Unhinged leftist Keith Olbermann faces bipartisan scorn after demanding that Jake Tapper resign over admission Durham report is 'devastating to the FBI'
The Durham report, which revealed this week that the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign was baseless, has served to further discredit the already scandal-plagued bureau.
Even CNN's Jake Tapper felt compelled to admit on his show Monday that the report is "devastating to the FBI, and to a degree it does exonerate Donald Trump."
While Tapper attempted to pin some blame on former President Donald Trump, the CNN host nevertheless managed to draw the ire of Keith Olbermann, a YouTube personality unswayed by facts and ever committed to the debunked Russian-collusion narrative.
Olbermann demanded on Twitter that Tapper resign for noting the FBI's self-inflicted reputational wounds, which even the FBI has acknowledged in softened language to have been "missteps."
In response to Tapper's suggestion that the report is "devastating to the FBI," Olbermann tweeted, "It isn't. Not even close. No charges, just partisan 'conclusions.' And Tapper of the new non-journalist Chris Licht CNN is propagandizing," adding, "Jake Tapper needs to resign."
\u201cCNN's new scandal:\n\n@jaketapper says the Durham Report is "devastating to the FBI"\n\nIt isn't. Not even close. No charges, just partisan "conclusions." And Tapper of the new non-journalistic Chris Licht CNN is propagandizing\n\nJake Tapper needs to resign\u201d— Keith Olbermann\u2199\ufe0f (@Keith Olbermann\u2199\ufe0f) 1684187251
In a rare show of unity and bipartisanship, Twitter users of various backgrounds and political persuasions blasted Olbermann over his viral tweet, which has over 570,000 views.
Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi wrote, "Keith, @JakeTapper is right. And the report isn't just devastating to the FBI, it's devastating to media figures who ran bogus stories that were either leaked by the Bureau, or laundered through it."
Taibbi then cited various instances where Olbermann previously peddled baseless agitprop on his now-defunct GQ show "The Resistance with Keith Olbermann."
Several of the show's episode titles allude to Olbermann's confident assertions of what have been demonstrated to be falsehoods: "Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven"; "A Timeline of Treason"; "Trump Will Not Be Cleared"; "Trump is Aiding the Enemy"; and "Trump is Lying About Russia."
Here is one of Olbermann's false reports from 2017:
Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ youtu.be
In a subsequent tweet, Taibbi asked, "Which parts do you think are incorrect, Keith?"
Liberal journalist Eli Lake, who serves as contributing editor at Commentary, wrote, "This is the first resistance in the history of resistance to align itself with a federal police force," referencing Olbermann's former show "The Resistance," whereon he advanced falsehoods discredited in the Durham report and elsewhere.
Lake added, "To call Keith a buffoon is an insult to buffoonery."
One Twitter user wrote to Olbermann, "Your tears of denial are delicious."
Another commentator cut to the bone, writing, "It’s clear… you’re entire identity is tied to your Trump views these last 5 years."
The Durham report, which Olbermann does not consider to be "devastating," stressed that the Department of Justice and the FBI "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" when launching the probe into the Trump campaign.
Durham said the FBI utilized “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" to open the investigation into the Trump campaign but did not follow the same standard when approaching alleged election interference in relation to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Durham also found that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” made in the infamous Steele dossier of lurid accusations against then-candidate Donald Trump, and "neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."
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Law professor asks Adam Schiff to show his phantasmal evidence of Russian collusion after Durham report reveals FBI investigation was baseless
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff went on repeated media tours and sounded off on the House floor following the 2016 election, claiming there was "plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight" regarding the Trump campaign and Russia — a false claim originally approved and advanced by failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Schiff's thoroughly discredited claims now appear to be even more damning in light of the release of the final version of special counsel John Durham's report.
Legal scholar and George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley has called on Schiff to account for his apparent lies, suggesting that "this would be a good time for former House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff to reveal that evidence he said showed the Russian collusion ..."
Here are but a few of the televised instances in which Schiff claimed there was evidence of collusion:
\u201cThere is 40+ hours of Adam Schiff blatantly misleading Congress & the American people with his Russian Hoax lies. The Durham report shows Schiff had ZERO evidence. \n\nWhen will Pencil Neck @RepAdamSchiff be prosecuted and stripped of his congressional duties?\u201d— Grand Old Patriots\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@Grand Old Patriots\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1684250482
TheBlaze indicated Monday that Durham's final report paints Schiff, at best, as a maligner.
Durham said the FBI utilized “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" to open the investigation into the Trump campaign but did not follow the same standard when approaching alleged election interference in relation to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Durham also found that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” made in the infamous Steele dossier of lurid accusations against then-candidate Donald Trump, and "neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."
