(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) After more than three years, Special Prosecutor John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion hoax seems set to expire with few concrete results.
The grand jury that Durham has used to gather evidence has expired, and he has not announced plans to convene a new one.
Three major theories now surround Durham’s investigation: the mainstream, the optimistic conservative and the hopeless conservative.
The mainstream position, which defends the Deep State against accusations of treason, asserts that Durham conducted an honest and open inquiry that vindicates Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the federal government—barring a few small crimes (oversights, really) like doctoring state documents.
The New York Times expressed this view in a Sept. 14 article, “Durham Inquiry Appears to Wind Down as Grand Jury Expires.”
The NYT made a simple case: the federal government committed minor errors during the Russia collusion investigation but mostly acted appropriately.
Durham’s charges against Michael Sussmann fizzled, when it ran into a biased judge and jury stacked with Clinton acolytes. His settlement with FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who doctored a wiretap warrant renewal to spy on Carter Page, did not include prison time. And the impending trial against Russian national Igor Danchenko seems poised to end with an acquital for the five charges of lying to the FBI.
Both the hopeful and hopeless conservatives claim that the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration, and the security state purposefully constructed and coordinated the Russia collusion hoax to spike then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The black-pilled conservatives over at the The Conservative Treehouse assert that Durham “is running a Deep State cover operation to protect the institutions of the DOJ and FBI from evidence of their prior activity.”
Under this theory, former Attorney General Bill Barr appointed Durham to cover the DOJ and FBI’s crimes while placating conservatives with a lengthy investigation.
The red-pilled conservatives at The Federalist believe that Durham’s upcoming trial against Danchenko, who provided false source material for Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, could implicate the FBI in criminal acts though Durham himself does not intend to expose them.
Durham’s most recent court filing showed that the FBI paid Danchenko to serve as a confidential human source after investigating him from 2009 to 2011 for being a possible Russian asset.
The FBI investigated him when a witness claimed that he sought to purchase classified information on the Russian government’s behalf. Then the FBI paid him to be a confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020.
The FBI’s payments to Danchenko mean that the federal government purchased Russian disinformation to smear Trump. In other words, the Obama administration and Clinton campaign colluded with Russia to destroy Trump.
This fact, according to the most hopeful theory, would lead Durham to future criminal charges.
Danchenko faces five charges for lying to the FBI about his work with Steele.
He allegedly lied about having spoken with a Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton operative named Charles Dolan, Jr. about the Steele dossier. Then he lied about giving Dolan’s anti-Trump allegations to Steele.
When Dolan spoke with Danchenko, he thought he was “‘former FSB’ and a Russian ‘agent,'” according to Durham’s filing.
Durham argues that if the FBI had known of Dolan’s concerns about Danchenko, then it may have investigated Dolan and discovered the fraudulent Steele dossier before it became public.
These facts and many more led Durham to the conclusion that Danchenko orchestrated the entire Russia collusion hoax and that Steele and the FBI were unwilling participants.
To most Trump supporters, this interpretation has no plausible basis because it puts the FBI and the Clinton campaign in the position of innocent bystanders rather than interested conspirators with the motive and means to destroy Trump.
The best hope for those who want to see the anti-Trump conspirators brought to justice rests with Danchenko because “Durham does not intend to expose the FBI’s complicity” at the trial.
“While Durham may not want to put the FBI on trial, Danchenko has made clear that he intends to,” The Federalist reported.
But the hopefuleness at The Federalist may be misplaced, because Danchenko worked for the FBI for more than three years and helped Special Counsel Robert Mueller cover up the FBI and DOJ’s partisan attacks on Trump.
He has no reason to expose anyone at the FBI, and he may find himself suicided if he attempted to implicate the FBI in the anti-Trump conspiracy.
Assuming Durham’s interest in impartial justice, he may not feel safe conducting a frontal assault on the DOJ and FBI with the Biden adminisration in power. But if he lets the investigation die under the pretext that Danchenko duped Steele, the Clinton campaign and the FBI, then he probably never sought anything but a cover-up from the start.
