Signs that John Durham’s investigation of Trump-Russia investigators is over
Jerry Dunleavy
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More signs are pointing to special counsel John Durham’s investigation of the Trump–Russia investigators being done, including the Justice Department dropping a Freedom of Information Act exemption related to investigations.
Republicans have repeatedly called upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to allow Durham to complete his work and to make public Durham’s full report, which is expected to be finished soon — if it isn’t completed already.
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The left-wing American Oversight watchdog group announced Friday that the DOJ had “dropped a key objection to the release of more than 4,500 pages of documents related to the Durham investigation,” noting that the “DOJ had previously withheld the records claiming that their disclosure would interfere with an ongoing law enforcement investigation” but that the department now “withdrew its assertion of the ‘ongoing investigation’ exemption — strongly suggesting that the Durham investigation has been closed.”
The Justice Department has long cited “Exemption 7(A)” when withholding information on the Durham investigation, including related to the American Oversight FOIA requests that began in 2019. The exemption allows the DOJ to withhold information “only to the extent that production of such law enforcement records or information … could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” and the exemption “may be invoked so long as the law enforcement proceeding involved remains pending.”
Brian Boynton, the DOJ’s principal deputy assistant attorney general, told a federal court Friday that the DOJ had produced 344 partially redacted records pursuant to Exemption 7(A) and other exemptions and that the department “has also withheld in full 4,567 pages and one voicemail audio file based on an assertion of Exemption 7(A).”
The Justice Department said it has now “decided to withdraw its assertion of Exemption 7(A) as a basis for withholding records.”
This development comes a month and a half after Garland told Congress that Durham would be finishing his report in the near future.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked the Biden attorney general about Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, a defendant in a Durham trial last year, and about Sussmann’s unusual close access to the FBI in 2016.
Sussmann had been charged by Durham after allegedly concealing his two clients, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and Neustar chief technology officer Rodney Joffe, from FBI General Counsel James Baker when he pushed debunked allegations of a secret line of communication between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank during a September 2016 meeting. But a jury found Sussmann not guilty of the false statement charge following a trial in the nation’s capital last year.
“On the particular question of Mr. Sussmann, I think we’re going to have to wait until Mr. Durham finishes his report, which should be relatively soon,” Garland told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Justice in late March. “I certainly don’t want to in any way interfere with him — he’s the one who would know the answer to that.”
Durham began investigating the origins and conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation while he was a U.S. attorney in Connecticut after being asked to do so by former Attorney General William Barr, who then quietly made Durham a special counsel in October 2020.
Durham was “authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counterintelligence, or law enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III,” Barr’s appointment 2020 order said.
In early February 2021, Biden asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys for their resignations, with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as an exception who was asked to stay on as he investigates Hunter Biden. Durham was asked to step down as U.S. attorney from Connecticut but was kept on as special counsel.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced in January 2023 that the committee will scrutinize Durham’s investigation following a New York Times story critical of the special counsel’s inquiry.
In 2021, Garland noted his support for Durham making his report public, saying, “With respect to the report, I would like as much as possible to be made public. I have to be concerned about Privacy Act concerns and classification, but other than that, the commitment is to provide a public report, yes.”
He also vowed, “There will be no political or otherwise undue interference with the Durham investigation.”
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report in December 2019 criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page for concealing possibly exculpatory information from the FISA court related to collusion denials by a number of Trump associates and for the bureau’s reliance on the Democratic-funded and discredited dossier by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
The DOJ later told the FISA court it believed at least some of the Page FISA warrants were “not valid.” FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed there had been at least some illegal surveillance and said he was working to “claw back” that FISA information.
Congress is debating the renewal of the DOJ’s FISA authorities.
While Horowitz argued in December 2019 that Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the Russian interference investigation, was “opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication,” Durham and Barr disputed its justification.
“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened,” Durham said at the time.
Durham’s “investigation into the investigators” has lasted longer than Mueller’s special investigation into alleged ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. Mueller’s inquiry “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion.
Durham also charged Russian analyst Igor Danchenko, the main source for Steele’s discredited dossier, with misleading about the sourcing for the dossier claims. Danchenko was also found not guilty last year.
Durham revealed that even after the Steele dossier fiasco, Danchenko was on the FBI’s payroll as a confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020 before he was charged.
Durham has obtained one guilty plea. FBI ex-lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to falsifying a document during the bureau’s flawed efforts to renew FISA surveillance against Page.
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Clinesmith, who worked on the Clinton emails investigation and the Trump-Russia inquiry, as well as on Mueller’s team, admitted in August 2020 that he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance authority against Page. Clinesmith edited a CIA email in 2017 to state that Page was “not a source” for the CIA when Page had indeed been an “operational contact” for the agency.
Durham said Clinesmith’s deception “fueled public distrust of the FBI and of the entire FISA program itself.” Judge James Boasberg sentenced Clinesmith to one-year probation in January 2021.