At the senior leadership level, great deference was given to career officials like the legendary David Margolis who had served in multiple administrations. Durham would be responsible for the successful prosecution of John J. Connolly, Jr. (Connollys story with Bulger was immortalized on film in Black Mass). Durham was the U.S. attorney in Connecticut when then-Attorney General William P. Barr first asked him to review the FBI investigation; at that time, he was not a special counsel who was required to publicly report investigative expenses. After being asked by the Biden Administration to resign, John Durham left his United States Attorney in February 2021. The case is one of three brought so far by special counsel John Durham, who was tapped in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate the genesis of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.. The Debrief with Tim Carney: Who will take the blame for all the COVID lockdowns? More than $670,000 went toward personnel costs, more than $280,000 went toward travel and more than $797,000 went toward IT and litigative support, according to the report. It is a case focusing on a single private citizen who happens to be the son of a sitting president. An accounting released earlier this year showed Durhams investigation cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.45 million from mid-October 2020 through March 2021. To date, Garland has said little about the level of DOJs oversight into Durhams activities, other than to say they are following the Justice Departments rules regarding special counsels. 12/22/2021 02:14 PM EST. hide caption. [12], After Durham's volunteer work, he became a state prosecutor in Connecticut. Priestap, Baker told lawmakers, assured him that he had extensively followed up on the Alfa Bank matter. [7][8] Barr disclosed in December 2020 that he had elevated Durham's status to special counsel in October 2020, ensuring that the Durham special counsel investigation could continue after the Trump administration ended. Last week, in a jaw-dropping court submission, Durham revealed that the FBI signed up Danchenko as an informant and paid him for almost three years from March 2017 through October 2020 . Sussmann testified he passed the information along on behalf of a client, who is a cybersecurity expert. [18][19], Durham resigned as U.S. Attorney effective February 28, 2021. The indictment alleges that Sussmann "lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI.". Special counsel John Durham, here in 2018, was tapped by former Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the FBI's investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor. These convictions were in Connecticut, where he was serving the U.S. Attorney Generals office. An accounting released earlier this year showed Durham's investigation cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.45 million from mid-October 2020 through March 2021. By 1994, Durham had become a Deputy United States Attorney General. Unbelievably, Durham now explains that the counterintelligence investigation was closed because the FBI incorrectly believed that [Danchenko] had left the country.. Proving once more his apolitical reputation, John Durham would successfully investigate and convince a judge to overturn the conviction of Enrico Tameleo, Peter Limone, Joseph Salvate, and Louis Greco, whom Durham discovered had been framed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The information was significant because it was included in a series of reports prepared by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who had been hired by an opposition research firm working for the Clinton campaign. Yet they kept him on board, kept paying him. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University in 1972 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975. We've received your submission. and last updated 2021-09-27 20:28:55-04. John Durham has a stellar reputation for investigating corruption. But it gets worse. Igor Danchenko leaves Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped Durham in May 2019 to examine how the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia began. In both trials, Durham alleged the defendants had deceived the FBI, rather than alleging the FBI acted improperly toward Trump. Of that, nearly $1.9 million was directly related to the teams investigation and approximately $471,000 was spent by other parts of the Justice Department in connection to Durhams work. Thanks for contacting us. Several years later, however, Durham always appears quiet, professional, and definitely apolitical. President Joe Biden and his administration are putting on a master's class in ethics in the federal investigation into the business dealings of the president's son Hunter Biden. [29] Davis wrote an appeal to former Bush administration officials to take their accounts of illegality directly to Durham. Raskin roasts Durham inquiry as 'total flop,' presses Republicans to investigate. The FBI subsequently investigated the purported link but found insufficient evidence to support it, prosecutors say. A locked padlock Bill Hennessy CNN Special counsel John Durham gave a glimpse on Wednesday of his extensive use of a federal grand jury to. John Durham News Current Page: 1 . All rights reserved. The Department of Justice would ordinarily never bring such a baseless case.". Rico died in 2004 before the case went to trial. Prosecutors allege Sussmann lied by denying that he was representing any client as he told the FBI about digital evidence allegedly linking computers in Trump Tower to Russias Alfa Bank. It also details meetings that Sussmann had with a partner at his law firm who was general counsel to the Clinton campaign as well as a tech executive who was a client of Sussmann's and researchers about purported links between