(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., began Wednesday’s much-anticipated congressional hearing into the Durham report by falsely accusing the FBI of trying to entrap Hillary Clinton.
“The Durham Report tells us that the FBI encouraged a confidential human source to infiltrate the Clinton Campaign—not the Trump campaign—and take steps to entrap unsuccessfully aides to Secretary Clinton. This story is right there in pages 74 and 75 of the report,” Nadler said, referring to former Special Counsel John Durham’s 316-page report on the Russia collusion hoax.
“I suspect we won’t hear a word about it from House Republicans today, because it doesn’t fit the MAGA narrative.”
Nadler’s statement is a gross misrepresentation of the contents of page 74-75 of the Durham Report. In fact, the report shows that the FBI steered its informant away from investigating Clinton criminality, and did not save evidence that the informant made an illegal contribution to the Clinton campaign.
Indeed, Durham said in the report that the FBI informant wasn’t targeting Clinton at all initially. Instead, the informant was working on a separate counterintelligence matter for the bureau, when he or she learned that a foreign government official with known criminal ties was trying to connect with the Clinton campaign.
“A Foreign Government-3 insider (“Insider-I”), who was known to the FBI to have foreign intelligence and criminal connections, had solicited [the informant] to set up a meeting with candidate Clinton because Insider-I wanted to propose ‘something’ that [the informant] understood to be campaign contributions on behalf of Foreign Government-3 in exchange for the protection of Foreign Government-3’s interests should Clinton become President,” Durham said.
Durham said the informant and the foreign insider were going to go to a Clinton fundraiser in November 2015, but the informant ended up not going to the event.
The informant did attend a January 2016 fundraiser, but said the foreign insider “got cold feet” and didn’t go. Durham noted that a separate FBI document about the incident said that the foreign insider was told by the Clinton campaign not to attend.
In any event, the informant made a $2,700 donation on behalf of the foreign insider to the Clinton campaign without the knowledge of FBI handling agents.
“When interviewed by the Office about this contribution, one of [the informant’s] FBI handlers could not explain why this apparent illegal contribution was not documented in FBI records. Although the handling agent at the time asked [the informant] about the payment, there is no indication that the agent documented the contribution in the [informant’s] source file,” Durham said of the illegal campaign contribution.
“Moreover, despite the CHS [confidential human source] telling the handling agent that the CHS was going to Insider-1 ‘s house ‘after the event to update [him/her],’ there was no follow up by the handling agent to document that in the source file.”
Durham said that the FBI never opened an investigation into this apparent foreign influence operation. In fact, the handling agent subsequently told the informant to stay away from all events relating to Clinton’s campaign, he said.
According to the special prosecutor’s report, the informant’s handler sent him or her the following message: “Do NOT attend any more campaign events, set up meetings, or anything else relating to [Clinton’s] campaign. We need to keep you completely away from that situation. I don’t know all the details, but it’s for your own protection.”
Durham concluded this portion of the report by comparing the FBI’s lack of investigation into the Clinton campaign with its overzealous probe of Donald Trump.
“Contrasted with the FBI’s rapid opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI appears to have made no effort to investigate the possible illegal campaign contribution … or the Clinton campaign’s purported acceptance of a campaign contribution that was made by the FBI’s own long-term CHS on behalf of Insider-I and, ultimately, Foreign Govemrnent-3,” Durham concluded.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
