Tangle - The John Durham indictments.

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Remember the Trump-Russia investigation? The one that produced Robert Mueller, and which many believed would lead to the end of the Trump presidency? Right now, there is an investigation into the investigation, being led by a different Special Counsel: this one is a man named John Durham. Durham was appointed in 2019 by former Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the Russia investigation.On Thursday, an indictment came down alleging that Michael Sussmann, a high-profile cybersecurity lawyer, lied to the former FBI general counsel James Baker. Specifically, when Sussmann approached the FBI with a tip toward the end of the 2016 presidential race, he allegedly told the FBI he was not representing a client but coming forward as a citizen. According to the indictment, though, he was representing the Clinton campaign and a technology executive. During the meeting, Sussmann presented the FBI with evidence that a server belonging to the Russia-based Alfa Bank appeared to be communicating with Trump organization computers.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at https://www.readtangle.com/--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's podcast, we're going to be talking about the latest from the John Durham investigation into the Trump-Russia probe. If you're wondering whether it's 2016 all over again or something, the answer is yes. There's actually still a lot more information we have to get out of this.

And we're going to explain why it's important today and some of the news that's popped up recently. why it's important today, and some of the news that's popped up recently. Before we jump in, as always, we've got some quick hits for you, some news to start the day. Number one, the Department of Homeland Security is investigating images of Border Patrol agents who were on horseback turning Haitian migrants away from the border yesterday. The images went viral on social media and sparked some outrage. Number two, Democrats are becoming increasingly concerned that President Joe Biden's domestic agenda could implode. That's as both moderates

and progressives are threatening to sink the infrastructure bills, the dual infrastructure bills on each side right now. Number three, the Chinese construction giant Evergrande may default on $300 billion of liabilities, a possibility that is causing some jitters across the global stock market. Number four, Justin Trudeau will remain as Canada's prime minister after an election victory on Monday in which he lost power but managed to hold on to his job. Number five, President Joe Biden just concluded his debut speech as president at the United Nations today. All right, today's topic, the main story, is this indictment that came down in the John Durham investigation last week.

On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted cybersecurity lawyer with ties to the Democratic Party named Michael Sussman on charges that he lied to the FBI in a September 2016 meeting. Just to backpedal here a little bit, if you remember in the Trump-Russia investigation, which produced the Robert Mueller investigation, which many believe would lead to the end of the Trump presidency, there were some questions about how the investigation began. Right now, there is an investigation into the investigation being led by a new special counsel. This one is a man named

John Durham. Durham was appointed in 2019 by former Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the Russia investigation. The investigation has been ongoing now for more than two years and is reportedly nearing its end. Many Trump allies have arroiled at Durham as the man who would finally prove there was some shady business in the investigation, the so-called witch hunt. And he is also a well-respected lawyer with very little in the way of partisan ties. He's someone who both Democrats and Republicans actually speak pretty well of. So what happened? On Thursday, an indictment came down alleging that Michael Sussman, who is a high-profile cybersecurity lawyer, lied to the former FBI General Counsel James Baker. Specifically,

when Sussman approached the FBI with a tip toward the end of the 2016 presidential race, he allegedly told the FBI he was not representing a client but coming forward as a citizen. According to the indictment, though, he was being paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party at the time. He was also representing a technology executive. And during the meeting, Sussman presented the FBI with evidence that a server belonging to the Russia-based Alphabank appeared to be communicating with the Trump Organization computers. between Trump and Alpha Bank eventually was proven false or, you know, there was no evidence really brought forward to prove it. And it didn't appear in Robert Mueller's report. Basically, the allegations just eventually died down. But the news of an FBI investigation being opened into the Alpha Bank-Russia-Trump ties was widely reported on in the media and extremely damaging to Trump toward the end of the 2016 campaign and obviously was part of the story going into his presidency of the Russia-Trump collusion.

So what else do you need to know about this story? Basically, Sussman is the second person who has been charged by Durham. The first was Kevin Clinesmith, a former low-level FBI attorney who was charged with doctoring an email that was used to get surveillance on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Clinesmith changed the email to say that Page was, quote, not a source for the Central Intelligence Agency, despite Page's cooperation with the CIA previously, which made Page's actions look a lot more suspicious and justified further surveillance on Page and thus the Trump campaign. In other words, so we have sort of two tracks here,

