[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON THE REPORT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL JOHN DURHAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-753 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 1
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of New York....................... 3
WITNESS
The Hon. John Durham, Special Counsel, United States Department
of Justice
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Testimony............................................. 10
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Committee on the
Judiciary are listed below..................................... 102
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member
of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Texas, for
the record
Department of Justice communications between the Office of
the Attorney General, John Durham, and Department of
Justice text messages for the former Attorney General
Barr, Dec. 31, 2019
An article entitled, ``After Years of Political Hype, the
Durham Inquiry Failed to Deliver,'' Jun. 18, 2023, The
New York Times
A letter from the Office of General Counsel, U.S. Department
of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, to John
Durham, Special Counsel, United States Department of
Justice, May 15, 2023
A document entitled, ``Meetings Between John Durham and
William Barr.''
A document entitled, ``Texts Between John Durham and William
Barr.''
Materials submitted by the Honorable Adam Schiff, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California, for
the record
A report entitled, ``Report on Matters Related to
Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of
the 2016 Presidential Campaigns,'' May 12, 2023, John
Durham, Special Counsel, United States Department of
Justice
The transcribed interview of Steve D'Antuono, former FBI
Assistant Director in Charge, Washington, D.C., Wed.,
Jun. 7, 2023
Materials submitted by the Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the
record
An articles entitled, ``How Barr's Quest to Find Flaws in the
Russia Inquiry Unraveled,'' Jan. 26, 2023, New York Times
An articles entitled, ``Italy Did Not Fuel U.S. Suspicion of
Russian Meddling, Prime Minister Says,'' Jan. 25, 2021,
New York Times
A page from the Department of Justice Manual, Section 1-
7.000--Confidentiality and Media Contacts Policy
Materials submitted by the Honorable Becca Balint, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Vermont, for
the record
A letter from William Barr, Attorney General, appointing John
Durham as Special Counsel, Feb. 6, 2020
An order entitled, ``Appointment of Special Counsel to
Investigate Matters Related to Intelligence Activities
and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential
Campaigns,'' May 13, 2019, Order No. 4878-2020, Attorney
General
Materials submitted by the Honorable Ted Lieu, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California, for
the record
A report entitled, ``Review of Four FISA Applications and
Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane
Investigation,'' Dec. 20, 2019, Oversight and Review
Division 20-012, Office of the Inspector General, U.S.
Department of Justice
A report entitled, ``Russian Active Measures Campaigns and
Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5:
Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities,''
Committee Sensitive--Russia Investigation Only, Select
Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate
A press release entitled, ``Treasury Escalates Sanctions
Against the Russian Government's Attempts to Influence
U.S. Elections,'' Apr. 15, 2021, U.S. Department of the
Treasury
An order entitled, ``Appointment of Special Counsel to
Investigate Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and
Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential
Campaigns,'' May 13, 2019, Order No. 4878-2020, Attorney
General, submitted by the Honorable Matt Gaetz, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida, for the
record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Harriet Hageman, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Wyoming, for
the record
An article entitled, ``Don't Miss the Most Damning Durham
Finding,'' May 17, 2023, The Federalist
An article entitled, ``6 Documented Instances of Systemic
Pro-Democrat FBI Corruption,'' May 17, 2023, The
Federalist
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD
Questions to the Hon. John Durham, Special Counsel, United States
Department of Justice, from the Honorable Matt Gaetz, a Member
of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida,
the Honorable Thomas Massie, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Kentucky, the Honorable Dan Bishop,
a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of
North Carolina, and the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New
York, for the record
No responses at time of publication.
HEARING ON THE REPORT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL JOHN DURHAM
----------
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Committee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Buck, Gaetz,
Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Tiffany, Massie, Roy,
Bishop, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Bentz, Cline, Gooden, Van Drew,
Nehls, Moore, Kiley, Hageman, Moran, Lee, Hunt, Fry, Nadler,
Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Schiff,
Cicilline, Swalwell, Lieu, Jayapal, Correa, Scanlon, Neguse,
McBath, Dean, Escobar, Ross, Bush, Ivey, and Balint.
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on the report of
Special Counsel John Durham.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama to led
us in the pledge.
[Pledge of Allegiance.]
Chair Jordan. The Chair is recognized for an opening
statement. Three years ago and 11 months, July 24, 2019, Bob
Mueller sat in this room, in that Chair and told this Committee
no collusion, no conspiracy, no coordination between President
Trump and Russia. None.
What did the Democrats say? We don't care. We are going to
keep going after President Trump. In fact, they didn't even
wait one day. The next day, the phone call between President
Trump and President Zelenskyy became the basis for their
impeachment. Republicans said maybe, maybe instead of the
never-ending attacks on President Trump, maybe the country
would be better off if we figured out how the whole false
Trump-Russia narrative started.
After 2\1/2\ years of the Mueller investigation, 19
lawyers, 40 agents, $30 million where they found nothing, maybe
we should figure out how the whole lie started and that's
exactly what Mr. Durham has done. In his report, he told us how
the dossier was funded. He told us who funded it, he told us
how the information in the dossier was gathered, he told us how
eager the FBI was to use it, how they put the dossier in FISA
draft application just two days after receiving it. He told us
that not one, not one single substantive allegation in the
dossier was ever corroborated, ever validated. Yet, it was
used, used to spy on an American citizen associated with the
Presidential campaign.
He told us there was no proper predicate for opening the
Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Maybe most importantly, he
told us the FBI, the FBI, the preeminent law enforcement agency
in the world failed, failed in its fundamental mission of
adherence to the rule of law. Unfortunately, I think once
again, the Democrats will say we don't care. It doesn't matter.
We are never going to stop going after President Trump. In
fact, eight days ago, we saw how far they are willing to go
with the indictment of President Trump.
Frankly, this shouldn't surprise us. They told us their
objective. In fact, it was an agent on the case of Crossfire
Hurricane who told us what their objective was. We all remember
the text message from Peter Strzok where he said, ``don't
worry, we'll stop Trump.''
It started with the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Mr.
Durham has told us how wrong that was. Now, we have an
indictment of a former President, who is winning in every
single poll by his opponent's Justice Department. In between
those two events, we have the Mueller investigation. We had
impeachment. We had 51 former intel officials falsely tell us
the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. We had a raid on
President Trump's home and of course, we got Alvin Bragg's
ridiculous case in New York. Seven years, nothing has changed.
If you don't believe me, we interviewed Steven D'Antuono,
former head of the Washington Field Office when the Trump
classified document case began. Mr. D'Antuono told the
Committee, interviewed just two weeks ago, two weeks ago today,
Mr. D'Antuono told the Committee that when he asked the
Department of Justice why is there no U.S. Attorney assigned to
the Trump classified document case? Headquarters said because
we are running it. He suggested the Miami Field Office to do
the raid. Instead of sending the folks from Washington Field
Office down to Miami, have the folks in the Miami Field Office
do it. Headquarters said no. He suggested there shouldn't be a
raid. Instead, they should continue to work with President
Trump's lawyers. Once again, headquarters said no.
Mr. D'Antuono even said how about when we get there? When
we arrive at President Trump's home, we then call his lawyer,
and we do the search together. Again, headquarters said no.
Another interesting fact. The lawyer who turned down Mr.
D'Antuono's request happens to be the same person who is
alleged to have pressured the attorney representing a Trump
employee about a judgeship. Nothing has changed and frankly,
they are never going to stop. Seven years of attacking Trump is
scary enough, but what is more frightening any one of us could
be next. In fact, it has already started.
Parents at school board meetings are terrorists. Pro-life
Catholics are extremists. Even journalists aren't safe.
Federal Trade Commission, 13 letters. One of those letters
to Twitter said, ``who are the journalists you are talking
to?'' Think about that? They named four people personally. Two
come and testify in front of this Committee. While they are in
front of this Committee, Democrats are asking them to reveal
their sources, violate First Amendment principles. One of them,
Matt Taibbi, while he is sitting at that table testifying to
the Judiciary Committee, the IRS is knocking on his door.
Parents, Catholics, journalists, but guess who gets it the
worst? Guess who gets it the worst? Whistleblowers. If you dare
come forward and tell Congress what is going on, look out. They
will come for you. They will take your clearance. They will
take your pay. They will even take your kids' clothes. Just ask
Garret O'Boyle, who testified in front of this Committee as
well.
Over the next few hours, we are going to hear the facts and
details about the whole false Trump-Russia narrative, the
Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and hopefully, hopefully, it
will help change things at the Department of Justice.
Regardless of what the Biden Administration and the Garland
Justice Department do; I know what Republicans in the House are
committed to doing. We will work to dramatically change the
FISA law, and we will do everything we can in the appropriation
process to stop the Federal government from going after the
American people.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for an opening
statement.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On June 8th, a Grand Jury
in Miami indicted former President Trump on 37 counts related
to his mishandling of extraordinarily sensitive national
security information, including information regarding defense
and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign
countries, the United States' nuclear programs, potential
vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military
attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a
foreign attack.
According to the indictment, the unauthorized disclosure of
these classified documents could put at risk the national
security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of
the United States military, and human sources, and the
continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection
methods. Indeed, the indictment goes on to describe how the
former President made such unauthorized disclosures.
Even if you believe, as Chair Jordan claims, that President
Trump has committed no crime, surely, we can agree that it is
dangerous and profoundly irresponsible to have taken these
documents from the White House and left them unsecured in Mar-
a-Lago.
Don't take just my word for it. Trump's Secretary of
Defense, Mark Esper, said that the former President's handling
of this information put U.S. service members' lives and our
national security at risk. Trump's hand-picked Attorney General
Bill Barr, with whom I agree on very little, hit the nail on
the head when he described the former President's legal
troubles as
. . . entirely of his own making. He had no right to these
documents. The government tried for over a year, quietly and
with respect to get them back, and he jerked them around. When
he faces subpoena, he didn't raise any legal arguments. He
engaged in a course of deceitful conduct that was a clear crime
if those allegations are true.
The former President could have at any time, for months,
simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution. House
Republicans do not want to talk about any of that. They seem
incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald
Trump for problems that are Trump's and Trump's alone.
Instead, Republicans have planned this hearing and
constructed an entire false narrative around this work of
Special Counsel Durham in an effort to distract from the former
President's legal troubles and misled the American public.
To be clear, the Durham Report is by itself a deeply flawed
vessel. After four years, thousands of employee hours, and more
than $6.5 million in taxpayer dollars, Special Counsel Durham
failed to uncover any wrongdoing that Justice Department
Inspector General Horowitz had not already found in 2019. He
brought just two cases to trial and lost them both. Both
defendants were acquitted in mere hours. The single conviction
that Special Counsel Durham obtained involved a single charge
of lying to the FBI. The case developed and handed to him by
the Inspector General and one resolved by a quick plea bargain.
The report itself outlines some fairly glaring
investigative missteps. The FBI apparently never even looked at
a thumb drive of key evidence related to allegations of contact
between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government via a
Russian cell phone. Nor says the report, did the FBI ever
examine questionable computer contacts between the Trump
organization and Alfa Bank, one of the largest banks in Russia.
The report also fails to recommend a single remedial
measure that the Justice Department or the FBI might take to
address certain process-related concerns, largely because DOJ
and FBI have already implemented the changes recommended by the
Inspector General 3\1/2\ years ago.
