DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ US special counsel criticizes 2016 Trump-Russia probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Reuters Editorial | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PoliticsUS special counsel criticizes 2016 Trump-Russia probePostedThe FBI lacked "actual evidence" to investigate Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump's political opponents to fuel the probe, U.S. Special Counsel John Durham concluded in a report released on Monday. This report produced by Freddie Joyner.

☆ DeSantis pledges he would 'clean house' at the FBI as president in response to Durham report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Special counsel John Durham slammed the FBI over its Trump-Russia investigation in a new report. DeSantis said the report showed "I was right," because he'd defended Trump as a US congressman. "What I would do is clean house top to bottom in these agencies," he said of the FBI and others. The report was published Monday and overseen by Special Counsel John Durham — who was appointed by former President Trump's attorney general Bill Barr — and was the conclusion of a four-yearlong investigation into the 2016 election. The FBI opened its investigation in July 2016 and Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over in 2017.

☆ Trump is weaponizing the Russia report he demanded -- even though it lacks bombshells
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Another Trump ally, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, argued the report showed the “rule of law in America is subservient to political outcomes. In another politically sensitive part of his report, Durham found that the FBI did not pursue allegations against Clinton with the same vigor with which they acted against Trump. He pointed out that the Trump investigation was launched at a time when Russia was attacking Democratic National Committee servers and had used stolen information to attack Clinton. The investigation was only launched after the bureau received evidence from a friendly foreign government that the Trump campaign had been offered help by the Russians. But all Trump needed from the report was a headline and a general narrative of suspicion against the FBI.

☆ US special counsel faults FBI's handling of 2016 Trump-Russia probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Sarah N. Lynch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The FBI lacked “actual evidence” to investigate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump’s political opponents to fuel the probe, U.S. Special Counsel John Durham concluded in a report released on Monday. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at his final campaign event at the Devos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. November 8, 2016. That Crossfire Hurricane investigation would later be handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in March 2019 concluded there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. In his new 306-page report, Durham concluded that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement did not possess any “actual evidence” of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia prior to launching Crossfire Hurricane. He also accused the bureau of treating the 2016 Trump probe differently from other politically sensitive investigations, including several involving Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

☆ FBI Faulted for Its Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | Sadie Gurman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Special counsel John Durham said his report was based on more than 480 interviews, a review of more than six million pages of documents, 190 subpoenas and other actions. Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated PressWASHINGTON—A special counsel appointed in President Donald Trump’s administration issued a highly critical report on how the FBI handled allegations linking Mr. Trump to Russia in 2016, ending four years of work Monday after having lost the two criminal cases he took to trial. In his 306-page report, John Durham , the former top prosecutor in Connecticut, repeated prior criticisms faulting the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a number of points.

☆ Takeaways from special counsel John Durham’s report on FBI’s Russia-Trump probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Zachary Cohen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —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. The report does not ultimately fulfill the expectations set by former President Trump and his allies who have long claimed that it would prove the FBI’s investigation was nothing more than a political witch hunt. That finding was at the core of Durham’s most scathing criticism of the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation. “Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump,” Durham wrote, while quoting in a footnote previously known texts between Strzok and Lisa Page, then an FBI attorney. Witness testimony exposed the FBI’s overreliance on the dossier as it sought court approval to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016.

☆ Special counsel appointed by Trump's attorney general says FBI had no basis for investigating Trump's links to Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI didn't have sufficient evidence to open its investigation into Donald Trump's connections with Russia, according to a report published by the Justice Department on Monday. For nearly four years, Durham — appointed by former President Trump's attorney general Bill Barr — investigated the origins of the FBI's investigation into links between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. In his 300-page report, he found that it had no basis for opening the investigation in the first place. The FBI investigation, with the code name Crossfire Hurricane, was opened in July 2016 to examine Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election. "After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia Probe!"

John Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who for four years has pursued a politically fraught investigation into the Russia inquiry, accused the F.B.I. of a “lack of analytical rigor” in a final report made public on Monday that examined the bureau’s investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign was conspiring with Moscow. Mr. Durham’s 306-page report appeared to show little substantial new information about the F.B.I.’s handling of the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations impugning the bureau that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies had once suggested that Mr. Durham would find. Instead, the report — released without substantive comment or redactions by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — repeated previously exposed flaws in the inquiry, including from a 2019 inspector general report, while concluding that the F.B.I. suffered from a confirmation bias as it pursued leads about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

☆ Special counsel John Durham concludes FBI never should have launched full Trump-Russia probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Zachary Cohen Devan Cole Tierney Sneed Evan Perez Hannah Rabinowitz Jeremy Herb Marshall Cohen | Zachary Cohen | Devan Cole | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

“Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump,” Durham wrote, while quoting in a footnote previously known texts between Strzok and Lisa Page, then an FBI attorney. Witness testimony exposed the FBI’s overreliance on the dossier as it sought court approval to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016. Mixed results over 3+ yearsBarr tapped Durham in 2019 to review the origins of the Russia probe, and the scope of Durham’s work grew over the years. Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which inherited the initial Russia probe, released a detailed accounting of Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election. Mueller found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but investigators documented numerous contacts between Trump associates and Russians.

