Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the Fusion GPS reports sourced by Danchenko,
2. the Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Dancehnko’s collection methods and sub-sources,
3. meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and/or Steele regarding or involving Danchenko
4. Danchenko knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the Fusion GPS reports, and
5. the extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.

Durham even raises the potential that members of the Clinton Campaign may be called to testify at Danchenko’s trial.

To this observer, it seems like the Clinton Campaign’s involvement in the dossier might be deeper than anyone really knows.” (Read more: Techno Fog, 12/20/2021) (Archive)

Moynihan and Doyle testify to the House Oversight Government Operations Subcommittee on oversight of foundations and restrictions on their political activities. (Credit: CSpan)

Clinton investigators John Moynihan and Larry Doyle, also known as the Financial Bounty Hunters,  reveal on the Thomas Paine Podcast that they have spoken multiple times with Special Prosecutor John Durham’s Justice Department team to assist with its ongoing investigation which now appears to be focused on the Clinton Foundation, Bill Gates and millions of dollars in profit from the illicit vaccine and pharmaceutical schemes worldwide.

A member of our research team,  D Smoley, muddled through this very long interview and took a few notes on the key issues discussed:

With Financial Bounty Hunters (FBH) and Charles Ortel dropping hints last week that there is a major breaking news story about fraud in the non-profit sector, it is a good time to look back at the last FBH interview, 3 months ago.

The same people involved in Clinton Foundation are involved in combatting Covid and distributing aid for COVID.

Here is my draft of notes on what they said during that marathon podcast in December of 2021.

FBH first appeared on the Thomas Paine podcast in June 2020 and introduced the concept of a Playbook that uses a cover of worldwide health to channel massive amounts of money to non-profit organizations. The people who run the Playbook are globalists who aim to take ownership of all of the world’s resources–including the plants and oceans and people–to create their version of utopia. Six months after coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, FBH predicted that this is the Playbook that would be activated for coronavirus pandemic support.

The second interview, in December 2021, looked deeper into the organizations, people, and methods that the Playbook implemented for pandemic response and then FBH warned about the likely way that it will be used in upcoming months.

Abuse of Tax Exempt Status
The Clinton Foundation was established as a 501c(3) organization in the late 1990’s to raise money for the Bill Clinton Presidential Library, an undertaking that required $100-$150 million dollars. The “reported” top line revenue for Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health exceeds $3 billion which leaves potential tax liability and penalties on $2.9 billion. As whistleblowers, the FBH could receive a reward of a third of the amount recovered by IRS.

Their work is not limited to Clinton Foundation, FBH have filed complaints for additional organizations where they saw evidence of non-compliance with requirements for 501c(3).

Timeline
August 2017 FBH made whistleblower submission to IRS. Kept working
Early Nov 2018 preliminary denial from IRS. Kept working
Dec 13, 2018 FBH Testimony before the House Oversight Subcommittee, subsequently received final denial, appealed IRS denial to US Tax Court. Kept working
August 28, 2019 US Tax Court Accepted Appeal notified via email. Kept working
October 2020 court records for their appeal were put under seal. The only records available are the docket entries recorded by John Solomon prior to sealing and two documents that the judge allowed to be released. Kept working.

Risk
We are laying out exhibits that get into this whole concept of risk. Where are people’s risks? The presumption that our public officials and our regulators are going to perform and protect the public interest is in my opinion (and what we are laying out here) that is the greatest risk of all. Does current response require commitments that do more harm than good, taking on considerable risks? What played out in those years in third world countries looks similar to what is going on today. Same play book, same players.

Right now, they are trying to set the biggest trap that has been ever been set, in terms of control of our personal lives. We happen to have the evidence and the judge has the evidence.

The Playbook puts conditions in agreements for health and financing to cause local governments to cede control of aspects of their decision making.

Here is an email from July 8. 2003.
“There was a clear consensus among the development assistance committee (In Tanzania) that the potentially enormous amounts of funds coming onstream, from Clinton Foundation and Global Fund and PEPFAR could do more harm than good in that there are considerable risks posed to the health sector program and reforms in Tanzania.”