“As noted, it was not until mid-September that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators received several of the Steele Reports. Within days of their receipt, the unvetted and unverified Steele Reports were used to support probable cause in the FBI’s FISA applications targeting [Carter] Page, a U.S. citizen who, for a period of time, had been an advisor to Trump,” the report says.
The Durham report further revealed that the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign was virtually baseless and that most of those involved and responsible knew that to be the case, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-President Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and other partisans briefed on the so-called "Clinton Plan" on Aug. 3, 2016.
These revelations and those accompanying them in the report altogether appear to indicate that the confidence behind Schiff's assertions was either similarly baseless or based on a sense that the actual truth would not ultimately come out.
Turley previously intimated that there might be something to the latter possibility, given Schiff's vigorous and long-standing opposition to Durham's investigation.
For instance, in November 2020, Schiff suggested congressional probes were bad for the country, despite having himself celebrated the initial Trump-Russia collusion investigation, reported Fox News Digital.
Schiff, who led the impeachment efforts against former President Donald Trump, suggested that concerted efforts to ascertain what really happened amounted to an "obstruction of the transition" of then-President-elect Joe Biden into power, then accused Republicans of "tearing down our democracy."
In December 2020, the California Democrat appeared even more uneasy about the prospect that someone might discover it had all been a crock.
Schiff spoke out against then-Attorney General William Barr's selection of John Durham to serve as special counsel and questioned whether Barr even had the authority to do so. He went farther to suggest that Biden's attorney general should shut down the probe, which he claimed was "politically motivated," reported the Daily Caller.
Prior to fighting the Durham investigation, Schiff played defense for the FBI, claiming on Feb. 2, 2018, that "FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign," adding that "DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement."
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Bill Barr says he's 'happy' Durham exposed the Clinton campaign's role in the Trump-Russia conspiracy
Former Attorney General William Barr said Friday he is "disappointed" that special counsel John Durham failed to get a conviction in his case against ex-Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann, but added several reasons why he is "happy" with how the probe into the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation has turned out so far.
BlazeTV host Glenn Beck interviewed Barr on Friday and asked the two-time attorney general for his thoughts on where Durham's investigation goes next.
Barr said that there are "two different goals" for the Durham probe. The first is to "lay the facts bare" and get some "accountability" for the FBI's handling of the Trump-Russia probe by showing the American people how it was conducted.
"The other goal, obviously, would be to punish people to the extent that you can achieve convictions," Barr said. " That latter goal is more difficult, because of the way the system operates. The high standard of proof. You need admissible evidence. And, you know, D.C. juries are not the most favorable forum for these cases, by a long stretch. And I think everyone recognized that."
Sussmann, a former Perkins Coie lawyer, was indicted on one count of lying to the FBI in September 2016 when he presented since-debunked evidence that the Trump Organization had ties to a Russian bank. Durham's prosecutors alleged that Sussmann had pretended to be a concerned citizen without disclosing that he was working for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. They claimed that Sussmann went to the FBI with unverified information so that the bureau would open a case against Donald Trump and that the Clinton campaign subsequently used leaked information from the investigation to attack her Republican rival ahead of the presidential election.
However, a Washington D.C. jury found Sussmann not guilty of the charge.
Barr said that Durham knew "there would be a tough jury" but likely "felt he had the duty to bring this case."
"I'm disappointed, in the outcome. But I am actually happy, that [Durham] blew up the case," he told Beck.
He continued: "I think it actually achieved a lot of progress on the issue of getting at the truth. He shed a lot of light, and demonstrated the central role play by Hillary Clinton's campaign. And also, the very troubling behavior of the FBI leadership, that — that duped its own agents about the source of this information. And that's a lot of progress."
Barr said he is looking forward to the trial of Igor Danchenko later this year. Danchenko was a source for the infamous and debunked Steele dossier, a discredited opposition research report that falsely alleged that Trump's campaign was colluding with the Russian government. He predicted that Durham will "write a very illuminating report about how this went down" once his probe is finished.
He also cautioned that Trump supporters who may be frustrated that no one is going to jail yet over the FBI's conduct need to understand there's a large gap between what they think happened and what is provable in a court of law.
"One of the things that's always frustrated me about the frustration of Trump's allies, and I include myself on that in this issue, is this idea that just because we think we know what happened, it should be easy to throw people in jail," Barr said.
This case illustrates that in a sense. We knew, or thought we knew, that Hillary Clinton in July, had given the green light on this thing — on the idea of her putting out a story to tie Trump to Putin. But the reason we knew that is because the CIA gave a report saying that they had some indications of this. And immediately — well, 'throw them in jail.'