☆ Special counsel issues report criticizing FBI for launching Trump-Russia investigation
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Ken Dilanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The special counsel who spent four years investigating the Trump-Russia probe accused the FBI of acting negligently by opening the investigation based on vague and insufficient information in a sweeping 300-page report made public Monday. The FBI responded to the report, indicating that the missteps identified by Durham have already been addressed. Durham's report examines in painstaking detail various aspects of the now infamous FBI investigation code-named "Crossfire Hurricane," which led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Durham's investigation found that at the time, neither the FBI nor CIA had any intelligence suggesting an improper relationship between Trump and Russia. Durham appears to suggest that the intelligence information should have given the FBI pause in its pursuit of allegations involving the Trump campaign.

☆ Hillary Clinton: Durham interviewed former Secretary of State on alleged plan to tie Trump to Russia, found no 'provable criminal offense'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Evan Perez | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The special counsel was looking into whether any crimes occurred in the handling of an uncorroborated piece of US intelligence indicating Russia knew of a Clinton campaign plan to vilify her opponent, Trump, by tying him to the country. During the Trump administration, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of Brennan’s notes about the intelligence used in his briefing of former President Barack Obama. Ratcliffe publicly said that the intelligence community never corroborated the Russian claims of a “Clinton Plan” to frame Trump, and didn’t know whether it was fabricated. In her interview with Durham’s investigators, Clinton expressed sympathy for Durham’s hunt. Durham concludes that it would be impossible to prosecute anyone for their handling of the intelligence.

The chief judge has sole discretion over sealed federal grand jury proceedings. As chief judge, Boasberg is poised to rule on certain legal arguments raised in the grand jury probes, including efforts to restrict witnesses from testifying. Grand jury proceedings are kept from public view. Another special counsel, Robert Hur, was named by Garland in January to look into classified records found at Biden's home in Delaware and former office in Washington. During her tenure as chief judge, Howell regularly heard legal arguments in special counsel investigations.

☆ John Durham Finds Russiagate’s Rosetta Stone
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Holman W. Jenkins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Throw in a few real names and places to make your inventions believable and people will believe them. This is the method of many a disgraced journalist such as the New York Times ’s Jayson Blair and the Washington Post’s Janet Cooke . It was the method of the Steele dossier fabulists Igor Danchenko and his boss Christopher Steele . It was also the method of the most consequential fabricator of all, whoever dreamed up the presumably fake email exchange between then-Democratic Party chief Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and activist Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundation. This imaginary exchange may have made Donald Trump president.

☆ The inquiry Trump launched to clear his name on Russia collusion ended up investigating him for potential financial crimes: NYT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Special counsel John Durham's team reportedly opened up a criminal probe into Trump's financial dealings. It is not clear what happened to the probe, which started as a result of a tip by Italian officials. Instead, a tip from Italian officials led the Justice Department to quietly open a probe into shady financial deals linked to then-President Donald Trump. But, according to the Times, Italian officials responded by telling Durham's team about allegations of financial crimes that were serious enough that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation. At the time, vague reports about Durham's new criminal probe lit up conservative media.

☆ Prosecutor appointed by Trump Justice Department used claims from Russian intelligence to obtain emails from a George Soros aide: NYT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

John Durham used Russian intelligence claims to obtain a US citizen's emails, per The New York Times. Durham was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. But Durham pursued a dubious claim from Russia involving Hillary Clinton and an aide to George Soros. They "were said to make demonstrably inconsistent, inaccurate or exaggerated claims," the Times reported, "and some US analysts believed Russia may have deliberately seeded them with disinformation." As Russian intelligence analysts themselves had told it, Moscow had hacked Leonard Benardo, executive vice president of Soros' Open Society Foundations, and in doing so uncovered a plot at the highest level to sway the 2016 election.

Smith takes over a staff that’s already nearly twice the size of Robert Mueller’s team of lawyers who worked on the Russia probe. Smith will also take on national security investigators already working the probe into the potential mishandling of federal records taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. Those lawyers maintain the former president is unlikely to be indicted, according to two sources familiar. Special Counsel Robert Mueller makes a statement about the Russia investigation on May 29, 2019 at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. Trump allies have consistently maintained that nothing Trump did related to the election and January 6 itself amounts to a crime.

☆ U.S. Justice Dept. names war crimes expert as special counsel for Trump probes
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Sarah N. Lynch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Trump called the special counsel appointment a "rigged deal." Biden did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about the special counsel during his only public appearance of the day. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein 1 2 3This marks the second time in five years that the Justice Department has appointed a special counsel to probe Trump's conduct. Smith is the Justice Department's third special counsel to be appointed since 2017 to handle a politically sensitive case. In 2019, Barr appointed John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI's probe into Trump's 2016 campaign.