The Playbook
With every crisis, there are indications that people on the inside were made aware of what was going on. Government officials, public health officials, all pharmaceutical officials are massively conflicted. This is the Big Rig in terms of regulatory capture. Our regulators protect and promote the interests of Wall Street, Big Pharma or our public health officials, that is Tony Fauci and the rest of them, Tony Fauci has the checkbook he provides funding for a lot of the activities, Bill Gates backs him up, tight at the hip, working for the interests of those pharmaceutical companies and not working for your interests.

We have seen this before. In our prior discussion we talked about the adulterated drugs from Ranbaxy Labs from India distributed throughout the third the world. Garbage drugs from Ranbaxy negatively impacted untold numbers of people in the developing world from those adulterated meds. When people take ineffective drugs, they end up developing drug resistance. viruses mutate. You end up with drug resistance. Same is happening with these vaccines people stated taking a year ago. People took them once, twice, a third time and are still getting infected? The viruses mutate. Are they ineffective?

When we heard the August 2021 interview with Dr. Fauci, we recognized the old playbook being used again: Clinton Foundation, Global Fund, PEPFAR just as predicted by FBH on the Thomas Paine Podcast in June 2020. We are participants for these drug trails, as opposed to recipients of drug trial research. That is how HIV worked with the Clinton Foundation Ineffective drugs that don’t stop the disease cause mutations and spread and even more drugs are needed.

Is it a coincidence that the countries with the largest contributors to the World Health Organization also have the greatest covid death rate?

A Geneva based WHO affiliate, UNITAID, a Gates backed, and Clinton backed initiative carveout made a $40 million payment to University of Liverpool shortly before Andrew Hill’s final report where he said we cannot support Ivermectin to treat Covid. Half a million lives could have been saved.

Globalists
There is no magic here. There is a practical trajectory of what all of these people are doing, these globalists are doing, when they are looking for worlds without borders, universal healthcare, all of these wonderful ideological thoughts, and they will do whatever they need to do to execute on the strategy, myopically, with blindfolds on as to what the real interests are of those of us who populate the planet.

Current Developments in DC
DC Swamp holds discussion in law firms.

While researching the case, FBH has seen a strategy to make decisions in law firms and then give advice to officials in DC instead of the elected officials making decisions. This makes all emails and discussions privileged; attorney-client information cannot be obtained in FOIA.

John Durham Investigation
While FBH have not met with John Durham, they did speak to people in his office on multiple occasions. Durham would have access to the material that FBH submitted to other agencies under Rule 6, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure which allows for intergovernmental agencies to communicate material and subject matter that is relevant and provides an exception to the grand jury rule

The indictment of Attorney Sussmann is encouraging because he was a counsel to the Clinton Foundation

FBH have not received cooperation from government, and that includes people in the legislative branch

END OF COMMENTS FROM FBH

The following remarks are made by Thomas Paine’s, Michael Moore, about Fauci’s interview:

Fauci opened his mouth in an August interview and said exactly to the “T” what FBH said to Paine in early 2020 when this started with 15 days to flatten the curve.

Fauci said that we are in active discussion to develop a worldwide pandemic strategy with a broad comprehensive approach to preparedness and response at every level. Equity has been the most important part of the vaccine program, both domestic equity, and now international equity and that is reason why Biden program has already committed half a billion dollars plus 80 million plus that is going out right now.

Fauci described his vision of using organizations like PEPFAR, CEPI (Center for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), GAVI (Global Vaccines Alliance) for procurement and distribution, The Global Fund, Jeremy Ferarr at Welcome Trust, UNITAID, and Intrepid.

The EU is pre-purchasing therapeutics and that are in development, setting up a new institution HERA a counterpart to our BARDA.

The entire August 2021 Fauci interview was included in the December 2021 Paine Podcast

(Thomas Paine Podcast, 12/22/2021) (Archive)

Full video interview HERE:

“What you have, at least optically, is the Clinton campaign nested into the [Igor] Danchenko camp and his representation. So all the information John Durham turns over in discovery, they could conceivably give over to Hillary Clinton.”

According to a recent court filing by John Durham’s team, two Clinton campaign lawyers are representing Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko, the Russian analyst who was indicted by a grand jury in November on five false statement charges.