two stories here. One is Kevin Clinesmith. He's this lawyer who was charged a few months ago for doctoring this email, and he essentially was making Carter Page look maybe worse or more suspicious than he actually was in order to keep monitoring and justify the FBI monitoring the Trump campaign. Now we're being told that this high-profile keep monitoring and justify the FBI monitoring the Trump campaign. Now we're being told that this high-profile lawyer brought evidence to the FBI without identifying himself as being paid by the Clinton campaign or working for the Clinton campaign. The Trump-Russia probe did not prove a conspiracy between the campaign and Russia's efforts to interfere in the election, but it did result in convictions of a half-dozen Trump advisors,

including several who lied about and later admitted to contacts with Russian officials. Sussman has denied the charges of the latest indictment. He said, quote, the special counsel appears to be using this indictment to advance a conspiracy theory he has chosen not to actually charge. The case represents the opposite of everything the Department of Justice is supposed to stand for. Mr. Sussman will fight this baseless and politically inspired prosecution. Below, we'll take a look at some reactions to this latest indictment from the right is saying. The right argues that the latest indictment confirms some of the suspicions about the dirty political tricks behind the Russia probe. Holman Jenkins said Durham delivered on, quote, Russiagate. Whatever you hear on Twitter, he said, this is a different kettle of fish from the after-the-fact lies charged by the Mueller task force against certain Trump campaign associates

that, if they were lies at all, were incidental to the special counsel's search for collusion crimes. if they were lies at all, were incidental to the special counsel's search for collusion crimes. Mr. Sussman's alleged lie, a charge he has now formally denied, would have been intended to spark an FBI investigation so the investigation's existence could be leaked to the press on behalf of the Clinton campaign to influence a presidential campaign. If media reporters can't see this, they aren't trying very hard. The first sentence of the indictment filed by the Justice Department's By now, Jenkins said, Reported allegations aren't reportable. The existence of a federal investigation is. The FBI and the Justice Department have strong institutional interests in not being manipulated in this way, and it's tempting to interpret Mr. Durham's indictment partly as a reminder to them of this. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said that Durham cracked the Russia case. The indictment adds new details about the sweeping nature of the Clinton campaign's effort to falsely tag Donald Trump as in bed with the Russians, the board wrote. to falsely tag Donald Trump as in bed with the Russians, the board wrote.

The indictment says the Alpha Bank allegations came via an unidentified tech executive who, according to one of his emails, expected to get the top cybersecurity job in the Clinton administration. The executive owned internet companies that had accessed vast amounts of public and non-public data. The exec was tipped to purported traffic between Alpha Bank and the Trump email domain and alerted Mr. Sussman. of purported traffic between Alphabank and the Trump email domain and alerted Mr. Sussman. The executive ordered his employees to, quote, search and analyze their holdings of public and non-public internet data for derogatory information on Trump. These searches came up with little or nothing, the board added, but the executive handed the innuendo to Mr. Sussman, who wrote white papers he handed to the FBI and worked with Fusion GPS and Mr. Mark Elias to feed it to a credulous press corps.

Mr. Sussman's meeting with the FBI's Mr. Baker gave the media a hook to write that the law enforcement was investigating the Trump-Russia ties. The FBI opened its probe into Mr. Trump, which cascaded into the collusion political frenzy that damaged the Trump presidency for more than two years. In Fox News, Jonathan Turley said the left wants to shut down the probe, but it needs to continue. Durham has been praised as an apolitical career prosecutor by both Democrats and Republicans. Nevertheless, Democrats have long denounced the investigation, even as they demanded full support for Robert Mueller's investigation into the Russia collusion claims. It is the methodical reputation of Durham that makes him so dangerous. He is known for dogged pursuit of wrongdoing, and no one has ever claimed that he is political or biased.

Ironically, before the election, Democrats demanded that Durham slow down or stop any action. Mueller top aide Andrew Weissman even called on prosecutors and investigators to refuse to assist Durham before the election. In reality, Durham decided that he would not act before the election, even though it further delayed his investigation. Now the Washington Post and others are chastising him for waiting so long. Okay, so that's what the right is saying. Here is what the left is arguing.