☆ Judge fined a group of Trump lawyers $50k each for filing meritless and mistake-strewn lawsuit against Hillary Clinton
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A group of Trump lawyers was fined over a failed case alleging a vast pro-Clinton conspiracy. The judge called it a "deliberate use of the judicial system to pursue a political agenda." On Friday, Judge Donald Middlebrooks slammed the failed case, describing it as "a deliberate use of the judicial system to pursue a political agenda." In particular, Trump's lawyers accused Dolan of being the source of the dossier's infamous claims of an encounter between Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. But the case failed to establish this, and made several basic errors in the process, Middlebrook said.

☆ Special Counsel John Durham Discredits the Press
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Holman W. Jenkins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Only John Durham can say why he proceeded as he did. The 45-year veteran prosecutor was assigned to examine the FBI’s decisions related to the Trump collusion investigation. Aside from an early guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who falsified evidence, he pursued only two outside informants for allegedly lying to the agency. Some on the right blame him for not going after FBI officials directly, though it’s not clear what these officials might be charged with. Illegal leaks are a crime but notoriously hard to prove in court.

As in Danchenko’s trial, Durham failed to convict Sussmann of making false statements to the FBI. And therein lies the reason underlying Durham’s losing trial record. On Monday, during Durham’s closing argument against Danchenko, the special prosecutor made a point of rebuking the FBI’s 2016 investigation. The Hartford Courant reported her concern about “pressure from Barr ... to produce results before the election.”Durham, however, stuck with Barr. And Barr’s energetic attempts after Jan. 6 to rehabilitate his image cannot erase his sad final legacy as a Trump enabler.

☆ Analyst who provided Trump-Russia dossier information acquitted of lying to FBI
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Julia Jester | Julia Jester Is A Producer For Nbc News Based In Washington | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Prosecutors alleged Danchenko provided false information to the FBI in 2017 when the agency was trying to verify information in a dossier detailing Trump’s alleged ties to Russia that was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The largely unsubstantiated dossier was used by the FBI to support its surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Millian has denied being a source of information for the dossier. When asked by the FBI whether he had talked to Dolan for the information, Danchenko said he had not. Trump had called the dossier fake news and evidence of a political witch hunt against him.

☆ Igor Danchenko Acquitted of Lying to FBI About Trump-Russia Dossier
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ALEXANDRIA, Va.— Igor Danchenko , a consultant whose information comprised the bulk of the 2016 “Steele dossier,” was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI, leaving special counsel John Durham with losses in both cases he took to trial as his yearslong inquiry into the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election winds down. Over four days in federal court outside Washington, D.C., Mr. Durham sought to portray Mr. Danchenko as fabricating one of his own sources and concealing another one when the FBI questioned him in 2017 about where he obtained the allegations he provided to ex-British spy Christopher Steele , who was paid by Democratic operatives to collect opposition research on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and alleged ties to the Kremlin.

WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - A Russian researcher who contributed explosive details to the "Steele dossier" that alleged ties between former President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia was acquitted on Tuesday on charges he lied to the FBI about the sources of his intelligence. "While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service," Durham said in a statement. The decision marks the second defeat for Durham and his team of prosecutors. Earlier this year, a jury in Washington, D.C., acquitted Michael Sussmann, an attorney for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, of charges he lied to the FBI when he passed along a later discredited tip about possible communications between Trump's business and a Russian bank. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Tim AhmannOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Special Counsel John Durham and the Press’s Battle With Truth
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Holman W. Jenkins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Members of the press are rooting for the failure of the latest John Durham prosecution, because they think it absolves them of their roles in the collusion hoax. Nor are the feelings of special counsel Durham hard to guess. They are likely identical to those of a previous exposer of FBI misfeasance, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz , who could not have failed to be surprised and a little appalled at the media’s indifference to the truths he and his team labored to reveal at taxpayer expense.

☆ Durham’s Steele Dossier Case Hits Hurdles From His Own FBI Witnesses
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Igor Danchenko is accused of lying to FBI agents as they probed Russian interference in the 2016 election. ALEXANDRIA, Va.—A central source for a salacious 2016 dossier on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump became a valuable informant for the FBI and agents who worked with him thought he was telling the truth, FBI employees testified this week. Their testimony, as witnesses in a case brought by the prosecution, presented serious challenges to Special Counsel John Durham ’s case against consultant Igor Danchenko on charges of lying to the FBI, the second case Mr. Durham has brought in his yearslong inquiry into actions FBI agents took as they probed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Durham engaged in heated confrontations with two of his primary witnesses, including at the end of Thursday with FBI agent Kevin Helson.

Search resuls for: "John Durham"

25 mentions found