In this episode, Kash breaks down the potential conflicts of interest this creates.

Below is a rush transcript of this Kash’s Corner episode from Dec 24, 2021. This transcript may not be in its final form and may be updated. 

Kash Patel: Hey, everybody, and welcome to our holiday special of Kash’s Corner. Thanks for tuning in this entire year, and we hope you enjoy our Christmas special.

Jan Jekielek: Yeah. So, to start here, I think we do need to say merry Christmas to everybody. Happy new year to your families, to your loved ones, to everybody. This is a very difficult year or has been a very difficult year for everybody, and I really hope that everyone gets a chance to celebrate a little bit. Find those things that perhaps they don’t look at too often, especially if things are looking a little grim and celebrate those.

Mr. Patel: And perhaps watch our episode on Christmas Eve and take it in with your family to brighten your day.

Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. Well, and so it’s very interesting. It seems like Special Counsel Durham has a Christmas present for, I guess, many folks.

Mr. Patel: It is for me. I’ll take it.

Mr. Jekielek: Yeah. Well, so it’s really interesting. Friday afternoon, low news cycle as is typical of him. No fanfare there. He issues a filing, and in the filing, we learn a number of things, which we’ll talk about here, but one of the things we learn is simply that Igor Danchenko, one of the indicted people that he indicted, is actually being represented by the same lawyers that represent the Hillary Clinton Camp 2016 Campaign. I mean, fascinating, right?

Mr. Patel: It’s a shocking development, and I would say if it was the only one in the last five years saga of everything that was Russiagate, but as obviously we’ve shown to be the largest organized criminal enterprise. It’s no longer shocking unfortunately. It’s just more tragic application of law, and fact, and bias in the Department of Justice and the FBI, and it just continues.

I thank God that John Durham is on the case to help us keep our law enforcement members in check and also, equally as important, prosecute cases under the law and apply the facts wherever they lead, irrespective of who is possibly involved, i.e. a former senator, a former presidential candidate, a former secretary of state, and so many others.

So I’m glad that he is taking his action in a measured fashion, and he’s not taken to the media as we’ve talked about previously. He just doesn’t do that. I don’t even think he has a spokesperson, and if he does, all they say is, “No comment,” but he does talk where he’s legally and permissively allowed to talk, which is his filings in federal court.

We’ve talked about the indictments in the past of Sussmann and Danchenko, and I urge our viewers to… If you haven’t seen it, go check out those episodes. We did some fantastic deep dives into those indictments, but he did give us another pleading on Friday night.

Mr. Jekielek: Well, and so going back to the Sussmann indictment very briefly, we did learn the identity of Dolan, right?

Mr. Patel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mr. Jekielek: Somebody who seems like he was the main source for Danchenko, right? What’s very interesting about this is that nobody knew about him, and at the same time, this person was also deeply connected with the 2016 Clinton Campaign and others.

Mr. Patel: Yeah. No. You’re absolutely right. Look, and I, as the guy who ran the Russiagate investigation on House Intel, had never heard of Charles Dolan. That’s a little shocking for someone who was supposed to have been given all of the FBI, all of the DOJ, all of the intelligence community information regarding how the FISA was obtained, how the Steele dossier was procured, and everything. That just goes to show you that the FBI and DOJ failed to comply with congressional, valid congressional subpoenas we issued for documents because had they produced everything, they would’ve produced the documents that John Durham found, but at least thankfully he’s on the case.

Why it’s highlighting is because it seems that the Russiagate investigation and the criminal enterprise that John Durham is unfolding starts, and begins, and ends with Hillary Clinton and her campaign. That becomes more and more true as we reveal more and more information.

Charles Dolan is another example. A former Clinton operative, a former Clinton Campaign advisor, a former ally of hers in the State Department is now been shown to be an individual who… We don’t know if it was at the behest of the Clinton Campaign, but it stretches credulity to say otherwise was feeding information on behalf of the Clinton Campaign to Christopher Steele for their false dossier that was falsely presented by the FBI, and I believe knowingly so to get a FISA warrant on then candidate Trump.

