Judging Freedom - Durham investigation Latest

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Final expected trial of Durham investigation returns spotlight to flawed Trump-Russia dossier https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/11/politi... #Trump #Durham #RussiaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, October 11, 2022. It's about 1040 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. John Durham, remember him? He is the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, the holdover appointment that Joe Biden did not rescind. Usually when a president comes in, he asks the U.S. attorneys, the chief federal prosecutors for each of the federal districts. Some districts are statewide, like New Jersey and Connecticut. Others in the larger states are broken down to different parts of the states. He asked them to resign. If they don't resign, he fires them. Joe Biden did not do that. And I'm not being critical of Trump or

praiseworthy of Biden. Not all presidents do it. Trump did. Biden did. But one of the U.S. attorneys that Biden kept on was John Durham in Connecticut. John Durham wears two hats, the chief federal prosecutor in Connecticut and the special counsel appointed by former Attorney General, then Attorney General Bill Barr, to investigate the origins of the Russian Russia collusion investigation of Donald Trump. That investigation produced three indictments. One of Kevin Clinesmith, a young 28-year-old assistant deputy lawyer for the FBI who pleaded guilty to filing a false document with the FISA court and was sentenced to six months of home confinement. Another, Michael Sussman, Hillary Clinton's former lawyer, who was indicted for lying to the FBI and who was acquitted. And the third is a Russian lawyer, legally resident in the United States, who's been indicted for lying to the FBI, and his trial starts today. So that's the reason I'm bringing all this

into you now. I just give you the background on John Durham. So Durham's work is over. The grand jury that he impaneled their time is concluded. He does not appear to be impaneling a new grand jury. It looks as though he'll release some sort of a report but not the massive indictments that the Trump folks had been hoping for. The indictment that's being tried today is yet again another one of lying to the FBI. Now this fellow, Ivan Dachenko, the defendant, the Russian lawyer resident in the United States was apparently a source for Christopher Steele in the dossier. The dossier. The dossier, of course, was that 28-page report compiled by Steele, a former GCHQ, that's the British Domestic Intelligence Arm, an MI6, that's the British CIA,

and a double agent. He worked not only for the Brits but for the United States and in the United States he worked not only for the CIA but the FBI. All this is against all these rules. The Brits and the Americans have agreed they won't use each other's agents. The FBI and the CIA have agreed they won't use each other's agents but everybody was utilizing Christopher Steele. The dossier of course accused then Mr. Donald Trump of engaging in acts of sexual perversion in a hotel room in Moscow in the years before he was running for president. The dossier has been pretty much discredited. This fellow Dachenko was apparently a source for the information in the dossier. So he's not accused of lying to Chris Steele. That wouldn't be a crime. But he is accused

of lying to the FBI, which was investigating the origin of the dossier. And the lies, of course, were who he spoke to, not the information he gathered, but who he spoke to. This is a very low level prosecution. And if it did not involve the dossier and Donald Trump, we probably wouldn't even know about the case because it just wouldn't be reaching the headlines. I have a very serious problem with prosecutions for lying to the FBI because Because the FBI is legally allowed to lie to us, it should not be a crime to lie to them or the crime should be bilateral. If it's a crime for us to lie to them, then it should be a crime for them to lie to us. The classic case is Martha Stewart. Remember her? She's having a conversation with an FBI agent and her corporate lawyer, not a criminal defense lawyer. And in that conversation,

the corporate lawyer says to the FBI agent, is my client a target of this investigation? The FBI agent lies and says no. Then the FBI agent begins to ask Martha Stewart about her stock trading during the course of which she told a lie. Question is, are these lies material? Do they send the FBI in a wild goose chase? Does the government miss an opportunity to prosecute somebody because the statute of limitations expired and the lie tricked them into forestalling the prosecution? Or is it the type of lie where a person just doesn't have a memory

or is just protecting himself? I mean, the lie that this guy, that Chenko is accused of saying is, I think I didn't speak to someone. Now the FBI says he did speak to that person. Is that worthy of a prosecution? Who knows? But the last of these Durham prosecutions, the one against Michael Sussman, Hillary Clinton's former lawyer for lying to the FBI.

Sussman's lawyers got FBI agents lawyer, for lying to the FBI. Sussman's lawyers got FBI agents on the witness stand to admit that they routinely lie to people they are interrogating, and they often lie to each other, and they often lie to their superiors. When the jury heard this, they concluded the case was a farce. They didn't care if Michael Sussman lied to the FBI. They found him not guilty. I suspect the same thing will happen in the Dushenko case. I hope there's no prejudice against him just because he's Russian. He has no more to do with the war in Ukraine than any of you listening to me now or that I do. But there is that bias against the Russians because, you know, the Russians are the enemies these days if you listen

to the government. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.