Five Faulty Premises of Russiagate

Three Berries said:

In your eyes. Must not watch the Trump rallies I guess. At least they aren't saying FJB everywhere LO in reference to Trump

Click to expand...

jimihendrix1 said:

Durham’s Attempt to Discredit Trump’s Enemies Is Falling Apart
Trump’s prosecutor omitted key evidence from his indictment.

Durham’s indictment does not even allege that the FBI committed any wrongdoing. Instead, it charges that the FBI was lied to — by Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who passed on leads about Trump’s ties to Russia that the bureau was unable to verify. Durham’s indictment claims Sussmann committed perjury by denying he was working for the Clinton campaign at the time he brought his information about Trump to the FBI in 2016.

The first weakness in the indictment is that even if every word Durham writes is true, the charge he has amounts to a very, very small molehill. Interested parties uncover crimes all the time. There’s just no reason to believe that Sussmann’s relationship with a law firm working for Clinton would have made any difference to the FBI — which was already investigating Trump’s ties to Russia and which wound up discarding Sussmann’s lead anyway as a dry hole.

Second, the evidence that Sussmann lied to the FBI is extremely shaky. As Benjamin Wittes notes, the sole basis for charging Sussmann with perjury is the recollection by FBI official Jim Baker. Baker testified to Congress that he remembered very little about his conversation with Sussmann, i.e.:


Yes, the “Jordan” who dug out the evidence that seems likely to undermine Durham’s case is Trump superfan Jim Jordan. Wittes concludes, “It is hard for me to understand how a criminal case against Sussmann can proceed in the face of this testimony.”

The perjury charge is merely the window dressing in the indictment. The meat of it — the part that has Trump defenders excited — is a narrative laid out by Durham attempting to paint Sussmann and the experts he worked with as liars who smeared Trump. That narrative part does not describe actual crimes, of course. Prosecutors can write whatever they want in their indictment. This one is like a Sean Hannity monologue wrapped around a parking ticket.

And even the “speaking indictment” portion of Durham’s charge is falling apart now. Today, both CNN and the New York Times reported that Durham selectively quoted from emails in order to furnish a completely misleading impression that Sussmann’s researchers lied.

The story here is that a group of computer scientists discovered evidence of communication between a Russian bank server and a Trump property. The computer scientists suspected, but weren’t certain, the server might be used for some form of communication between Trump’s campaign and Russia. (The reason they suspected this, of course, was the broad swath of shady behavior Trump exhibited toward Russia.)

Durham’s indictment asserts that the computer scientists knew the data was innocent but sent it to the FBI anyway. What the Times and CNN reported today is that Durham supported this charge by clipping misleading segments of emails by the scientists when other emails undermined his accusation.

CNN reports:


And:


The Times has more examples of Durham taking messages out of context, such as:


And:


Whatever the truth is of the Alfa Bank matter — the Times reports that the computer scientists still don’t feel satisfied they know the answer — Durham’s case that the scientists knew they were lying is simply a preposterous smear.

Durham’s indictment of Sussmann seems extremely unlikely to result in a prosecution. The rest of it is a story about dishonesty. But the dishonesty lies on the part of Durham himself. His indictment proves only the willingness of many members of the right-wing legal Establishment to corruptly put their powers at the disposal of a liar.

Click to expand...

Three Berries said:

It's not a lie. It just depends on who counted the votes. Wisconsin is calling to have the election decertified.

Click to expand...

Wisconsin Conservative Group Finds ‘No Evidence Of Widespread Fraud’ In 2020 Election

“In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump,” the right-leaning group found, but contended reforms are necessary.

www.forbes.com

Three Berries said:

It's called climbing the ladder. And you can bet Sussmann is talking so he doesn't get prosecuted.

Click to expand...