So, yet, another member of the Clinton Campaign or Clinton World was shown to be involved in this corrupt… I don’t know what even there’s a new word for it or not, but this, I want to say, criminal enterprise and that was Sussmann indictment. Then, we move on to Danchenko and our latest pleading from John Durham this past Friday night.

Mr. Jekielek: What struck me as I was looking at this, and I want to thank our friend Techno Fog for actually drawing attention to this because I didn’t know it had come down, was how did this actually happen because Danchenko did drop his previous counsel, retain this new counsel. Did this counsel approach him? Did he approach them? The other question is like, is there a possibility that this could facilitate an information flow that… an unexpected information flow?

Mr. Patel: You’re right. I mean, we’ll get into the last bit of it later. Basically, what you have at least optically is the Clinton Campaign nested into Danchenko camp and his representation. So all the information John Durham turns over in discovery, they could conceivably give over to Hillary Clinton. We’ll circle back to that in more detail and why it is a problem.

You raised a point that’s very interesting. Danchenko was represented by someone else, and then at some point in time, these folks came along and said, “We’re going to represent you.” Now, what’s the nature of that? Are they doing it pro bono? Is someone else paying that fee? Because as someone who’s been subpoenaed by Congress, I can tell you from my personal experience, it’s expensive to hire lawyers to do that kind of work.

Igor Danchenko is criminally indicted in federal court. It’s even more expensive to do that kind of work. Maybe he’s a wealthy individual and can retain whatever counsel he wants, but the reason I became a public defender, and then later a prosecutor was because of one of the most important rights in our constitution is the right to counsel. It’s not just any counsel, it’s the right to counsel of your choosing if you can so afford, and if you can’t, then the public defenders come in. At least you’re provided great representation that way.

Igor Danchenko has now chosen his counsel, but there are some rules in the constitution and as interpreted by the Supreme Court that talk about conflicts of interest. We’ll get into all that, and that’s what this latest pleading is all about.

Igor Danchenko has this new set of lawyers or a relatively new set of lawyers who have come in, and they have for years, as best as I can tell, represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign, who was at the heart of and instigated the entire Russiagate conspiracy. So it’s problematic for many, many, many reasons, and there are a number of legal hurdles that the court must adjudicate properly in order to satisfy both the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the constitution and the Canon of Ethics, which we’ll get into too, which govern how lawyers are to behave before a federal judge.

Mr. Jekielek: You hear about conflict of interest a lot on television, right, right, and so forth.

Mr. Patel: Yeah.

Mr. Jekielek: But from what I understand, right, we’re not just looking at actual demonstrated conflicts of interest. These are conflicts of interest that may exist that…

Mr. Patel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mr. Jekielek: Right?

Mr. Patel: Look, and it applies to judges too. The same rules, the ethics apply for conflicts apply to judges as they do to lawyers that are appearing before the judge. For instance, many of these federal judges come from private law firms, deep private law firm backgrounds who represented some big Fortune 500 companies, some high-wealth individuals.

If they later became a judge, that judge has to recuse himself for matters forever relating to that company that his private law firm represented in the past or that he or she himself represented in the past even in peace not because there is an actual conflict of interest, but just because there could be. I’ve appeared before federal judges who have recused themself on situations like that.

Actually, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, but when we first subpoenaed the bank records of Fusion GPS, when we were running the Russiagate investigation in the fall of 2017, I believe, we had to go to federal court to get those records. The first judge in that cycle after a month or two recused herself from the proceedings, and that’s because there was a conflict of interest. Now, she doesn’t have to disclose to us what that conflict was.

We’re only left to guess that it might have to do with… and she came from a big law firm in her past, and it might have to do with a client or an institution they represent. So it happens. It happens in major cases. It happens in cases you don’t hear about. It happens to judges, but in this instance, it’s not about the judge. It’s about the lawyer, lawyers.

Mr. Jekielek: So what are these potential conflicts of interest here? I mean, it would be bizarre if information were able to flow in this direction as we just mentioned.

Mr. Patel: Yeah. There’s many, and the rules are governed by not just the law and the constitutions we talked about, but the Canon of Ethics, and they require that any prosecution and defense attorney have a free set of conflict events or be conflict-free with certain stipulations. What they’re saying is… In this instance, John Durham’s pleading is saying… because there’s a Supreme Court case that governs this.

