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Durham Tells Court Members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Under Scrutiny

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Special Counsel John Durham’s team has informed a federal court that former members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign are under scrutiny for their possible roles in spreading Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

“Durham’s team requested that a judge ‘inquire into a potential conflict of interest’ connected to the lawyers for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s main anti-Trump dossier source, Igor Danchenko, pointing out that a separate lawyer at their firm ‘is currently representing the 2016 ‘Hillary for America’ presidential campaign, as well as multiple former employees of that campaign, in matters before the special counsel,'” Newsmax reported.

“Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI. Durham’s indictment said Danchenko, a U.S.-based and Russian-born researcher, made these statements about the information he provided to Steele for his dossier, which the FBI relied upon when seeking authority for the secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide but which now has been discredited,” the report continued.

“The attorneys who took over as Danchenko’s lawyers this month told Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that Durham’s team was raising questions about Robert Trout, who is of counsel at their firm and previously represented Clinton campaign members, but insisted there is no conflict of interest,” the report continued.

Durham’s team said that there are 5 topics that may become relevant to Danchenko’s defense.

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1. “The Clinton campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information” in the Steele dossier;

2. “The Clinton campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness” of Danchenko’s “collection methods” for the dossier;

3. “Meetings or communications” between the Clinton campaign and Steele about Danchenko;

4. “The defendant’s knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton campaign’s role in” the dossier;

5. “The extent to which the Clinton campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled” Danchenko’s actions.

Durham noted that: “On each of these issues, the interests of the Clinton Campaign and the defendant might diverge. For example, the Clinton Campaign and the defendant each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI.”

Investigative reporter John Solomon has a theory about who special counsel John Durham will go after next — the FBI.

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During an interview on Fox News, Solomon and host Maria Bartiromo spoke about Durham’s investigation and what might be next.

Russian-born analyst Igor Danchenko — key source for the Steele dossier that alleged ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia — was arrested by federal agents as part of the Durham investigation.

Solomon explained that he believes Durham is dealing with “two buckets.”

In one “bucket,” there are the last two indictments against officials who were connected to Hillary Clinton and their plan to feed the FBI false information about Trump-Russia conspiracies.

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Solomon said the other “bucket” focuses on the FBI and whether agents knowingly mislead the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on members of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Solomon also disputes former FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok’s statement on MSNBC last week that the FBI never investigated the Trump campaign in 2016, as Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe makes another indictment.

“There’s no doubt there is activity inside the grand jury right now aimed at looking at top-level officials of the FBI, and it’s based on this evidence. We all look at the fact that Denchenko was interviewed by the FBI on January 17, and disowned a lot of the things that were said to him,” he said.

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