That's not admissible evidence. And you could never build a case on that. The hard work had to be done, to actually get evidence of hearsay. But direct evidence, that happened. And through a lot of hard work, [the] people [who] were trying to bring people to justice, they were able to tell that story.
With direct evidence, as to the role of the campaign. And that's the kind of hard work that's required, to actually present a case in court. And to achieve a ... conviction. But I think the public has been conditioned that just because ... there's information out there in the ether that suggests something, that that should be enough. And it's not enough.
Durham probe takes blow with not-guilty verdict for ex-Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann
Ex-Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was found not guilty of making false statements to the FBI Tuesday in a case concerning the highly controversial Trump-Russia investigation.
The not-guilty verdict is a black mark for special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, which has now lost the first case brought to trial. Durham had sought to prove that Sussmann lied to federal agents when he handed over since-debunked information concerning Donald Trump's alleged ties to a Russian bank during the 2016 presidential campaign. But a D.C. jury disagreed.
"While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision & thank them for their service," Durham said in a statement. "I also want to recognize and thank the investigators & the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case."
Sussmann, a former Perkins Coie lawyer, was indicted on a single charge of making false statements to the FBI in September 2016 when he met with FBI general counsel James Baker. Sussmann gave the bureau information that purportedly showed a connection between the Trump Organization and the Kremlin-tied Alfa-Bank.
The FBI opened a four-month inquiry into the Trump Organization that found no link with Alfa-Bank.
Prosecutors alleged that Sussmann had pretended to be a concerned citizen without disclosing that he was working for Clinton's 2016 campaign. They claimed that Sussmann went to the FBI with unverified information so that the bureau would open a case against Trump and that the Clinton campaign then leaked details about the case to the press to create an October surprise for the election.
Sussmann plead not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. His defense lawyers argued that the prosecution was advancing a "giant political conspiracy theory" and had failed to prove that a crime was committed. They said the FBI was aware of Sussmann's political ties and that he went to the bureau in good faith.
The two-week trial concluded Friday after featuring witness testimony from current and former FBI agents, associates of the Clinton campaign, and various technology experts. The jury met for six hours before reaching its not-guilty verdict, according to CNN.
Previously, Durham's probe led to a guilty plea from a junior FBI lawyer who admitted to falsifying a document when the bureau sought to renew a FISA court warrant to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
The special counsel has also indicted Russian expat Igor Danchenko, a source for the infamous and debunked Steele dossier, a discredited opposition research report that falsely alleged that Trump's campaign was colluding with the Russian government. Danchenko faces five counts of making false statements to the FBI and will be tried in October.
Exclusive: Bill Barr rips Russiagate as 'seditious', explains origins of Durham probe
Bill Barr, former U.S. attorney general and author of the new book, "One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General," says that the Russian collusion allegations leveled against former President Donald Trump by Democrats were a "seditious" attempt to undermine his presidency and a "grave injustice."
Barr made those comments on an upcoming episode of BlazeTV host Glenn Beck's podcast, where he explained why he joined the Trump administration and eventually appointed special prosecutor John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.
"I thought we were heading into a constitutional crisis. I think whatever you think of Trump, the fact is that the whole Russiagate thing was a grave injustice. It appears to be a dirty political trick that was used first to hobble him and then potentially to drive him from office," Barr told Beck.
"I believe it is seditious," he added, clarifying that whether that could be proved in court as a crime is another issue.
"It was a gross injustice, and it hurt the United States in many ways, including what we're seeing in Ukraine these days. It distorted our foreign policy, and so forth," Barr said.
An FBI investigation into Trump's campaign over alleged ties to the Russian government during the 2016 election, known as Crossfire Hurricane, was the source of unceasing controversy for Trump throughout his presidency. Leaks from the investigation were used by the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign to accuse Trump of colluding with the Russians to interfere in the election, spawning conspiracy theories that his victory was illegitimate. After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, congressional Democrats accused him of attempting to obstruct the Russia probe, demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's actions.
After a two-year, $32 million investigation, Robert Mueller released a report in March 2019 that showed evidence of Russian interference in the election, but said the "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." By this time, questions were raised about the origins of Crossfire Hurricane and whether the FBI had inappropriately sought a FISA court warrant to surveil members of Trump's 2016 campaign using opposition research from the Clinton campaign.
Revelations that the FBI had in fact used material from a political opposition research report paid for by the Clinton campaign that made false allegations against Trump — the infamous "Steele dossier" — spurred Attorney General Barr in 2019 to appoint U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI's Russia probe. In December 2020, Barr disclosed that he had made Durham special counsel in October, ensuring that the investigation would continue after President Joe Biden assumed office.