The prosecution has a duty to affirmatively inform the court of a possible conflict of interest, and that’s what John Durham has done in this case. He, John Durham, is saying through his pleading that we think the individuals that now represent Igor Danchenko, who also represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign could have numerous conflicts of interest, not just the information flow.

So he laid out some of them, and it’s not up to the prosecution to investigate those on their own. They can request assistance, and I think appropriately did so to the judge because the judge has wider latitude to talk to defense counsel and even go what we call ex parte if need be, and that’s just to bring in defense counsel alone. So it’s not to divulge the defense of the defendant, which is to remain private. That’s never have to be divulged to the prosecution. So the judge has a little more leeway in how he investigates the potential conflict of interest.

But John Durham has now put these terms on notice that he should take those matters and those inquiries, and see where they lead. Namely, the number one thing that comes to my mind in terms of whether there’s a potential conflict of interest is witnesses, right?

These guys who represent Danchenko, who represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign. How many people in the Hillary Clinton Campaign universe do they represent? Did they represent five years ago, four years ago, three years ago? Is Igor Danchenko going to call one of those people as a witness in his trial? That’s a potential conflict of interest.

I don’t know Igor Danchenko’s defense. Only he and his attorneys do. Are those lawyers going to be shaded by their past representation of some of these said witnesses in their current representation of Danchenko? Are they going to be biased because they previously had a relationship with one of the witnesses that could be called? It’s not necessary that that witness has to be called. Is the government going to call one of those witnesses?

Let’s put the defense aside wholly. Is John Durham saying, “I might call witnesses A, B, and C,” and you represented A and B, and now you represent the defendant? It’s a potential conflict of interest, which basically… What the judge has to safeguard against is a reversible error, and a conflict of interest and a potential conflict of interest is almost… Once it’s established, it’s an automatic reversal.

So if he was convicted and this matter wasn’t adjudicated properly, the appeals court would look at it and say, “Why didn’t anyone look at this conflict of interest?” Which is why it’s so critical at this juncture for him to adjudicate. We can get it, about how you deal with an actual conflict of interest, but the witness thing is just one example for me of the possible conflicts. You brought up information sharing, and we can get into that too.

Mr. Jekielek: Well, okay. So let’s do it.

Mr. Patel: So it sounds pretty nefarious, right? But let’s be real with our audience. The entire Russiagate investigation, the Steele dossier, Hillary Clinton Campaign’s involvement in it, paying Perkins Coie $10 million, hiring Christopher Steele, paying him six figures, getting false information all the while informing the Clinton Campaign of what they were doing through their attorneys as we now know through the Michael Sussmann indictment who represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

That’s another possible conflict. Michael Sussman is indicted by the special counsel. He represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Did these lawyers that are representing Danchenko have anything to do with Michael Sussmann in the past? I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s another potential conflict of interest.

But what’s of greater note is that this information has cascaded down from the Hillary Clinton Campaign for four, five years now. Have these lawyers just nested themselves into a defendant that’s been charged so they can funnel information back to the Hillary campaign?

Now, that sounds pretty nefarious, but after everything we’ve proven and shown, I wouldn’t put it past them, and that’s why this judge has to adjudicate this matter now and appropriately. Can you imagine a scenario where lawyers for defendants where they’re not in his best interest, which is what is required by the constitution, but were being paid by someone to do that representation? Then, all the discovery, all the evidence that John Durham has to turn over so that the defendant’s rights are under the constitution are upheld, they take some of that information and leak it to the press. They go around and give it back to Hillary Clinton or her campaign, and that campaign uses it and puts it in the media.

It’s no surprise, and we’ll get into this as soon as well that Hillary Clinton is all of a sudden back in the news. So it’s raising a lot of questions. I don’t think there is anything… I don’t ever think there’s anything like a coincidence in these types of cases, and I think this judge… We should follow this. This judge has to deal with this matter. He doesn’t have to divulge how he deals with it or the details he deals with it, but he has to make a decision, and there has to be what we call a waiver by the defendant, and that’s a process.