The left says the latest indictment is more evidence that Durham has found very little evidence of a plot to damage Donald Trump. Randall Eliason, a George Washington law professor, asks incredulously if this is all Durham's got. Donald Trump and his supporters expected Durham to blow the lid off a vast deep state FBI conspiracy to bring Trump down, he wrote. But far from a legal bombshell, this indictment is more like a political pop gun. The 27-page indictment charges Sussman with a single verbal false statement he allegedly made to the FBI general counsel in September of 2016. Sussman met with the FBI attorney to provide details about unusual internet data potentially suggesting back-channel communications between the Trump organization and a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin. During that meeting, Sussman

allegedly said he was not there on behalf of any client. In fact, the indictment charges Sussman was acting on behalf of two clients, an unnamed executive at a major tech company and the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is a remarkably weak case, both factually and legally, Eliasson said. The indictment doesn't allege that the computer data itself was false or was doctored to implicate Trump. On the contrary, it says the various researchers recognized some weaknesses in the data and noted their clients were looking for a true story that would bolster a narrative about Trump's Russia ties. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried

history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Nor was the FBI deceived about who Sussman was. The indictment itself says the FBI knew Sussman represented the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. But when he brought them computer data allegedly implicating Trump less than two months before the election, the FBI supposedly thought Sussman was there simply as a, quote, good citizen who had somehow stumbled across that information. If that's really true, somebody at the FBI should be indicted for aggravated naivety. The Washington Post editorial board said this is not the confirmation of some broad 2016 deep state conspiracy against Mr. Trump.

The danger of special counsel investigations is that given unlimited time and resources, they often find some bad action tangentially related to their original inquiry that may have had little or no substantial negative impact, the board said. Mr. Durham has uncovered alleged wrongdoing that has little to do with whether federal officials tried to sabotage the Trump campaign. Even if true, this Sussman episode is far less alarming than the case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, whom Mr. Barr moved to protect from punishment and Mr. Trump later pardoned. Mr. Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, an issue of central importance to the investigation of the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. The consequences of Mr. Sussman's alleged lie are minimal by comparison. So far, there are no indications Durham has uncovered anything suggesting an illegitimate government plot to subvert the 2016 Trump campaign, or even that the Russia inquiry was unwarranted. That is because the facts already publicly proved long ago that there

was ample reason for federal investigators to launch and pursue the Russia investigation. In MSNBC, Barbara McQuaid said Durham appears to be ending his work not with a bang but with a whimper. It is hard to see how the case Durham filed on Thursday against Washington lawyer Michael Sussman meets Justice Department standards, McQuaid said. A grand jury only needs to find probable cause that a crime was committed to return an indictment, but DOJ policy requires a higher standard. Before putting a person through the expense, burden, and stigma of criminal charges, a prosecutor should make a determination that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient

to obtain and sustain a conviction. This case comes woefully short of that standard. Let's start with the easy one, admissible evidence. The indictment appears to rely only on the handwritten notes of an assistant director whom Barr spoke after his meeting with Sussman. The notes state, among other things, quote, said not doing this for any client. Anyone who's played the game of telephone understands that as information is repeated, it often gets altered along the way. Instead, testimony at trial must be based on personal observation. The prosecution attempted to offer these notes, or even the writer's testimony about what he heard Baker say before he wrote them as evidence, either would likely be ruled hearsay. All right, so that's it for what the left is saying, and this is my take. This is my take.

So first off, I have to say I was a bit taken aback to read the Washington Post editorial board lament the, quote, danger of a special counsel investigation that can give unlimited time and resources and can often find some bad action tangentially related to their original inquiry that may have had little or no substantial negative impact. That's precisely the argument many conservatives made about Robert Mueller's investigation, which turned up loads of tangentially related crimes that were prosecuted, none of which I remember the Washington Post editorial board condemning. Of course, the investigation also turned up some crimes that were related to the Russia-Trump probe. The latest indictment, though, if it is proven true,

would show that there was some classic dirty politics going on in Washington, D.C. at the time that Trump was running for president. Shirley Sussman and the Clinton campaign knew that the presence of an FBI investigation would be hugely damaging to Trump, and helping bring forward that evidence to prompt such an investigation would help the Clinton campaign. That such evidence was fed to the FBI by someone on the Clinton campaign's payroll is no small deal, especially when that evidence was later dismissed, but the news of the investigation caused a tidal wave of bad press for Trump. There are a few other important things at play here, though. For one, I don't actually see this indictment turning into a prosecution. McQuaid made this case compelling, and the short version

is basically that there's one witness here, FBI General Counsel Jim Baker, and one piece of evidence, a note somebody took about what Baker said about the meeting with Sussman. That means in court, this will essentially turn into Baker's word against Sussman's. Even then, Durham will be working with an iffy witness. In 2018, Baker told Congress that he didn't even recall whether Sussman had represented himself as working on behalf of the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton, which the note obviously contradicts. It's also true, as Eliasson says, that the FBI knew who Sussman was. The idea that they would have treated the information he was passing over differently had they known he was a Democratic lawyer is kind of laughable. Frankly, if that's true, someone at the FBI should be