Now, I understand that like the former President, many MAGA
Republicans had a lot riding on the Durham investigation. I
understand that they might be disappointed with where it
landed, but that is no excuse for making things up.
First, the Durham Report unequivocally concludes that the
FBI not only have the evidence to open an investigation into
Russian interference in the 2016 election, but actually had an
affirmative obligation to investigate ties between the Russian
government and the Trump Campaign. It is simply not true, as
some Republicans have claimed, that the Durham Report suggests
that there should not have been an investigation. Affirmative
obligation. Those are Mr. Durham's words, not mine.
Second, the Durham Report shows that the FBI began its
investigation when an aide to the Trump Campaign disclosed in
May 2016, that the campaign knew that Russia had thousands of
emails that would embarrass Hillary Clinton. The aide bragged
about it at a bar. An Australian diplomat who overheard the
remark reported it, and the investigation began.
It is simply not true, as the most extreme voices in this
room have claimed, that the investigation was somehow launched
by the Clinton Campaign. That particular conspiracy theory is
off by several months. Nor is it true that the FBI was opposed
to Trump from the beginning. For example, the Durham Report
tells us that the FBI encouraged the 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 on pages 74 and 75 of the
report. I suspect we won't hear a word about it from House
Republicans today because it does not fit the MAGA narrative.
Finally, nothing in the Durham Report disputes the central
findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, namely, Russia
interfered in the 2016 election. It did so to help Donald Trump
and the Trump Campaign welcomed this interference. This last
point is important because it tells us how Mr. Durham became
Special Counsel in the first place, and it goes to the heart of
the fully false narrative of MAGA victimhood.
From the day that Special Counsel Mueller began his work,
Donald Trump and his political allies have railed against an
imagined conspiracy against the former President. The Russian
investigation was a set up. It was a witch hunt. Obama did it.
We need to investigate the investigators.
Then came the Mueller Report. The Mueller Report was
delivered to Attorney General Barr on Friday, March 22, 2019.
Next Monday, Mr. Durham was in Barr's office. A week later, a
colleague emailed Mr. Durham to ask about ``the project that
Durham and Barr were working on.''
While we on this Committee were fighting to get access to
the Mueller Report, Mr. Durham was already working on an
investigation to undercut its central findings. A few weeks
later, the Trump Administration announced Mr. Durham's
investigation into the investigators. By August 2019, Mr.
Durham and Attorney General Barr were on a plane to Europe,
jointly hunting down nonexistent evidence of Donald Trump's
deep-state conspiracy theories. If the duo ever found evidence
proving that Donald Trump was right all along, that evidence
certainly never made it into the Durham Report. It has been
alleged, however, that they found evidence implicating the
former President in certain financial crimes during their trip.
Incidentally, that information, too, is missing from Mr.
Durham's final pages.
When he did not give Donald Trump evidence of a deep-state
conspiracy, Mr. Durham gave him the next best thing, a public
narrative with Hillary Clinton as the villain. Over the ensuing
years, Mr. Durham constructed a flimsy story built on shaky
inferences and dog whistles to far right conspiracy theories.
Although he lost both times, he took a case to trial. By
prolonging his investigation, Durham was able to keep Donald
Trump's talking points in the news long after Trump left
office. With a loose approach to DOJ norms, protecting the
reputation of the Agency, and a cavalier disregard for the
privacy and reputational rights of others, Mr. Durham's
investigation operated as headline generator for MAGA
Republicans.
Less than half a year into his four-year investigation, Mr.
Durham publicly disputed Inspector General Horowitz's
conclusion that the FBI was warranted in opening a full
investigation in violation of DOJ rules protecting
investigations from appearances of political bias.
Mr. Durham similarly flouted guidelines designed to protect
third parties from reputational injury when he used his two
indictments to accuse the Clinton Campaign of a vast conspiracy
that tied Trump to Russia. At the end of the day, Mr. Durham
never found what he was looking for. He cannot dispute a single
conclusion in the Mueller Report. He cannot prove a magnificent
deep-state conspiracy, and he cannot say that the FBI
investigation into the Trump Campaign's many ties to Russia
never should have happened. Again, I can see why this would be
disappointing to some. Instead of owning up to his failure, the
Durham Report doubles down on theories that lost spectacularly
before two unanimous juries.
The report also references classified material that has
been called likely disinformation, to lay out a series of
accusations against the former President's perceived enemies.
By presenting as so-called findings in this way, swiping a
Republican bogeyman and hiding an inconvenient truth in
footnotes, the Durham Report is Donald Trump's one last talking
point. It did not have to be this way. It may be hard to
remember, but at the outset of the Durham investigation, Mr.
Durham was a well-respected career prosecutor with a solid
reputation.
The Attorney General is supposed to appoint the Special
Counsel to prevent the appearance of politicization in a
criminal investigation. Mr. Durham could well have lived up to
that expectation. Instead, what we got was a political exercise
that operated with ethical ambiguity and existed to perpetuate
Donald Trump's unfounded claims. Investigations failed in its
political objectives, but did real damage to a department that
is still recovering from the excesses of the Trump
Administration. Despite Mr. Durham's best efforts, a reckoning
is well underway.
Do not be misled, former President Donald Trump is not a
victim. He did this to himself. For all its flaws, the Durham
Report does not show that anyone else is responsible for the
President's legal woes, past, present, or future. Anyone who
tells you otherwise is simply making it up.
I thank the Chair and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Without objection, all other opening
statements will be included in the record.
Today's witness is the Hon. John Durham. Mr. Durham was
appointed as a Special Counsel in 2022 to investigate
intelligence activities investigations arising out of the 2016
Presidential campaign. He is a career prosecutor, having served
as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut and in
various other roles with that office since 1989. Prior to that,
he served with the Department of Justice, the Boston Strike
Force on Organized Crime, and in various State level
prosecutors' offices.
We welcome our witness and thank him for appearing today.
We will begin by swearing you in. Will you please rise and
raise your right hand, Mr. Durham?
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief so help you God?
Let the record show that the witness has answered in the
affirmative. Thank you, you may be seated. Please note that
your written testimony will be entered into the record in its
entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony
in five minutes. We will give you a little extra time if you
need it.
Mr. Durham, you may begin. Hit your mic, there, Mr. Durham,
and just keep it on, if you can, throughout the day.
Mr. Durham. Is it on?
Chair Jordan. Yes, it is on now. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN DURHAM
Mr. Durham. Good morning, Chair Jordan, Ranking Member
Nadler, and Members of this Committee.
As the Committee knows, on May 13, 2019, Attorney General
Barr directed me to conduct a preliminary review into certain
matters related to Federal investigations concerning the 2016
Presidential Election campaigns. That review subsequently
developed into several criminal investigations and gave rise to
my subsequent appointment as Special Counsel in these matters.
Many of the most significant issues documented in the
report that we have written, including those relating to lack
of investigative discipline, failure to take logistical and
logical investigative steps, and bias are relevant to important
national security interests of this Committee and the American
people are concerned about. If repeated and left unaddressed,
these issues could result in significant national security
risks and further erode the public's faith and confidence in
our justice system.
As we said in the report, our findings were sobering. I can
tell you having spent 40 years plus as a Federal prosecutor,
they were particularly sobering to me and a number of my
colleagues who spent decades in the FBI themselves, they were
sobering. While I am encouraged by some of the reforms that
have been implemented by the FBI, the problems identified in
this report, anybody who actually reads the report and the
details of the report, the documented portions of the report, I
think would find the problems identified in the report are not
susceptible to overnight fixes.
As we said in the report, they cannot be addressed solely
with enhancing training or additional policy requirements.
Rather, what is required is accountability, both in terms of
the standards to which our law enforcement personnel hold
themselves and in the consequences they face for violations of
laws and policies of relevance.
I am here to answer your questions. I appreciate the
opportunity to. I will answer to the best of my ability, and I
hope to be of service to your oversight function. I am sure you
know; the Department of Justice has issued some guidelines as
to what I am authorized to discuss and those things that I am
not authorized to discuss. In this regard, accordingly, I will
refer principally to the report.
I do want to emphasize a few points at the outset, however.
First, I want to emphasize in the strongest terms possible
that my colleagues and I carried out our work in good faith,
with integrity, and in the spirit of following the facts
wherever they lead, without fear or favor. At no time, and in
no sense, did we act with a purpose to further partisan or
political ends. To the extent that somebody suggests otherwise,
that is simply untrue and offensive.
Second, the findings set forth in this report are serious
and deserve attention from the American public and its
representatives. Let me just briefly highlight a few of those.
For one, we found troubling violations of law and policy in the
conduct of highly consequential investigations directed at
members of a Presidential Campaign and, ultimately, a
Presidential Administration. To me it matters not whether it
was a Republican Campaign or a Democratic Campaign, it was a
Presidential Campaign.
Our team comprised dedicated and experienced prosecutors
and law enforcement agents who worked day-in and day-out
through the entire COVID epidemic, in the office, trying to
interview people, all in an effort to try to get to those facts
and ground truth. That such a group made these findings,
experienced FBI agents, experienced prosecutors, not people by
and large from Washington, but from other parts of the country,
the fact that these people made these findings that is
reflected in the report is of concern and should be of concern
to any American who cares about our civil liberties, the rule
of law, and the just and proportionate application of the law
to all of us, whether we are friends or we are foes, the law
ought to apply to everybody in the same way.
During our investigation, we charged a former FBI agent who
pleaded guilty to the felony offense of altering and
fabricating a portion of a document used to obtain a court
order, a FISA order of surveillance of a United States citizen,
which in our view is a significant problem.
Several of the relevant FISA applications at issue in the
cross-fire investigation omitted references to what was clearly
relevant and highly exculpatory information that should have
been disclosed to the FISA Court.
Multiple FBI personnel who signed or assisted in preparing
renewal applications for that same FISA warrant acknowledged
that they did not believe that the target, Mr. Page, was a
threat to national security, much less a knowing agent of a
foreign power, which is what the law requires. It appears from
our investigation, that the FBI leadership dismissed those
concerns.
Another aspect of our findings concerned the FBI's failure
to sufficiently scrutinize information it received or to apply
the same standards to allegations it received about the Clinton
and Trump Campaigns. As our report details, the FBI was too
willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated
opposition research such as the Steele Dossier. The FBI relied
on the dossier in FISA applications knowing that it was likely
material originating from a political campaign, political
opponent. It did so even after the President of the United
States, the FBI, and CIA Directors, and others received
briefings about intelligence suggesting that there was a
Clinton Campaign plan under way to stir up a scandal tying
Trump to Russia. The accuracy of the intelligence was uncertain
at the time, but the FBI failed to analyze or even assess the
implications of the intelligence in any meaningful way.
When the FBI learned that the primary source of information
for the Steele Dossier, which was basically the guts of the
narrative about there being a well-coordinated conspiracy
involving Trump and the Russians, when they learned that
Danchenko was the primary subsource to those reports, it was at
the time when the FBI already knew that Danchenko himself had
previously been the suspect of an espionage investigation. He
was suspected of being a Russian asset. Nonetheless, they
signed him up as a paid informant without further investigation
of that espionage concern, to say nothing of resolving that
espionage matter before using Danchenko and Danchenko's
information.
When the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller's Office learned
that Steele's primary subsource likely had gathered important
portions of the dossier information during travels to Russia
with one Charles Dolan, it inexplicably decided not to
interview Dolan or investigate his activities.
Finally, I would like to add that although our work exposed
deep concerns, concerning facts about the conduct of these
investigations, our report should not be read to suggest in any
way that Russian election interference was not a significant
threat. It was. Nor should it be read to suggest that the
investigative authorities at issue no longer serve important
law enforcement and national security interests. They do.
Rather, responsibility for the failures and transgressions
that occurred here rest with the people who committed them or
allowed them to occur. Again, to my mind, the issues raised in
the report deserve close attention from the American people and
their elected representatives here in Washington.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[The prepared statement of the Hon. Durham follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Durham. We will now proceed
under the five-minute rule for questions.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr.
Durham, for being here today. This is much anticipated. We have
lots of questions for you. I'll try to set the table here at
the outset from 20,000 feet.
The American people rely on the FBI to abide by its guiding
principles, and what those are--fidelity, bravery and
integrity--and we rely on them to uphold the Constitution and
protect the American people.
Americans deserve and expect from our premier law
enforcement agency to apply justice blindly and that is without
political bias or ulterior motives.
However, your report now famously states, and here's the
big quote--based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and
related intelligence activities you concluded that the DOJ and
FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity
to the law.
There's no other way to put this. The report illustrates
egregious actions on behalf of the FBI that have further eroded
faith in our institutions.
Mr. Durham, in your report and again here today you said
that your findings and conclusions are sobering. Could you
unpack a little bit more what that means? Why do you say
sobering?
Mr. Durham. Well, let me give you some real-life views on
that.
I have had any number of FBI agents who I've worked with
over the years--some of them are retired, some are still in
place--who have come to me and apologized for the manner in
which that investigation was undertaken.
I take that seriously. These are good, hardworking--the
majority of people in the FBI--decent human beings who swear
under their oaths to abide by the law and the like, and I think
that this typifies, exemplifies, the concern here.
There were investigative activities undertaken or not
undertaken here which raise real concerns about whether or not
the law was followed and the policies in place at the FBI were
followed.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You wrote in your report, quote,
Based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and
costly Federal investigations of these matters, including the
incident investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the
intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual
evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of
the Crossfire investigation.
To date has any evidence of collusion between the Trump
Campaign and Russia have ever been uncovered?
Mr. Durham. There's information, obviously, in the report
that was prepared by Director Mueller and whatnot, but as to
collusion or conspiracy I'm not aware of any.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Let me stop you--when the FBI
opened Crossfire Hurricane--that's the issue at hand--it did
not have any information that anyone in the Trump Campaign had
ever been in contact with Russian intelligence officials. Isn't
that right?
Mr. Durham. As we wrote in the report, we talked to the
Director of the CIA, the Deputy Director of the CIA, the
Director of NSA, and people within the FBI, and there was no
such information that they had in their holdings at the time
they opened Crossfire Hurricane.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You detail--I'm going to go
quickly here. I'm running out of time. You detail how FBI
personnel working on FISA applications violated protocols.
They were cavalier, at best, as you said in your own words,
toward accuracy and completeness. Senior FBI personnel
displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward information
that they received, especially information received from
politically affiliated persons or entities. You said,
. . . significant reliance on investigative leads provided or
funded by Trump's political opponents were relied upon here.
Among the most alarming things that you referred to in the
report is the impact of confirmation bias and you said in your
report at page 303, that's defined as or,
It stands for the general proposition that there is a common
human tendency--mostly unintentional--for people to accept
information and evidence that is consistent with what they
believe to be true . . . .
Sir, here this wasn't innocent, unintentional human
tendency, was it? It was overt political bias, was it not?
Peter Strzok, for example.
Mr. Durham. There are some individuals who clearly
expressed a personal bias. It's difficult to get into somebody
else's head to see whether they knew it--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Unless we have their emails,
right. Peter Strzok, for example, pronounced--he had pronounced
hostile feelings toward President Trump. Everybody knows that.
Everybody in the country knows it. So, he was in charge of
this. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of
Counterintelligence, officially opened the investigation at the
direction of FBI--Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
He said horrible things about President Trump and all his
supporters, by the way. How could we say he did not have
political bias?
Mr. Durham. Yes, I know that it clearly reflects a personal
bias that he had. I'll leave it to others and the facts that
are set out in the reports of whether that's political bias,
personal bias, but there's clearly bias.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. What we know now is the FBI and
the DOJ have been turned into activated political weapons
against citizens and even a former President because of their
opposing viewpoints, sir.
They failed to follow protocols in 2016 and you've
suggested new protocols may somehow be a fix to this. How can
the American people have confidence that if they didn't follow
protocols in 2016 that they will follow new protocols?
Mr. Durham. I think that's why I said in the opening
remarks this is not an easy fix. It's going to take time to
rebuild the public's confidence in the institution.
The changes or the reforms they have made are certainly
changes that are going to guard to some extent against the
repeat of what happened in Crossfire Hurricane.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I'm out of time. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from New York.
Mr. Durham, can you pull that microphone real close so
everyone can hear what you say? We appreciate that.
The gentleman from New York is recognized.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, your report reads like a defense of the Trump
Campaign and an attack on Hillary Clinton because that's
exactly what it is. Donald Trump wanted you to investigate the
investigators to show the Deep State conspiracy, but you never
found one.
Instead, you gave him and his MAGA Republicans the next
best thing, someone else to blame for Donald Trump's problems.
That's why you're here today because the Chair and his
colleagues need someone, anyone, to deflect from the mounting
evidence of Trump's misconduct.
Let me remind you that Donald Trump was Federally indicted
on 37 counts for mishandling classified information--37 counts.
That's why you're here today, not because of anything that
happened in 2016.
Mr. Durham, your investigation cost more than $6.5 million,
involved the work of dozens of FBI employees and Federal
prosecutors, some of whom resigned in protest, and took,
roughly, four years to complete. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Nadler. It's not correct?
Mr. Durham. No. There were multiple parts of that.
Mr. Nadler. Did it take four years to complete?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. OK. With all these resources and all these
people who were sent to help you investigate the investigators
you only filed three criminal cases. You only brought two cases
to trial. Correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. You lost all the cases you brought to trial,
correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. In fact, two juries acquitted your defendants
on all charges and the one conviction that you obtained the
defendant pleaded guilty to a single count and never went to
trial, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. I will note that in that case the primary
investigative steps were all completed by Inspector General
Horowitz.
Perhaps you were better when it came to your report. From
my reading your report did not make any specific concrete
recommendations to improve DOJ or FBI policies or procedures.
In fact, your report repeatedly references the
recommendations made by Inspector General Horowitz, almost all
which DOJ and FBI have already implemented.
Again, your investigation lasted four years, four years and
untold sums of money and you still obtained only one
conviction. You did produce a 300-page report, though, and
that's given my Republican counterparts plenty of material to
spin.
Mr. Durham, George Papadopoulos was a Foreign Policy
Adviser to the Trump Campaign in Spring 2016. Isn't that right?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. In May 2016, he told an Australian diplomat
that the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from
Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous
release of information during the campaign that would be
damaging to Secretary Clinton.
This is a fact that came out during the Mueller
investigation and your investigation found nothing to dispute
this fact, correct?
Mr. Durham. There's more detail to that in the report.
Mr. Nadler. Did it find anything to dispute this report--to
dispute this fact?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Nadler. OK. On page 50 of your report, you wrote that
on July 28, 2016, FBI headquarters received the Australian
information that formed the basis for the opening of Crossfire
Hurricane, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. So, this fantasy that some MAGA Republicans
have created where the investigation was started for any reason
other than a Trump Campaign operative bragging to Australian
intelligence assets about Russian dirt that would damage
Hillary Clinton is not true, and when the FBI received that
information, according to your report, it had not just the
predication to investigate, there was no question, you wrote
that, ``the FBI had an affirmative obligation to closely
examine the Australian information.'' Isn't that right?
Mr. Durham. The FBI had an obligation to examine the
information.
Mr. Nadler. That's correct. So, the origin of the
investigation was not the Steele Dossier. It was not Alfa Bank.
It was a Trump aide's loose lips about his campaign's advanced
view into a hack that had a profound effect on the 2016
election.
That information supplied by the Australian government gave
the FBI predication to begin an investigation.
I'd like to discuss one more false conclusion about your
report that's made its way into the MAGA Republican talking
points. Some of my colleagues across the aisle have started
calling this the, quote, ``Russia hoax.'' It's the theory that
Russia did not actually interfere in the 2016 Presidential
Election.
That is patently false. In 2017, during the Trump
Administration the Director of National Intelligence
declassified a report on Russian activity in the 2016 election.
You're aware of this report, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. In this report the intelligence community found
that, quote,
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign
in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential Election. Russia's goals
were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and
potential presidency. We further assess Putin, and the Russian
government developed a clear preference for President-elect
Trump.
You did not dispute that Trump ordered an influence campaign to
influence the 2016 election in your report, did you?
Mr. Durham. As I said, there was a real Russian threat.
Mr. Nadler. Yes or no?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Nadler. OK. Special Counsel Mueller indicted 12 Russian
intelligence officers in July 2018. Isn't that right?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. The 12 intelligence officers were indicted for
attacking the Clinton Campaign. On page 55 of your report, you
acknowledge that at a press conference in 2016 Donald Trump on
camera said, ``Russia, if you're listening I hope you're able
to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Nadler. Two years later--
Voice. Regular order.
Mr. Nadler. Trump told the press that he believed Russian
President Putin over his own intelligence officials when he
told them Russia did not interfere during the 2016 election
season.
I see my time has expired. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The witness can respond if he chooses to.
[No response.]
Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina, Mr. Fry, for five minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are here today to provide transparency, finally, to the
American people. Seven years ago, the FBI launched Crossfire
Hurricane, the left's brazen attempt to keep Donald Trump out
of the White House.
This Federal investigation, funded by the Hillary Clinton
Campaign, caused Americans to believe that then candidate Trump
was colluding with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential
Election.
Mr. Durham has spent four years investigating this--480
witnesses, six million pages of documents, 190 subpoenas, and
executing seven search warrants.
Less than a month ago he completed this report that
instigated the baseless investigation and launched a partisan
attack on President Trump despite having no true justification
to do this. That was the FBI.
Within three days of receiving the information from a
diplomat in Australia the FBI opened a full-fledged
investigation into the Trump Campaign.
So, Mr. Durham, let's get into this. The FBI opened up
Crossfire Hurricane without speaking to the people who provided
the initial information. Is that true?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fry. The FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on a Sunday,
only three days after reviewing that information. Is that
correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fry. So, just think about that for a moment, an
investigation--a full investigation into a Presidential
Campaign over a weekend.
Mr. Durham, the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane without
interviewing any of the essential witnesses. Is that true?
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Mr. Fry. The FBI also opened up Crossfire Hurricane without
using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed
to evaluate that evidence. Is that true?
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Mr. Fry. So, think about that. The FBI had never talked to
the people who gave them the intelligence information. They
never examined their own witnesses. They never interviewed the
witnesses. They never corroborated the dossier.
Mr. Durham, if the FBI had done these things, if they had
done their homework, would it have found that its own Russian
experts had no information about President Trump being involved
with Russian leadership or Russian intelligence officials?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Fry. So, then was there an adequate predication for the
FBI to open Crossfire Hurricane as a full investigation?
Mr. Durham. On July 31st, in my view, based on our
investigation, there was not a legitimate basis to open as a
full investigation, an assessment if something that had to be
looked at, to gather information such as interviewing the
people who provided the Papadopoulos information, checking
their own data bases, the data bases of other intelligence
agencies, and the standard kinds of things that you would do in
an investigation like this.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Durham, I think it's safe to conclude based on
that report and anyone who has read it, that they did not have
that adequate basis, as you talked about, to launch this
investigation.
Let's move on to a second really troubling aspect of your
findings. From the report I gathered that key FBI leaders all
the way at the top were predisposed to go after candidate
Trump.
This bias likely affected the conduct of FBI personnel in
this investigation. Is that true?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Fry. Can you describe that for a moment? How did
confirmation bias play into this?
Mr. Durham. Confirmation bias, as was alluded to, has to do
with our human tendency to accept things that we already think
are true and to reject anything else. In this instance, there
are any number of significant red flags that were raised that
were simply ignored.
If there's evidence that was inconsistent with the
narrative, they didn't pay attention to it. They didn't explore
it. They didn't take the logical investigative steps that
should have been taken.
Mr. Fry. Let's see how real this bias was. FBI Deputy
Assistant Director Peter Strzok drafted and approved the
Crossfire Hurricane opening communication. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fry. In your investigation your office discovered text
messages between Strzok and Lisa Page, who was a Special
Assistant to the FBI Director McCabe, expressing strong bias
against candidate Trump.
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Mr. Fry. For the record, let me read aloud. This was
generated by staff, but this would look like they're text
messages. On August 18, 2016, Page texted Strzok, ``Trump's not
going to become president, right? Right?'' Strzok responded by
saying, ``No, no, he's not. We'll stop it.''
It's clear that there was no evidence of Russia collusion
with the Trump Campaign in 2016. The American people deserve
the truth and I'm proud to serve on this Committee to uncover
these lies that were perpetuated for far too long.
With that, Mr. Chair, with my remaining 30 seconds I will
yield to you.
Chair Jordan. The Chair will yield back. I'll wait for my
time.
I will now recognize the gentlelady from California.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr.
Durham, for being here this morning.
The Ranking Member explored an item that I wanted to
explore with you, which is based on the information provided to
the U.S. Government by Australia that a campaign aide had told
one of their diplomats that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in
the form of thousands of emails that--and this is a quote from
your report--
. . . as an initial matter, there is no question the FBI had
an affirmative obligation to closely examine the Australian
information.
So, that's in your report and I think the issue might be
preliminary versus full because you agree that there was an
obligation to look at it based on that. Is that correct? That's
what you say in your report?
Mr. Durham. When you say based on that, some of the
premises of the question are inaccurate. Papadopoulos did not
tell the--
Ms. Lofgren. No, the question is do you disavow what you
said in your report, that you had an affirmative obligation--
the FBI--to look at that?
Mr. Durham. The answer to that question they had to look at
it, yes.
Ms. Lofgren. All right. I want to take a look at some of
the other things that I didn't find in your report. In looking
at the FBI's behavior did you find any evidence that the FBI
was taking a look at the hacking of the Democratic National
Committee and their investigation of that? If so, where is that
in your report?
Mr. Durham. That was outside the scope of what I was asked
to do.
Ms. Lofgren. In the Mueller Report he found that the
Campaign Manager, Mr. Manafort, was giving inside information,
private polling data, to the Russians, that there was a meeting
in Trump Tower with the President's son-in-law and his son
where the Russians had promised they had dirt and the email
from the President's son was something to the effect, if so we
love it.
Did the FBI look at that? Did you examine that and if so,
where is that in your report?
Mr. Durham. That is not something I was asked to look at
and we didn't look at that.
Ms. Lofgren. I'm wondering, did you take a look at how the
FBI evaluated the alleged ties to Alfa Bank? Did you hire cyber
experts to actually take a look at those potential or alleged
ties?
Mr. Durham. Yes. Well, I didn't hire them. They were FBI
experts.
Ms. Lofgren. Where is that in your report?
Mr. Durham. I can't--it's in there. I can find the page. My
colleagues can find the page, but it is an entire section on
Alfa Bank, the white papers and the data that were provided by
Mr. Sussmann to the FBI, and then the subsequent investigation.
Ms. Lofgren. No. No. My question was did you take a look--
did you hire experts to evaluate the FBI's evaluation?
Mr. Durham. I did not hire experts to examine what the
experts said, no.
Ms. Lofgren. OK. Let me ask another question. I thought it
was down a rabbit's hole, but you and Attorney General Barr
went to Italy to take a look at some allegation about foreign
servers and Italian officials gave you evidence that they said
linked Donald Trump to certain financial crimes.
Did the Attorney General ask you to investigate that matter
that the Italians referred to you, and if so, did you take any
investigative steps and did you file charges, or if not, did
you file a declination memo for a decision not to charge in
this case?
Mr. Durham. The question is outside the scope of what I
think I'm authorized to talk about. It's not part of the
report. I can tell you this, that investigative steps were
taken and grand jury subpoenas were issued, and it came to
nothing.
Ms. Lofgren. I'd like to yield the balance of my time to my
colleague from California, Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, DOJ policy provides that you don't
speak about a pending investigation and yet you did, didn't
you?
Mr. Durham. I'm not exactly sure what you're referring--
Mr. Schiff. When the Inspector General issued a report
saying that the investigation was properly predicated you spoke
out in violation of Department of Justice--Department of
Justice Policy to criticize the Inspector General's
conclusions, didn't you?
Mr. Durham. I issued a public statement. I didn't do it
anonymously. I didn't do it through third persons. There were--
Mr. Schiff. Nonetheless, you violated department policy by
issuing a statement while your investigation was ongoing,
didn't you?
Mr. Durham. I don't know that. If I did then I did. I was
not aware that I was violating some policy.
Mr. Schiff. You also sought to get the Inspector General to
change his conclusion, did you not? When he was concluding that
the investigation was properly predicated did you privately
seek to intervene to change that conclusion?
Mr. Durham. This is outside the scope of the report. If you
want to go there, we asked the Inspector General to take a look
at the intelligence that's included in the classified appendix
that you looked at and said that this ought to affect portions
of his report.
Mr. Schiff. You thought it was appropriate for you to
intervene with an independent investigation by the Inspector
General because he was reaching a conclusion you disagreed
with? You thought that was appropriate?
Mr. Durham. That's not--the premise isn't right. The
Inspector General circulated a draft memo to a number of
agencies and persons. Our group was one of them. We were asked
to review that draft and bring to his attention any concerns
that we had or disagreements.
Mr. Schiff. When he refused to change his--
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman--the time of the
gentleman has--
Mr. Schiff. --when he refused to change his report, you
violated department policy.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, I insist on regular
order.
Chair Jordan. It's not even his time. It's Ms. Lofgren's
time. So, the gentleman yields back to Ms. Lofgren, who's not
here. So, the time has expired.
Mr. Durham, in the Summer of 2016 did our government
receive intelligence that suggested Secretary Clinton had
approved a plan to tie President Trump to Russia?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Was that intelligence important enough for
Director Brennan to go brief the President of the United
States, the Vice President of the United States, the Attorney
General of the United States, and the Director of the FBI?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Was that intelligence put then into a
memorandum--a referral memorandum?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Was that memorandum then given to Director
Comey and Agent Strzok?
Mr. Durham. That's who it was addressed to, yes.
Chair Jordan. Did Director Comey share that memorandum with
the FISA Court?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry, can you--
Chair Jordan. Did he share that memorandum with the FISA
Court? Did Director Comey do that?
Mr. Durham. I'm not aware of that if he did.
Chair Jordan. Did he share with it with the lawyers
preparing the FISA application?
Mr. Durham. Not to my knowledge.
Chair Jordan. Did he share it with the agents on the case
working the Crossfire Hurricane case?
Mr. Durham. No.
Chair Jordan. Didn't share it with the agents on the case.
Can you tell the Committee what happened when you took that
referral memo and shared it with one of those agents,
specifically supervisory Special Agent No. 1?
Mr. Durham. We interviewed the first supervisor of the
Crossfire investigation--the operational person. We showed him
the intelligence information. He indicated he'd never seen it
before. He immediately became emotional, got up and left the
room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, came back
and--
Chair Jordan. He was ticked off, wasn't he?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. He was ticked off because this is something
he should have had as an agent on the case. It was important
information that the Director of the FBI kept from the people
doing the investigation.
Mr. Durham. The information was kept from him.
Chair Jordan. Who's Charles Dolan?
Mr. Durham. Charles Dolan is a public relations person here
in Washington, DC. He had prior involvement--professional
involvement with the Russian government representing Russian
government interests. He was a person that was associated with
Igor Danchenko.
Chair Jordan. He's also buddies with the Clintons, wasn't
he?
Mr. Durham. He had held positions when President Clinton
was President--
Chair Jordan. Their campaign advisor to Secretary Clinton's
Presidential Campaign, Executive Director of the Democratic
Governors Association. That's the same Charles Dolan we're
talking about?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Wasn't he also a key source for
information in the dossier?
Mr. Durham. He provided some information that was included
in the dossier, yes.
Chair Jordan. Ritz-Carlton stuff, the Manafort stuff. In
the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the Mueller
investigation, when the FBI interviewed Mr. Dolan what did he
have to say?
Mr. Durham. To my knowledge, they didn't interview Mr.
Dolan.
Chair Jordan. They didn't interview this guy? Source for
the dossier? Key information in the dossier? Buddies with the
Clintons? They didn't talk to him?
Mr. Durham. No. We report on that because even Christopher
Steele on October 2016 identified Dolan as somebody that might
have information--
Chair Jordan. I find it interesting they didn't talk to
him. Were there agents on the case who wanted to talk to Mr.
Dolan, Mr. Durham?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. What happened to Analyst No. 1? She kept
pushing to talk to Mr. Dolan. She was ultimately turned down.
What happened to her the day that she was turned down and said,
no, no, we're not talking to Dolan? What happened to her?
Mr. Durham. At or about the same time she was assigned to a
different project--
Chair Jordan. They moved her. They said, we can't have
this--we can't have that--we can't be looking into the
Clinton's buddy, a key source for the dossier. They reassigned
her. Then what did she do?
Mr. Durham. She memorialized it.
Chair Jordan. She entered a memo to the file because she
said at some point the Inspector General is going to want to
know this information. I'm going to make sure it's recorded
contemporaneously. She put it in the file.
I mean, it's crazy. They didn't talk to the key source.
They kept key intelligence from the investigators. This is how
bad this investigation was.
Here's the scary part. I don't think anything has changed.
The day your report came out five weeks ago, May 15th, you got
a letter, Mr. Durham, addressed to you from the General Counsel
at the FBI.
Mr. Jason Jones writes you this six-page letter and he says
not to worry, everything is fine. It's all been worked out at
the FBI.
He even says on page 2--he says,
. . . had the reforms implemented by current FBI leadership
summarized below been in place in 2016 failures detailed in
your report never would have happened.
and he underlines it. He said, ``this would never happen
because of the reforms we implemented in 2019 and 2020.''
