Look carefully at this tweet from Catherine Herridge at CBS. Notice anything?
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has known about the Durham probe of Michael Sussmann for how long? And specifically, the criminal case against Sussmann revolved around the central witness, the point of contact with former FBI General Counsel, Jim Baker. Yet the OIG said nothing to John Durham about their possession of Baker’s phones until this month?
Think about what that tells us?
TechnoFog has more details about the latest court filing SEE HERE. He also notes the issue of the Durham team only recently being notified by the OIG in January:
…”There is also a curious paragraph discussing the fact that Durham, in January 2022 – learned from the DOJ Inspector General that they possessed “two FBI cellphones of the former FBI General Counsel to whom the defendant made his alleged false statement, along with forensic reports analyzing those cellphones.” Durham’s team is going through those cell phones now to analyze their contents.
And there will be more, with Durham stating, “the Government expects to receive additional information and documents in the coming weeks that may be relevant to the charged conduct.” (read more)
Techno has a great perspective and is always a great source for interpretation of the legal filings. However, I would draw attention to the obvious question about the internal policing unit of the DOJ, the Office of Inspector General, not notifying the special counsel of the evidence in their possession.
James Baker
It’s likely, from the information inside the current and previous filings, that sometime in the interviews with James Baker (a friend of the Lawfare alliance consisting of Ben Wittes, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe), the former FBI general counsel noted he turned over his phones to the OIG, most likely as an outcome of the previous OIG investigation into the political weaponization of the FBI in the OIG FISA application investigation around Carter Page.
Baker telling Durham he gave his phones to the OIG, likely led to Durham asking DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz about them. The OIG then recently admitting they had them…. as evidence… and so, here they are.
However, on its face, the OIG not informing the Durham probe about them previously confirms what we previously outlined about how the information silos are used to contain and control information adverse to the interests of the DC system, writ large. Compartmentalization is how the corrupt enterprises of the Fourth Branch of Government, in this instance the DOJ, can bury information. It’s a feature, not a flaw.
Why didn’t you tell us you had the murder weapon? Well, you didn’t ask… and so it goes. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/25/2022) (Archive)