fired. Sussman was a high-profile lawyer working at a firm well known for its work with Clintons and Democrats. They knew precisely who he was and would have known he was lying if he actually lied during the meeting with Baker. So, all told, I'm leaning much more toward this ending with a whimper than I am towards this cracking the Russia case. When Durham was appointed, many Trump loyalists assured me in interviews on social media and conversations over drinks that this investigation would bring down the whole thing. I heard them out. I listened. I was interested in what Durham was going to turn up because I did not doubt for one moment that there was some dirty, shady, uncovered stuff happening around the 2016 election. But Obama, Clinton, Jim Comey, the corrupt deep state, all of them were supposed to go down in this investigation. Durham was going to turn these rocks over and prove Trump was right all along about this witch hunt.

So far, though, he's got one low-level lawyer on the hook for doctoring an email about trying to continue to monitor Carter Page, and another well-known Democratic lawyer who's almost certainly going to evade prosecution for allegedly misrepresenting in what capacity he was bringing forward evidence. The evidence itself wasn't even deemed doctored or fraudulent, it just didn't turn up any smoking guns. So does Durham have more? Could this be the tip of the iceberg? I suppose it's possible, but if he does, maybe I'll change my tune. Still, he's had over two years now, that's longer than the entire Mueller investigation into Trump took.

And so far, I'm seeing some evidence of dirty campaign politics, but not a whole lot of evidence of a deep, corrupt federal government using the intelligence agency to derail Trump's presidency. We'll find out soon if there's more, but for now, I'm a bit underwhelmed. All right, so that's it for our main story. We are actually skipping today's reader question only because this main story took up some space. We had to sort of go back and remember what the Trump-Russia investigation was all about. If you're interested in asking a question, though, you can reply to our newsletter and write in, or you can email me, Isaac, at readtangle.com.

Our story that matters today is about the first lawsuits being brought against a doctor who performed an abortion in Texas. That's right. The first lawsuits have officially been filed using the new Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks against Dr. Alan Braid, a San Antonio doctor who admitted in a Washington Post column that he performed an abortion prohibited by the law earlier this month. However, the circumstances of this lawsuit are pretty bizarre. One of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit said he's not opposed to abortion, and the other's lawsuit is actually intending to prove that the state's new abortion restrictions are ruled unconstitutional. Both of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuits are disbarred lawyers, and Oscar Stille, the plaintiff who said he's not opposed to abortion but sued the doctor anyway, openly describes his motivations as either wanting the $10,000 in damages or finding out if the new law can actually hold up in court.

If the law is struck down because of the lawsuit, he said, he would view it as a good thing. In other words, he basically sees the lawsuit as a win-win. Either he's going to get $10,000 or he's going to prove that the law is unconstitutional. The Texas Tribune has a great story about the dynamics of this if you want to go check it out. All right, today's numbers section is a little bit depressing, but maybe also informative and adding some context to something you've probably heard in the last couple of days. 675,000 is the approximate number of Americans that have been killed by COVID-19, which is

more than the 1918-19 Spanish flu. Now, I know that's a pretty scary number. So some of the additional context is that 50 million is the estimated number of people who died across the globe from the Spanish flu. 4.6 million is the number of people who have died globally from COVID-19. At the time of the Spanish flu, the estimated population of the world was about 1.8 billion. The estimated population today is about 7.8 billion. And then we have one unrelated number, which I just saw and thought

was pretty fascinating. He's $2.1 billion. That's the estimated price Google is paying for a new New York City office building in Manhattan. And finally, I know everybody's favorite part of the newsletter, the have a nice day section. I just thought this was really cool and a bit overdue. The Veterans Affairs Department issued new guidance this week telling military service members who are discharged because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status under quote, don't ask, don't tell laws, that they are now eligible for VA benefits.

More than 14,000 veterans are expected to be impacted by the guidance. The change allows those veterans to receive benefits like veteran readiness and employment benefits, home loan guarantee, compensation and pension benefits, health care, homeless programs and burial benefits. None of those things were available to people who had been discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell previously. So in my opinion, this change is pretty good news and a welcome update. change is pretty good news and a welcome update. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want more, please go to readtangle.com. We have a new nifty website up online. And if you're listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you can rate podcasts, please, please, please go give us a

five-star rating. I can't really emphasize this enough. When you rate us five stars, it helps Tangle sort of move up in the podcast rankings and will pop up in other people's feeds. So it's actually really helpful to get Tangle out there to more people. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And we'll be back same time tomorrow. See ya. Appreciate it. And we'll be back same time tomorrow. See ya. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul,

edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.