Mr. Jekielek: So interesting, and so are there any other… these conflicts of interest that Durham outlined? I think there were others.

Mr. Patel: Well, the other one that’s actually… maybe it’s more prescient than the one we’ve talked about. I mean, this is crazy. It’s like all in one case. The other one is that John Durham quietly in his pleading basically told the world we’ve known the whole time. We’ve been saying, you and I, on this show.

The Hillary Clinton Campaign is being investigated by John Durham. So he’s telling the judge, “Not only am I not done with my special counsel investigation I’ve indicted clients with. I’ve indicted Sussmann. I’ve indicted Danchenko. I’ve told the world about Charles Dolan, Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, Mark Elias, who used to represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the corrupt activities of the FBI, but I’m now also telling you, judge, I’m looking into the Hillary Clinton Campaign’s conduct and involvement in the production of the Steele dossier.”

That’s a massive conflict of interest. Even if John Durham doesn’t indict anyone in the Hillary Clinton Campaign, what John Durham is saying is, “Judge, I’m looking at it. I’ve been looking at it. I don’t know what I’m going to find. Are one of the people I’m looking at the Hillary Clinton Campaign connected to this law firm?” I’ll take it one step further. Is he looking at one of the lawyers who represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign?

People might say that’s a super far stretch, but we now know that Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton, has already been indicted for his conduct during the Russiagate hoax. So I don’t put it past him. I don’t know these lawyers. I don’t know that they’ve done that, but John Durham would be the only one that knows the answer to that question, and what he’s saying is those roads may lead to them or clients they represented. So you have the money angle, the information angle, the investigative angle, and we haven’t even gotten to the defendant’s constitutional rights, which I think trump all of those.

Mr. Jekielek: So, well, I think we do need to get to those. I mean, you’re laying it out perfectly here. Right? Now, why is that the most important thing here? That’s very…

Mr. Patel: I mean, maybe I’m biased because of my time as a public defender, but what you’re supposed to do as a defense attorney is execute due process and stand up when your client has been charged with whatever they’ve been charged with. He’s afforded that right. Not at 50% or 70%, but 100%, and not just one day, but from beginning to end. He has to have that right. Otherwise, it could be a reversible error in the appellate courts because they’ll say counsel was ineffective as we call it.

If there’s a finding of ineffectiveness or a conflict because of ineffectiveness, it’s a reversal, and then he gets to go all over again, but I also believe that that’s the whole point of our justice system. That’s why it’s different from 90% plus of the world’s judicial systems. We have a system in place where everyone gets the counsel they’re choosing, and if they can’t afford one, there’s a public defender service to afford them that sort of representation that the constitution demands.

The defendant in this case, and the Supreme Court, again, adjudicated this, he has to be made aware of all these conflicts not just by his own attorneys, but by the prosecution and possible inquiry by the judge to further develop some of the lines that, in this case, John Durham has laid out for the court.

Only after the defendant has been made aware, all of those potential conflicts, the witnesses, the money, the bias, where the investigation is going. Then, the judge in open court has to ask the defendant if he wants to, even knowing all that information, stick with his lawyers. So he has to make what’s called the Knowing Intelligent and Intentional Waiver of a conflict of interest.

All three of those have to be met. So he can only do that if he’s been informed of the conflicts and the potential conflicts in their entirety, and then he has to go into open court and say, “Judge, I’ve reviewed all of that information,” and because the constitution speaks directly to this that is he is allowed his counsel of choosing, and I agree with this. If he knows about all of it and still wants to go with them, that should be his right. But what John Durham is saying is, “I don’t know if he knows about all of that.”

Plus, what John Durham is saying is, “I don’t know all of the information because I’m still investigating the Clinton Campaign. You, the judge, can talk to the lawyers outside of the prosecution’s presence. You can talk to the lawyers and the defendant outside of the prosecution’s presence. You, the judge, can call in witnesses and say, ‘I’ve been notified of a possible conflict of interest from your firm, or this organization, or this individual I hear might be indicted. I want to know the details so I can advise the defendant in this case of those details. So he can make that knowing and intentional waiver.’” (Full interview: Kash’s Corner, 12/24/2021)  (Archive)