Trump Organization computer systems and a Russian bank. As the investigation heats up, Bidens hands-off approach versus Donald Trumps hands everywhere approach is starkly illustrated by Trumps shoutout to Russian President Vladimir Putin to release dirt on Hunter Biden. Some close to the investigation have said Durham appeared not simply to be seeking out potential crimes, but conducting a broader review of the quality of the intelligence that led the FBI to begin investigating people tied to the Trump campaign. The tally is not a complete accounting of Durhams expenses since his investigation began in the spring of 2019. From his Russia, if youre listening remark about finding Hillary Clintons missing emails to his repeatedly asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden in return for military aid, Trump has always shown his appetite for using investigations as political weapons. So what happened? Rather, it meant that there was a well-established shared concern that no appearance of or actual political interference was to take place. It is one of the great dirty tricks in modern political history: The 2016 Democratic presidential campaign colluded with the incumbent Democratic administrations law enforcement and intelligence apparatus to portray their partisan opposition, Donald Trump, as a Kremlin mole, then made the smear stick to the point of forcing Trump to govern for over two years under the cloud of a special-counsel investigation. He was a former governor of Connecticut, and he was found guilty on a number of corruption charges, many of which were prosecuted by Durham. The deaths of two different Gitmo detainees were investigated, but, when the investigation was complete, no charges were filed. Baker, at the time, said he didnt recall whether Sussmann had represented himself as working on behalf of the Democratic Party or the Clinton campaign. Michael Sussmann, who worked through his law firm as an attorney for the Hillary Clinton campaign, is accused of a single felony count in a grand jury indictment. September 16, 2021 at 7:45 p.m. EDT. Durham presents new evidence on day 2 of Danchenko trial. John Durham is 71 years old. Last week, in a jaw-dropping court submission, Durham revealed that the FBI signed up Danchenko as an informant and paid him for almost three years from March 2017 through October 2020. Barr later elevated Durham to special counsel status in October 2020. [16] On February 16, 2018, his nomination was confirmed by voice vote of the Senate. From 1977 to 1978, he served as a Deputy Assistant State's Attorney in the Office of the Chief State's Attorney. Of course, that did not mean that people were not aware of which cases were politically sensitive. Attorney General Merrick Garland is said to anticipate receiving his final report by the end of the year. In September, he alleged in an indictment that Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor with expertise in computer cases, lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI when he passed on information about possible digital connections between Russia-based Alfa Bank and a computer linked to the Trump Organization. Official websites use .gov Sussmanns meeting with Baker had already been a subject of intense interest to Republicans on Capitol Hill, who grilled Baker about it during closed-door testimony in October 2018 during their own probe of the origins of the FBIs Trump-Russia investigation. The administrations effort to recover the Justice Departments integrity is not limited to the Hunter Biden case. Lock Durham supervised an FBI task force that was brought in to investigate. Special counsel John Durhams inquiry into the origins of the investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign spent close to $3.8 million over its first year of operations. His wife is Susan (no maiden name revealed), and public information shows that he has four sons as well as eight grandchildren with his wife. Russiagate special counsel John Durham is in the homestretch. [14] Durham's task force also gathered evidence against retired FBI agent H. Paul Rico, who was indicted in Oklahoma on state charges that he helped Bulger and Flemmi kill a Tulsa businessman in 1981. Durham was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Durhams career spans nearly fifty years, and it is certain he earned pensions and other compensation as a federal prosecutor as well. Shortly after the indictment was announced, the law firm where he was a partner, Perkins Coie, said it had accepted Sussmanns resignation. He previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in various positions in D.C. for 35 years. [21][20], Amid allegations that FBI informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi had corrupted their handlers, US Attorney General Janet Reno named Durham special prosecutor in 1999. IE 11 is not supported. In November the special counsel indicted Igor Danchenko, a Washington-based Russian migr who was an important source for the contentious Steele dossier that served an important role in the initial phases of the FBI inquiry Durham is now investigating. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS The New York Times reported on Wednesday night that John Durham has informed the Department of Justice he will ask a grand jury to indict Michael Sussmann over his making a false statement to. [6] He was one of 56 remaining Trump-appointed U.S. [14], From 2008 to 2012, Durham served as the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. This enterprise included substantial reliance by the FBI on the bogus Steele dossier in obtaining spying authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) on sworn representations that the bureau believed Trump was in a conspiracy of cooperation with Vladimir Putins anti-American regime.

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