Barr explained to Beck that he acted in secret to give Durham protection from the incoming administration.
"I was highly confident he would remain in office and they wouldn't touch him," he said.
"[The Biden] administration had no real interest in protecting either Hillary Clinton or Comey. And at the end of the day, for them to lose the capital and appear to be covering something up that would then never get resolved, I didn't think was in their interest. And I think institutionally that would've destroyed the new AG if he had tried that," he continued.
The former attorney general also took time to address complaints from the right that Durham was unable to wrap up his investigation before the Trump administration departed after the 2020 election.
Barr said that when Durham was first brought on board, inspector general Michael Horowitz had not yet finished his investigation of the FBI's use of FISA court warrants against the Trump campaign, and Durham wanted the IG report before diving in to his own investigation. When the IG finally released his report in December 2019, Durham had access to it for just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, shutting down grand juries and delaying Durham's investigation through most of 2020, Barr said.
"If you don't have the threat of a grand jury, no one will come in and talk to you. You'll say, the usual thing is, 'Please come in for a voluntary interview.' And people come in because they know if they don't, they're subpoenaed. But if there is no grand jury, they say, 'No, I'm not coming in,' and there's nothing you can do. And people don't understand that that state of affairs lasted until the month before the election," Barr said. "So his hands were very much tied as to how far he could push things and how much pressure he could bring on people through most of 2020."
Now that the pandemic has wound down, Durham's probe brought an indictment against former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who is accused of lying to the FBI in a meeting where he presented information connecting the Trump campaign to Alfa Bank, a financial institution with ties to Russia, but did not tell agents he was working for the Clinton campaign.
Clinton's 2016 campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified as a witness in Sussmann's trial last week, when he told jurors that Clinton had personally authorized her campaign to share information with a reporter — later discovered to be disinformation — that purportedly linked Trump to Russia.
Mook also acknowledged that the Clinton campaign had not verified the accuracy of the data before it went to the press.
The full episode of "The Glenn Beck Podcast" featuring Attorney General Barr will be released Saturday, May 28.
Exclusive: Spygate Researchers Said Claim Russians Hacked The DNC Could Have Relied On ‘Spoofed’ Data
Durham wins legal battle to unveil Hillary Clinton-Fusion GPS documents previously kept secret under attorney-client privilege claims
U.S. special counsel John Durham won a legal victory this week when a judge presiding over his case against cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann ruled that some Hillary Clinton-Fusion GPS documents previously kept secret under attorney-client privilege assertions can be revealed in court.
The documents, Durham argued, are crucial in building his case against Sussmann, a former Perkins Coie partner accused of lying to the FBI when presenting alleged evidence connecting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign to the Kremlin-connected Alfa Bank.
At the time Sussmann presented the evidence to FBI lawyer James Baker, he claimed that he was acting as a private citizen and not on behalf of any client. But billing records later showed that Sussmann had charged the time to Clinton's campaign.
Durham is seeking to prove that Sussmann was indeed secretly acting on behalf of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign when he fabricated allegations against the Trump campaign, alleging collusion with Russia.
In court, Durham argued that the CIA determined Sussmann's purported evidence against Trump was not "technically plausible," did not "withstand technical scrutiny," and appeared to be "user-created and not machine/tool generated."
The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday that Judge Christopher Cooper agreed to grant Durham's motion, arguing he did not believe it was breaking attorney-client privilege for him to review the documents in question in an "in camera" setting, or away from the public and the media.
Legal blogger Techno Fog appeared to confirm the ruling, uploading purported court documents.
The documents reportedly contain redacted communications between the Democratic National Committee, Hillary for America, the Fusion GPS research company, and Perkins Coie law firm, where Sussman worked.
Key to Cooper's ruling was the difference between hiring a firm lawyer to conduct "fact-checking" versus hiring it to do "opposition research," the Examiner reported.
Hillary for America, the DNC, and Perkins Coie have claimed that the records should be kept sealed under attorney-client privilege since they hired Fusion GPS to simply provide "legal services." But Durham has argued that Fusion GPS' work went far beyond legal services to engage in out-and-out opposition research against the Trump campaign.
The court is set to review only 38 of 1,500 documents over which the defendants have asserted privilege, but the prosecution said others may be requested for introduction in future trials.
The ruling clearly rankled the defendants' legal teams.
Clinton campaign lawyer Robert Trout argued the government displayed an "erroneously cramped view of privilege," calling it a "false choice" to say something is either opposition research or covered by privilege.
Sussmann's lawyer, Sean Berkowitz, lamented that "the government charged a case with attorneys and privilege all over the place" and claimed the judge’s ruling could have a "ripple effect" that may end up calling "thousands of documents into question."