Then, he says on page 4--one of the specific reforms--he
says, ``FBI executive management has instructed an
investigation should be run out in the field and not from the
headquarters.''
That statement is not true. Five weeks ago, the FBI wrote
you and said everything has changed when, in fact, it hasn't
and the statement in there is absolutely false and we know it's
false because two weeks ago today we interviewed Steven
D'Antuono, former head of the Washington field office, Mr.
Durham, and here's what he said in his transcript--head of the
Washington field office when the Trump classified document
investigation began. He said,
That case was handled differently than I would have expected it
to be than any other cases handled. We learned a lot of stuff
from Crossfire Hurricane, that headquarters should not work the
investigation. It's supposed to be the field offices.
My concern is that the Department of Justice was not
following these principles. Nothing has--and that's the thing
that scares me the most. Nothing has changed.
Mr. Durham, let me just finish with this. Sixty percent of
Americans now believe there's a double standard at the Justice
Department.
You know why they believe that? Because there is. That has
got to change, and I don't think more training, more rules, is
going to do it.
I think we have to fundamentally change the FISA process,
and we have to use the appropriations process to limit how
American tax dollars are spent at the Department of Justice.
I yield back.
The gentlelady from Texas is recognized, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Good morning.
Mr. Durham. Good morning.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You value the independence of a Special
Counsel, do you not?
Mr. Durham. I do.
Ms. Jackson Lee. In a letter to Attorney General Garland
submitting your report you asked him to allow you to continue
your investigation unencumbered. You said,
We want to thank you and your office for permitting our inquiry
to proceed independently without interference as you assured
the Members of the Judiciary Committee would be the case during
your confirmation hearings to become Attorney General of the
United States. You value your Special Counsel status.
So, it is accurate that Attorney General Garland let you
proceed on your case as you wish. Is that true?
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes or no, it was important to you that as
a Special Counsel your investigation was supposed to be
independent. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Because Special Counsels and Special
Attorneys are supposed to be independent, right?
Mr. Durham. Special Counsels.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, and independent. They're supposed to
be independent. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. Special Counsel is independent of the Attorney
General's office.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Why is that the case, in your
view.
Mr. Durham. So, there can be some confidence on the part of
people looking at the investigation that was done, the
decisions which were made that--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Special Counsels and Special
Attorneys are supposed to be for the American public to prevent
the potential of a conflict of interest between the government
and a sensitive investigation.
By appointing a Special Counsel, an Attorney General is
supposed to be finding an unbiased party to do the
investigating. This was at a very high level. This was dealing
with potential Presidential candidates.
This was dealing with Russia collusion and undermining the
very fabric of the United States of America and they are
supposed to leave that person alone, as you commended Attorney
General Garland for doing.
So, unlike Attorney General Garland, Attorney General Barr
was very involved in your investigation, wasn't he?
Mr. Durham. He was not involved as a--when I became a
Special Counsel. Prior to that, I worked under the supervision
of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General.
Ms. Jackson Lee. He was very involved, was he not? Let me
just bring you to this point. Barr established early on that he
was very interested in your investigation. On June 8, 2018, he
sent then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein an unsolicited
memo arguing that the Mueller investigation should not be able
to force the President to submit to interrogation about
obstruction. In his text message sending the memo, Barr wrote
that, ``he feels very deeply about some of the issues taking
shape in the Mueller matter.''
How often did you meet with Attorney General Barr in 2019?
Mr. Durham. Before I was Special Counsel, maybe--well, with
himself maybe every 2-3 weeks, something of that sort, and
sometimes more frequent.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Then after? Then after?
Mr. Durham. After, I had been appointed Special Counsel, I
don't know. I'm sure that I saw him, but I didn't meet with him
on the investigation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. A lot.
Mr. Durham. No, it was not a lot.
Ms. Jackson Lee. How often did you speak or text with the
Attorney General? This is during the investigation.
Mr. Durham. I wouldn't--during the--when I was Special
Counsel or prior to that?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Special Counsel, sir.
Mr. Durham. I don't know how many times I've texted with
him.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, according to now public records Barr
scheduled at least 18 meetings or calls with you between March-
October 2019, and you and he text messages with each other
frequently, didn't you? Text messages?
Mr. Durham. I was appointed as Special Counsel in October
so before that, yes, there were probably any number of text
messages. After that I don't know.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Here are some examples.
On August 31, 2019, he sent you a message that said,
''John, strongly suggest that you a lot of interesting
things.''
On February 6, 2020, you text him, ``Sir, just emerging
from a SCIF. Are you open to a call earlier this morning?''
On February 14, 2020, Barr texts you, ``Call me when you
get a chance.''
On March 19, 2020, Barr texts, ``Can I call you later?''
and you respond, ``Most certainly.''
On March 27, 2020, you sent him the best phone number for
you all during the time of being Special Counsel, and here's an
interesting one.
On September 24, 2019, the day that the Speaker Pelosi
announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump
Attorney General Barr texted you, ``Call me ASAP,'' and later
that day you text back, ``Do you have a minute for a quick
call, Durham?''
What was the purpose of this call, Mr. Durham? Were you
discussing the impeachment inquiry?
Mr. Durham. I never had any conversation with the Attorney
General Barr about the impeachment inquiry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Durham, this is an awful lot of direct
interactions with the Attorney General for impose--supposedly
independent counsel prosecutor. During these messages does that
sound to you like appropriate interactions? Do they sound like
appropriate interactions between an attorney general and a
prosecutor investigating the administration?
Mr. Durham. Before I was appointed Special Counsel, I
worked for the Attorney General of the United States. That's
who supervised me.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You subsequently became Special Counsel. I
know that. You subsequently became. Not only did you interact
with the Attorney General frequently you also regularly engaged
with one of his top deputies, Seth DuCharme. What was your
relationship with Mr. DuCharme?
Mr. Durham. Seth DuCharme was then an Assistant United
States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. He works
with one of my sons. We were friends and at the time was
working in the Office of the Attorney General.
Ms. Jackson Lee. It seems that rather than having--
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. --an independent investigation there was a
lot of interaction between the Attorney General and the special
prosecutor--
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired. I've
been generous with the time--
Ms. Jackson Lee. --which shows that the Attorney General
was actively directing your work. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields. The gentlelady yields
back.
I think this is amazing, Mr. Durham. You had eight text
messages with the Attorney General of the United States in 11
months' time period. That's amazing. I can't believe that--
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry. Whose time
is that you were speaking of?
Chair Jordan. That was that time that was yielded to me. I
yield it back.
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, that is absolutely inappropriate.
Chair Jordan. I was just pointing out something that I
think is so--
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, that is not appropriate.
Chair Jordan. We will go to Mr. Cline for five minutes. The
gentleman from Georgia--from Virginia, excuse me, is
recognized.
Mr. Cline. Thank you.
Mr. Durham, your report is not just sobering, as you
stated. It's outrageous and deeply troubling. Can you confirm
the several main points that it found? The FBI did not have an
adequate basis on which to launch Crossfire Hurricane, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Cline. The FBI failed to examine all available
exculpatory evidence, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Cline. FBI leadership continued the investigation even
when case agents were unable to verify the evidence, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Cline. The FBI did not interview key witnesses in
Crossfire Hurricane, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Cline. Individuals within the FBI abused their
authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Cline. The FBI immediately opened Crossfire Hurricane
as a full counterintelligence investigation. What other options
could the FBI have taken rather than immediately opening such
an investigation?
Mr. Durham. Attorney General Edward Levi essentially
created the guidelines in this area, these three divisions of
assessments, preliminary, and then full, although they were
different names at the time. That has evolved over time and
become more particular.
In this instance, the information that they had received
from Papadopoulos about a suggestion of a suggestion and not
anything about emails, but just the suggestion of a suggestion
was sufficient and would have required the FBI to take a look
at it--well, what is this about.
You open it as an assessment and then you would
analytically go try to collect intelligence that either
supports or refutes or explains that information. That's the
whole purpose of it.
You assess it and then you can move to a preliminary
investigation, and if the evidence bears it out you go to a
full investigation where you have all the tools available,
including the most intrusive physical surveillance and
electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Here, they just immediately went to--opened it as a full
investigation without ever having talked to the Australians or
gathered other evidence.
Mr. Cline. Right. So, investigators relied on misstatements
by the confidential human source, ignored exculpatory
statements made by Papadopoulos and submitting the FISA
application to surveille Carter Page, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Cline. Is it true that an FBI employee fabricated this
evidence? Can you expand on that fabrication and the reliance
to support that--
Mr. Durham. Sure. In connection one of the extensions, the
final extension of renewal of the FISA on Carter Page, one of
the agents who had come on board wanted to be certain that
there was information that--was there information as to whether
or not Carter Page had been a source of information in the CIA,
and pressed Kevin Clinesmith in the General Counsel's Office of
the FBI on that point.
Clinesmith got a hold of people at another government
agency, intelligence agency, on the issue, and that person
indicated--not indicated, said--that, yes, in FBI parlance,
Carter Page was the source, and put that in writing.
When Clinesmith talked to the agent who was saying, ``we
want to be sure on this, was he or was he not a source,''
Clinesmith said, ``no.'' He said he's not. He said, ``do we get
that in writing?'' Clinesmith said ``yes,'' and then said,
``well, I want to see it.'' Then Clinesmith altered the other
government agency document to reflect this to say that Page was
not a source when he in fact was a source. That's the gist of
it.
Mr. Cline. What did the investigators mean when they said
they hoped the returns on the Carter Page FISA application
would, quote, ``self-corroborate''?
Mr. Durham. That was another troublesome thing. The agent
was saying, well, if we can get surveillance--electronic
surveillance of Page, then we'll find out essentially whether
we really do have probable cause or not. He would self-
corroborate in that sense.
Mr. Cline. Are investigators supposed to corroborate
information before or after it's included in a FISA
application?
Mr. Durham. Yes. You have to have that before you intrude
on the liberties of American citizens.
Mr. Cline. In fact, the FBI is required to follow its Woods
Procedures, which the FBI adopted to ensure the accuracy of the
information contained in FISA applications, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Cline. Did the FISC ever criticize the FBI's handling
of the Page FISA application?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Cline. What were some of those concerns that they
raised?
Mr. Durham. Ultimately, the FISC issued an order--a
memorandum indicating that had the information, and it was
disclosed in the investigation done by Inspector General
Horowitz, a very thorough job and a good job and a well written
report--had they had known that at least the second and third
renewal applications would not have established probable cause
and I think the bureau--I'm sorry, the Department of Justice
acknowledged that as well.
If the FISC had all the information that I think is
included in this report, it's highly doubtful that there would
have ever been an application submitted and if it was submitted
that the FISC would have ever granted that order.
Mr. Cline. Thank you. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, you were appointed by whom?
Mr. Durham. So, I was--
Mr. Cohen. Who recommended you? Who appointed you?
Mr. Durham. As the Special Counsel?
Mr. Cohen. No, as a U.S. Attorney.
Mr. Durham. As U.S. Attorney it was President Trump at the
time with two Democratic Senators from Connecticut supporting
the nomination.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump appointed you. Do you believe Mr.
Trump has pretty good judgment on people, their abilities, and
their character?
Mr. Durham. I'm not going to characterize Mr. Trump or my
thoughts about Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Barr appointed you Special Counsel. Is that
correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Barr a gutless pig, a
coward, and a RINO. Which of those is correct and which isn't?
Mr. Durham. In my experience, none of those are correct.
Mr. Cohen. So, Mr. Trump isn't that good of an expert on
character and judging people? In your opinion he isn't because
he's none of those. He's not a gutless pig. Trump says he is.
Mr. Durham. That's outside the scope of my report.
Mr. Cohen. Also, outside the scope of your report
apparently--
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cohen. Also, outside of the scope of your report was
apparently the meeting at Trump Tower between the Russians and
the Trump boys where they talked about, allegedly, adoptions,
but we know it was really about sanctions. How was that outside
of your report?
Mr. Durham. Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't quite follow that.
Mr. Cohen. The meeting at the Trump Tower attorney--the
Russian attorney came to Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., was just,
wonderful, wonderful. We love it. We love it. Russian decisions
to interact with the Trump Campaign and influence the actions
of the campaign allegedly for adoption law, but really for
sanctions relief. The FBI came up with that, did they not?
Mr. Durham. A meeting took place at Trump Towers on June
9th. The lure, as I understand it, was that there was
information--derogatory information on Clinton was going to be
provided. They met and, as I believe, in a HPSCI report the
HPSCI report fully laid that out that the discussion then at
Trump Towers was about adoption, not about anything relating to
Ms. Clinton.
Mr. Cohen. It's was totally about sanctions and trying to
get rid of the Magnitsky law. Adoptions are a ruse.
Should you not have gone and looked into that and seen what
the Russians were wanting in return for that because that's the
biggest thing Putin wanted at the time was to get Trump to
relieve his people of Magnitsky sanctions.
Mr. Durham. I think that Director Mueller investigated
that, and I believe one of your House Committees explored that.
That was outside the scope of what we were looking at.
Mr. Cohen. It was outside of the scope of your authority to
look at Kilimnik and Manafort meeting and changing polling
data?
Mr. Durham. What's that? I'm sorry, I'm not following you.
Mr. Cohen. Manafort. Do you remember Manafort, the crook
that managed the campaign for nothing, but got tons of money
from different Russian people over the years that you
pardoned--Mr. Barr later got--helped him with a commutation or
a pardon? I think it was a pardon. Manafort.
Mr. Durham. I know who Mr. Manafort is.
Mr. Cohen. Yes. He met with Kilimnik and they discussed
polling data. You don't know about that?
Mr. Durham. I know that Mr. Kilimnik met with a lot of
people, including people with the State Department--
Mr. Cohen. He met with Manafort and discuss polling data.
Do you not know about that?
Mr. Durham. I'm aware of that.
Mr. Cohen. All right. Why did you then not think it was a
good idea for you to look into it and see if the FBI wasn't
correct in that there was collusion, a connection between
Russia and the Trump Campaign to elect Trump?
Mr. Durham. My assignment was to look at the conduct of the
intelligence community agencies, not to conduct a separate
investigation that was done by--how served, as done by the
Senate, or was done by Director Mueller.
Mr. Cohen. You don't think that if there were the
intelligence communities, the FBI, others came up with this
information and did good work that this should be part of your
balanced report?
Mr. Durham. I'm not following your question. I apologize.
If it's a--
Mr. Cohen. Well, I followed your report. Mr. Donald Trump,
Jr., would have called it a nothing-burger. You got no
convictions. You got nothing. It was all set up to hurt the
Mueller Report, which was correct and was redacted, to hurt the
Bidens and to help Trump and you were a part of it.
You have a good reputation. You had a good reputation.
That's why the two Democrats supported you. The longer you hold
on to Mr. Barr and this report that Mr. Barr gave you as
Special Counsel your reputation will be damaged as everybody's
reputation who gets involved with Donald Trump is damaged. He's
damaged goods. There's no good dealing with him because you
will end up on the bottom of a pile.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Durham. Sure.
Mr. Issa. Can we presume the gentleman is undecided on how
he feels about the former President?
[Laughter.]
Chair Jordan. The gentleman--the witness can respond.
Mr. Durham. Yes. My concern about my reputation is with the
people who I respect, my family, and my Lord, and I'm perfectly
comfortable with my reputation with them, sir.
Chair Jordan. Well said. God bless you.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Durham, thank you for being here today.
On October 3, 2016, the FBI met with Christopher Steele, who
confessed to relying heavily on a Russian national living in
Washington, DC, as a subsource. That subsource was later
identified as Igor Danchenko.
Steele not only used Danchenko to create the dossier, but
according to your report Steele was unable to corroborate any
of the substantial allegations made in the dossier. Is that
correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Even after the FBI offered Steele a million
dollars if somehow, he could actually follow through and
underscore some of those specific items. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. So, the FBI interviewed Danchenko and
Steele's subsource--the Steele subsource for three days from
January 24-26, 2017. However, according to your report,
Danchenko could not provide any evidence corroborating
allegations contained in the dossier. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's a fact.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Yet, the FBI paid Danchenko $220,000 during
his time as a confidential human source. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Did the FBI propose making continued future
payments to Danchenko totaling more than $300,000?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Danchenko becomes a confidential human
source that enlists his own subsource, Charles Dolan, as was
brought up earlier, who was a Democrat operative and had
previously served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2008
Presidential Campaign. Is that your understanding? Is that
correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Did Danchenko ever disclose his
relationship with Charles Dolan to the FBI that you're aware
of?
Mr. Durham. He did not during the interviews that were
conducted in January. Subsequently, he was specifically asked
in an interview with his then handler, do you know Charles
Dolan.
He listened to the recording. He hesitates for some awkward
period of time and then said, ``Yes, I know who Dolan is.'' So,
he acknowledged knowing Mr. Dolan.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Do you think it had anything to do with he
was simply worried that disclosing a Democrat operative as a
subsource might jeopardize the whole payroll deal that the FBI
had set up with him?
Mr. Durham. When we lay these facts out as we do other
facts in the report, leave it to others to draw the reasonable
conclusions or inferences from those facts.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very good. Of the hundreds of individuals
who the FBI interviewed through the course of Crossfire
Hurricane and Mueller's Special Counsel investigation--this
came up earlier--was Charles Dolan ever interviewed by the FBI?
Mr. Durham. He was not.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Do you have any insight as to why the FBI
would not interview him or overlook such a high-profile person
in this whole investigation?
Mr. Durham. That's something of a mystery. Going back to
October 3rd, according to the ALAB--the assistant legal attache
for the bureau--when he first--I'm sorry, going back to July
5th when he first met with Steele, Steele had indicated to him
at the time that H.C. was aware of what he, Steele, was doing.
When the bureau went back to interview Steele on October
3rd about matters relating to Crossfire Hurricane, Steele, in
fact, had provided the bureau with Dolan's name as somebody who
might have information relating to Trump. He was never
interviewed.
So, yes, I don't know why they never interviewed Trump--I'm
sorry, why they did not interview Mr. Dolan, but they didn't.
The explanation that was given to the intelligence analyst
who's referred to in the report essentially was that this would
be outside the scope of their mission--outside of their role.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very good. You note in your report on page
168, that one of the analysts of the Mueller team was told,
quote, ``to cease all research and analysis related to Dolan.''
This was the same analyst who, according to your footnote,
prepared a timeline in the event she was later interviewed
about her role on the Mueller Special Counsel investigation. Is
that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Igor Danchenko had also relied on other
subsources, mainly Olga Galkina and Sergei Millian. When the
FBI interviewed those two subsources, were either of them able
to verify the information in the Steele Dossier?
Mr. Durham. Well, speaking first to Millian, we interviewed
Millian, as well. He was outside the country. He claims to fear
for his safety and what not. He adamantly denied ever talking
to Danchenko or providing any information akin to what was in
the Steele reporting.
In fact, he is a supporter of President Trump, which made
it seem highly unlikely that he would be providing derogatory
information to somebody he had never met or spoken to. So,
that's as to Millian.
With respect to Ms. Galkina, Ms. Galkina was somebody who
provided some information to Danchenko, provided some
information to Dolan.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm out of time.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Special Counsel Durham, in March 2019 before releasing the
Mueller Report to the public Attorney General Barr released a
statement mischaracterizing its findings and conclusions and
shortly thereafter Attorney General Barr announced that he was
investigating the FBI for investigating Putin's interference in
the 2016 Presidential Election.
Then, in April or May 2019, Attorney General Barr appointed
you to lead that investigation. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. He did appoint me to lead the investigation,
yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Then, in October 2020, Attorney
General Barr appointed you as an independent Special Counsel,
so that you could continue investigating the origins of the
``Russia, Russia, Russia investigation,'' once Trump was out of
office, correct?
Mr. Durham. I was appointed Special Counsel in October,
yes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. By that time, your investigation
had already cost the American taxpayers over $6.5 million,
isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. At that point, probably not, no.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, at this point, how much has
it cost?
Mr. Durham. As I understand the figure, having looked at
it, it's around $6.5 million.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. After 3\1/2\ years of investigation
and $6.5 million of taxpayer money spent, your investigation to
led to the indictment of only three individuals, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct. Well, it was an indictment of,
yes, indictment of--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Contrary to the fervent prayers of
some on this panel, former FBI Director Jim Comey and former
CIA Director John Brennan were not among those three who were
indicted, isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. To the extreme disappointment of
some on this panel, your investigation failed to produce
indictments against Hillary Clinton, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Didn't indict Barack Obama?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Didn't indict Joe Biden?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Couldn't even indict Hunter Biden,
correct?
Mr. Durham. We didn't investigate Mr. Hunter Biden.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Of your three prosecutions, one
ended with a guilty plea to an unrelated to the origins of the
FBI investigation, and that individual received a probated
sentence with no jail time, correct?
Mr. Durham. Parts of that are correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. The other two men you prosecuted
went to trial on the charges, charging--they were accused of
lying to the FBI, and both were slam-dunk acquitted, isn't that
correct?
Mr. Durham. They were acquitted.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. None of the individuals you
prosecuted were ever charged with being part of a hoax, a
fraud, a witch hunt, or a politically motivated, deep-state
conspiracy against Donald Trump, isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. I would not say that's accurate.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You mean you did charge somebody
with being a part of a hoax?
Mr. Durham. We charged Mr. Sussmann with having not only
provided false information to the FBI regarding Alfa Bank and
lying and--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. He was acquitted, though, right?
Mr. Durham. That wasn't your question.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, he was, Mr. Sussmann was
acquitted after you charged him, correct?
Mr. Durham. The grand jury found--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. He was found innocent by a jury
of--by an unanimous jury of 12.
Mr. Durham. That's not true.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well--
Mr. Durham. What's true is a grand jury found probable
cause to indict Mr. Sussmann.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. A jury of his peers acquitted him,
though, correct?
Mr. Durham. A trial jury--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You're not, you're not going to
disagree on that, are you, Mr. Durham?
Mr. Durham. I'm going to try to answer your question as it
was asked.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, let me ask you this. Because
in your report, you related or alluded to allegations of
misconduct against Mr. Sussmann and Mr. Danchenko, as if those
allegations had been proven true at trial, when, in fact, both
those individuals had been acquitted and your allegations
disproven. Do you believe that it's ethical to state something
as a fact in an official government report, when the court
system found that you could not prove those allegations?
Mr. Durham. Well, I think if you read the report, you'd see
that we talked about the results of the trial, and we included
all the evidence that we had available; unfortunately, not all
which was admitted at trial. So, it's matter of--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, let me ask you this, Mr.
Durham: You closed your investigation after you failed to find
that the FBI investigation into Putin's interference into the
2016 election was politically motivated and was a deep-state
conspiracy against ex-President Trump. You were unable to prove
that this was true.
Mr. Durham. That isn't what we--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. So, you--
Mr. Durham. That is not what I was investigating.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, but you did not find that was
true, correct? You found it to be false, as a matter of fact.
Mr. Durham. If you've had a chance--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. If you have a chance to read the report, the
report's, in fact--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, I did, and--
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, could we--the time has expired.
Could the gentleman be allowed to answer the question?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. This--
Chair Jordan. The gentleman can respond.
The time of the gentleman from Georgia is expired. The
witness can respond.
Mr. Durham. To say, if you, if you read the report, we lay
the facts out in the report as to these matters. I'm not here
to talk about Mr. Trump. I'm not here to talk about deep-state,
or whatever other characterizations you made.
This report is factual. Nobody has raised any issues as to
whether it's factually inaccurate in any way. People can draw
their own conclusions based on those facts.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Durham, you've been at it an 1\1/2\ hours
here. We could keep going if you can keep going. Just let us
know if and when you might need--
Mr. Durham. Yes, I'm fine. Whatever the Committee wants.
Chair Jordan. OK. Great.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Issa.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Durham, each of us on the panel has a
different background and a different idea of what's best to get
out of this report and the work that you have done so
faithfully, not just for the last four years, but your entire
career.
So, I'm going to start off by asking, is it true that you
have the Attorney General's Exceptional Service Award, a
decoration for your service?
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Mr. Issa. Is it also true that you have the Attorney
General's Distinguished Service Award?
Mr. Durham. That's true.
Mr. Issa. Who awarded you that?
Mr. Durham. It goes back in time. Attorney General Reno
had--
Mr. Issa. No, no, 2012.
Mr. Durham. Oh, I'm sorry, in 2012. I'm trying to remember
what award it was. I don't, frankly, recall. I don't really--
Mr. Issa. Just for the record, it's Eric Holder.
Mr. Durham. Yes. That was, that was the CIA investigation.
That's right, it was Attorney General Holder.
Mr. Issa. It was.
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Issa. You had to deal with some of the most despicable
people and do the things that we do sometimes when wrong has
been done. So, I want to thank you for that.
It seems like for your entire career you've been a go-to
for difficult situations, not necessarily the standard ``I'm
trying to rise quickly award,'' but, in fact, you are a career
investigator, and I would imagine, pretty closely, that you've
got your 82 percent overall.
I want to talk about something that I'm not qualified to
talk about, but I can ask you. Are there, what you would call,
unindicted co-conspirators in this? In other words, are there
people at all levels who did things wrong who were not charged
with crimes because of the limitation of the ability to bring
charges against them for what they did, even if it was wrong?
Mr. Durham. We brought charges where we thought, in good
faith, that we could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mr. Issa. OK, but--
Mr. Durham. Is there evidence beyond that? Of course.
Mr. Issa. Sure. So, in your experience as a career
prosecutor, when people break the rules and it changes the
outcome of something--like launching an investigation without a
predicate, like the President, the Vice President, the Attorney
General, and a host of others, the FBI Director--knowing that
this had been started with a false predicate, knowing that
Hillary Clinton's Campaign, with her approval, in fact, had
authorized this, not op research, but this weaponizing of a
false claim, when they did that, they, in fact, changed the
outcome, whether criminal or not, of many things, including,
certainly, some things in voters' mind, isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. I mean, generally speaking, there are lots of
bad things that people do that aren't crimes. We can only
charge those that are crimes.
Mr. Issa. I appreciate that. So, when people are constantly
making this point that somehow you didn't put enough people in
jail, you gave us 300 pages that give us a responsibility. As I
said, I'm not going to try to pretend that I'm the smart lawyer
up here at all, or even a lawyer, but I am somebody that
understands organization, oversight, and transparency.
In your report, you do note the changes made, and so on.
Unless we make changes in transparency to outside individuals
who can be counted on to be ombudsmen to the process, isn't it
true that, if the President, the Vice President, the Attorney
General, and a host of other top people at the FBI and
Department of Justice, choose in the future to push to make
change, to make outcomes occur that would not occur according
to their own printed rules, that no rule per se is going to
change that?
Mr. Durham. I think that's true. As we say in the report,
ultimately, what this comes down to is the integrity of the
people who are doing the job. Are they adhering to their oath
or are they not adhering to their oath? Are they following the
law? Are they not following the law?
Mr. Issa. Well, in my 20-plus years on this side of the
dais, what I've found is that people, when the light of day is
shed on them, follow the rules much better than they aren't.
So, for all of us up here, I want to thank you for your
contribution and your service. Hopefully--I know you're going
into, you've gone into retirement--but, hopefully, in the
future, as we begin looking at reforms that can be counted on
and believed by the American people, at reforms that create
better transparency, at reforms that do not allow FISA judges
to be misled by people with an agenda, that you'll be available
to at least give us some of the guidance from your decades of
knowing how it's done right at the Department of Justice.
Mr. Chair, I want to thank you for your indulgence, and
with so many people, I will not take excess time. I believe
this witness' 300-plus pages speaks extremely well for itself.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, just so people remember what this
is all about, let me ask you, the Mueller investigation
revealed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in
``sweeping an systemic fashion,'' correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Schiff. Russia did so through a social media campaign
that favored Donald Trump and disparaged Hillary Clinton,
correct?
Mr. Durham. That's what the report says, yes.
Mr. Schiff. Mueller found that a Russian intelligence
service hacked computers associated with the Clinton Campaign,
and then, released the stolen documents publicly, is that
right?
Mr. Durham. That report speaks for itself as well.
Mr. Schiff. Mueller also reported that, though he could not
establish the crime of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, he
also said, quote, ``A statement that the investigation did not
establish certain facts does not mean there was no evidence of
those facts.'' That also appears in the report, doesn't it?
Mr. Durham. It's language to that effect, yes.
Mr. Schiff. In fact, you cited that very statement in your
own report, did you not, as a way of distinguishing between
proof beyond a reasonable doubt and evidence that falls short
beyond a reasonable doubt?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Schiff. As an illustration of this, both Mueller and
Congressional investigations found that Trump's Campaign Chair,
Paul Manafort, was secretly meeting with an operative link to
Russian intelligence named Konstantin Kilimnik, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's my understanding, yes.
Mr. Schiff. That Manafort, while Chair of the Trump
Campaign, gave that Russian intelligence operative the
campaign's internal polling data, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's what I've read in the news, yes.
Mr. Schiff. That Manafort provided this information to
Russian intelligence while Russian intelligence was engaged in
that social media campaign and the release of stolen documents
to help the Trump Campaign, correct?
Mr. Durham. You may be getting beyond the depth of my
knowledge, but it's--
Mr. Schiff. Well, let me say, very simply, while Manafort,
the Campaign Chair for Donald Trump was giving this Russian
intelligence officer internal campaign polling data, Russian
intelligence was helping the Trump Campaign, weren't they?
Mr. Durham. I don't, I don't know that, but that sounds
right.
Mr. Schiff. You really don't know those very basic facts of
the investigation?
Mr. Durham. I know the general facts, yes. Do I know that
particular fact myself? No. I know that I've read that in the
media.
Mr. Schiff. Are you aware, Mr. Durham, that Mueller and
Congressional investigations also revealed that Don Jr. was
informed that a Russian official was offering the Trump
Campaign, quote, ``very high-level and sensitive information,''
that would be incriminating of Hillary Clinton and was part of,
quote, ``Russia and its government's support of Mr. Trump''?
Are you aware of that?
Mr. Durham. Sure. People get phone calls all the time from
individuals who claim to have information like that.
Mr. Schiff. Really? The son of a Presidential candidate
gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt
on their opponent? Is that what you're saying?
Mr. Durham. I don't think this is unique in your
experience.
Mr. Schiff. So, you have other instances of the Russian
government offering dirt on a Presidential candidate to the
Presidential candidate's son? Is that what you're saying?
Mr. Durham. Would you repeat the question?
Mr. Schiff. You said that it's not uncommon to get offers
of help from a hostile foreign government in a Presidential
Campaign directed at the President's son. Do you really stand
by that, Mr. Durham?
Mr. Durham. I'm saying that people make phone calls making
claims all the time, that you may have experienced.
Mr. Schiff. Are you really trying to diminish the
significance of what happened here and the secret meeting that
the President's son set up in Trump Tower to receive that
incriminating information? Trying to diminish the significance
of that, Mr. Durham?
Mr. Durham. I'm not trying to diminish it at all, but I
think the more complete story is that they met, and it was a
ruse, and they didn't talk about Ms. Clinton.
Mr. Schiff. You think it's insignificant that he had a
secret meeting with Russian delegation for the purpose of
getting dirt on Hillary Clinton, and the only disappointment
expressed at that meeting was that the dirt they got wasn't
better? You don't think that's significant?
Mr. Durham. I don't think that was a well-advised thing to
do.
Mr. Schiff. Oh, oh, not well-advised?
Mr. Durham. Right.
Mr. Schiff. Well, that's the understatement of the year.
So, you think it's perfectly appropriate, or maybe just ill-
advised, for a Presidential Campaign to secretly meet with a
Russian delegation to get dirt on their opponent? You would
merely say that's inadvisable?
Mr. Durham. Yes. If you're asking me would I do it, I hope
I wouldn't do it. It was not illegal. It was stupid, foolish,
and ill-advised.
Mr. Schiff. Well, it is illegal to conspire to get
incriminating opposition research from a hostile government
that is of financial value to a campaign. Wouldn't that violate
campaign laws?
Mr. Durham. I don't know--I don't know all those facts to
be true.
Mr. Schiff. Well, your report, Mr. Durham, doesn't dispute
anything Mueller found, did it?
Mr. Durham. No, our object, our aim, was not to dispute
Director Mueller. I have the greatest regard, highest regard,
for Director Mueller. He's a patriot.
Mr. Schiff. The only distinguishment between his
investigation and yours is he refused to bring charges where he
couldn't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and you did.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, I want to, as a fellow alum of DOJ, (1) I want
to thank you for your service and (2) welcome you to Congress.
Mr. Durham. It's a real pleasure, really.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Buck. I want to ask you some questions about FISA and
some of your most recent experiences as the Special Counsel and
what your specific advice would be, I guess.
I am concerned with the conclusions in your report, and I
just want to--they've been mentioned several times here. In
your opening statement, you talk about ``lack of investigative
discipline, a failure to take logical investigative steps, and
bias.''
It appears to me that the lack of an investigative
discipline and the failure to take logical investigative steps
are a result of bias. Is that fair?
Mr. Durham. I think that's fair. When you look at what is
involved here, this is a Presidential Campaign. It's not a run-
of-the-mill investigation. This is so highly sensitive; it
could affect the outcome of a Presidential Election and the
future of the Nation. You would expect that the discipline that
would have been followed would have been higher than ever. That
didn't happen here. The sort of analytical rigor, the
discipline in how we investigate criminal matters, that was
just absent here in large measure.
Mr. Buck. Fair to say that there was a rush to judgment?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry?
Mr. Buck. Fair to say that there was a rush to judgment? In
other words, the judgment of proceeding with the investigation
before following proper procedure.
Mr. Durham. As has been alluded to here, the information
that they had received from the Australian diplomats, not
Australian intelligence or law enforcement, but Australian
diplomats, about something that was said at a bar, within three
days of that information having been received at FBI
headquarters, the Deputy Director of the FBI, according to Mr.
Strzok, told him too immediately open that. It was opened as a
full investigation on a weekend with Mr. Strzok not only
writing the opening electronic communication, the opening memo,
but approving that memo as well.
Mr. Buck. This is the same Mr. Strzok who we saw the text
message from that had a clear bias regarding President Trump?
Mr. Durham. It's the same person, yes.
Mr. Buck. How long did Director Comey serve in the FBI
before he became Director? I'm not saying Department of
Justice; I'm saying FBI.
Mr. Durham. Right. To my knowledge, he was not in the FBI
prior to becoming Director.
Mr. Buck. He promoted the people--Andy McCabe, Peter
Strzok, others--to the position at headquarters, and then,
dealt with them there? Is that fair?
Mr. Durham. He would have certainly had a role in the
advancement of people in the upper management of the FBI, yes.
Mr. Buck. My concern is that the bias that has been
demonstrated there, whether it has been eradicated or dealt
with, could exist in any of these agencies. These agencies have
access to very sensitive information that we in Congress allow
for counterterrorism/counterintelligence activities--and it
really goes around the Constitution because it does not deal
with U.S. citizens. I'm talking about the FISA rules now.
Have you heard of backdoor searches?
Mr. Durham. I've heard the term, yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. It refers to the ability of an agency to look at
a U.S. citizen's communications because the communication was
with a foreign individual, and it was recorded because that
foreign individual was being looked at. Is that fair?
Mr. Durham. That's fair.
Mr. Buck. If there was this bias in an agency like the FBI
that we saw previously, and they wanted to go after a U.S.
citizen, they could use that technique to go after that
citizen. My question to you is, how do we prevent that? How do
we in Congress take a look at FISA, try to maintain the
national security interests, but at the same time protect U.S.
citizens from a rogue agency, a biased agency, or agent--I
shouldn't say ``agency'' and condemn everyone, but individuals
in the agency--how do we protect American citizens from what
could occur?
Let me give you another quick example. Going out and buying
information from private data sellers to obtain information
that you couldn't obtain with a search warrant because you
don't have probable cause, those techniques are all available
under FISA. What should we do?
Mr. Durham. That's, clearly, beyond my background and
experience. These are very complicated questions, particularly
when we know that adversaries are doing the same thing. What do
we do under those circumstances?
I think you've got a very tough job in figuring out how do
you balance the liberties of the American people, and protect
the liberties of the American people, while at the same time
protecting the country and the Nation, and the people of the
United States. I don't feel qualified really to provide you
with any helpful information along those lines, but I know that
it is a serious issue and it's of serious concern.
Mr. Buck. I thank you, and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
Before going to the gentleman from California, the
gentlelady from Texas has a unanimous consent, I think.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, I do.
Chair Jordan. OK.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to
submit records from the Department of Justice reflecting
meetings with the U.S. Attorney John Durham. These records were
in response to American Oversight's request for DOJ
communications between the Offices of the Attorney General and
the Deputy Attorney General and Durham or his first assistant.
I ask unanimous consent to place this in the record of this
hearing.
Chair Jordan. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Chair, you and your colleagues have
continually cited to Steve D'Antuono's transcribed interviews
using selected statements taken out of context. I move for
unanimous consent to enter the entire transcript into the
record, so the American public can see for itself exactly what
he said.
Chair Jordan. Yes, we will work on that. Yes, we'll work on
that. We don't want to--we've got to--we'll talk with the
Chair--we want to make that fully available with the Ranking
Member.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair you're objecting to a unanimous
consent request and to something--
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I object.
Chair Jordan. OK.
Mr. Schiff. So, if I understand correctly, Mr. Chair,
you're happy to cite selected portions of the transcript out of
context, but you're not happy to see--
Chair Jordan. We'll make a--
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, there's an objection. Is there further
action?
Mr. Schiff. You don't want the American public to see this,
Mr. Issa?
Participant. Roll call vote, please.
Mr. Issa. There's no vote on that.
Chair Jordan. I just want to clarify for the gentleman, we
want to put the transcript out, but there's a couple--we've got
a little work to do on certain names that have to be redacted
for obvious reasons. Yes, we definitely want to put the
transcript out.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Chair, I suggest, then--
Chair Jordan. We'll work with the minority to make sure
that happens. I thought it was an amazing interview by Mr.
D'Antuono, the former head of the Washington Field Office. We
want that information out to the public and we'll make sure it
happens.
Mr. Schiff. Can I suggest to the Chair that you grant the
request, subject to redactions to protect personally private
information?
Chair Jordan. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California is--
Ms. Jackson Lee. You have accepted my submission. I didn't
hear it.
Chair Jordan. I did that right away, right away.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Durham, many of my MAGA colleagues want
you to be someone who you are not and to say something that
you, clearly, won't.
So, I want to just start by thanking you for your many
years of service to our country as a Federal prosecutor.
I want to talk a little bit more about the independence of
a Special Counsel, and just clarify, you did send multiple
texts to the Attorney General after you were appointed as
Special Counsel. Did you ever text message with Attorney
General Garland once he took over as Attorney General?
Mr. Durham. No. Attorney General Garland had me communicate
through the Principal Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Weinsheimer.
Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever travel overseas with Attorney
General Garland?
Mr. Durham. No. I have with the Attorney General, but I
didn't travel overseas with him.
Mr. Swalwell. President Biden, through the Attorney
General, could have had you removed, fired, is that right?
Mr. Durham. I'm sure he could have.
Mr. Swalwell. You stayed on?
Mr. Durham. I completed my term as Special Counsel.
Mr. Swalwell. Was there anyone you wanted to indict that
you were prohibited from indicting by Attorney General Garland?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Swalwell. So, if you wanted to, you could have indicted
Hillary Clinton, but you never asked, is that right?
Mr. Durham. If I had the evidence, yes, we could have for
sure.
Mr. Swalwell. If you wanted to indict President Biden, you
could have asked, right?
Mr. Durham. Yes. That was not part of our mission. We
weren't really looking at that, but--
Mr. Swalwell. If you could have indicted Director Comey,
you could have asked, is that right? You didn't?
Mr. Durham. Yes, the Attorney General Garland had never
asked me not to indict somebody.
Mr. Swalwell. Right. So, I just want to make clear to my
colleagues, you had all the power in the world to indict anyone
that you had evidence to indict, and you were never blocked
from doing it. That's correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Swalwell. I also want to compare you to the last major
Special Counsel investigation that we had. You agree Special
Counsel Mueller charged dozens of individuals and you indicated
three, is that correct?
Mr. Durham. Indicted two, and another, a third, pleaded
guilty.
Mr. Swalwell. Right. Special Counsel Mueller had dozens of
convictions, some at trial, but no defendant was outright
acquitted, is that right, in the Mueller investigation?
Outright acquitted? Across the board, every charge, acquitted?
Mr. Durham. Right. I don't believe there are any
acquittals. I'm not sure there were dozens of convictions.
There were dozens of--they're, yes, more than a dozen people
who were indicted.
Mr. Swalwell. You were wise earlier to not weigh in on
Donald Trump's character. You are under oath, after all. Did
anything in your report prove false that Russians met with
Trump's family during the campaign at Trump Tower after an
offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton? Anything prove that this
meeting didn't happen?
Mr. Durham. I don't have any evidence that this did not
happen.
Mr. Swalwell. Anything prove false that in the 2016
Campaign Donald Trump tried and concealed from the public a
real estate deal he was seeking in Moscow?
Mr. Durham. I don't know anything about that. There's
nothing in the report about it. It's not something we
investigated.
Mr. Swalwell. Anything in there prove false that Donald
Trump publicly asked Russia to hack Hillary's emails, and then,
hours later, they did?
Mr. Durham. If you're referring to--
Mr. Swalwell. Did you prove--did Donald Trump not say at a
press conference, ``Russia, if you're listening, you should get
Hillary's emails.''? Did you prove that he didn't say that?
Mr. Durham. Yes, no, we didn't.
Mr. Swalwell. OK.
Mr. Durham. We didn't investigate that.
Mr. Swalwell. Did you prove false in the 2016 Campaign that
Trump's Campaign Manager gave polling data to a spy for a
Russian intelligence service?
Mr. Durham. We didn't investigate that.
Mr. Swalwell. Anything in your report say that Donald Trump
in 2016 acted the way that Americans would want a Presidential
candidate to act with regard to Russia?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
Mr. Swalwell. Are you signing off on the way Donald Trump
acted with Russia in 2016?
Mr. Durham. Our report doesn't address that.
Mr. Swalwell. You agree that Russia interfered in the 2016
election?
Mr. Durham. Agree that there's substantial evidence to show
that.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
Mr. Durham, my MAGA colleagues want you to be someone
you're not and they want you to say something you won't. They
want you to join the law firm of Insurrection, LLC, which,
incidentally, and probably appropriately, is chaired by a guy
who never passed the bar exam, and you're wise not to do that.
You see my colleagues today; they are making themselves
footnotes and foot soldiers in the history books that will
chronicle Donald Trump's corruption.
I yield my remaining time to Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, returning to your decision to speak
out during the pendency of your investigation, did you have
staff on your team advise you against making statements during
the pendency of your investigation?
Mr. Durham. They didn't advise me either way, no.
Mr. Schiff. Did any of your staff raise ethical concerns
about your speaking out either in an interim report or after
the Inspector General investigation? Any of your staff raise
ethical concerns with your doing so?
Mr. Durham. Not that I recall, no. Yes, raise a technical
concern? No, not that I'm aware of.
Mr. Schiff. Did they raise concerns with your speaking out
during the pendency of the investigation?
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The witness can respond.
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry--
Mr. Schiff. Did any of your staff raise concerns about your
speaking out during the pendency of your investigation, in
contrast to DOJ policy?
Mr. Durham. Not that I recall.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Lee. Good morning, Mr. Durham.
Mr. Durham. May I just complete that answer more?
I don't want to lay any blame at their--I made that
decision to make a statement. They were not involved in it.
Mr. Cohen. Did Nora Dannehy?
Mr. Durham. Did Nora Dannehy?
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from Florida--
Mr. Durham. Right. Nora Dannehy, a friend of mine, a very
good lawyer, an honest person.
Mr. Schiff. Why did she resign?
Mr. Durham. That's Nora Dannehy. That's why we brought her
on.
Mr. Schiff. Why did she resign?
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman can--
Mr. Schiff. You can answer the question if you'd like.
Mr. Gooden. Mr. Chair, who's in charge here? Because it's
not Mr. Schiff, I don't think.
Chair Jordan. It's the lady's time from Florida.
Ms. Lee. Good morning, Mr. Durham.
Mr. Durham. