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Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz said that if Special Counsel John Durham’s allegations in his recent legal filings were true, it is worse than the Nixon-era Watergate scandal.
During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” the Texas Republican responded to the bombshell report alleging Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign paid to spy on President Donald Trump.
Cruz said if the allegations are true, people need to go to jail.
Cruz said, “We have to see what the facts are, the allegations, what he filed in federal court, is deeply concerning. What he alleged as a federal prosecutor, a special prosecutor, is that a lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign conspired with a big tech executive to monitor and spy on Donald Trump, to spy on him at his home, to spy on him at his office, and indeed they were spying on the White House itself. They were spying on a sitting president.”
He added, “You and I both remember when President Trump said the Democrats are spying on me. The corporate media collectively laughed at him. They mocked him. They said what a ridiculous claim for him to make. Well, what special counsel Durham is alleging is true. What Donald Trump said was absolutely right. To the extent Hillary Clinton is complicit with this, her campaign is complicit with it, or lawyers are complicit with it, big tech is complicit with it. If this is true, it’s a lot bigger than Watergate. That was a bungled, third-rate burglary. It was wrong, people to jail for Watergate, and people need to go to jail for this if these allegations are true.”
WATCH:
Durham said in a court filing that lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and the Trump White House in an effort to establish a “narrative” linking Trump to Russia.
The revelation was made in a court filing late last week that centered on potential conflicts of interest connected to the representation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who has been charged with allegedly lying to the FBI.
The bombshell news was first reported by Fox News:
Durham filed a motion on Feb. 11 focused on potential conflicts of interest related to the representation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussman has pleaded not guilty.
The indictment against Sussman says he told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.
In the February 11 filing in a section titled “Factual Background,” Durham said that Sussman “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign.”
It said that Sussman’s “billing records reflect” that he “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations.”
The filing showed that the Tech Executive and Sussman met and talked to another law partner, who was serving as General Counsel to the Clinton campaign. That attorney, sources said, is Marc Elias, who worked at the law firm Perkins Coie.
Durham’s filing states that in July 2016, the tech executive worked with Sussman, a U.S. investigative firm retained by Law Firm 1 on behalf of the Clinton campaign, numerous cyber researchers, and employees at multiple internet companies to “assemble the purported data and white papers.”
“In connection with these efforts, Tech Executive-1 exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” the filing said. “Tech Executive-1 also enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.”
“Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia,” Durham said. “In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain ‘VIPs,’ referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton campaign.”
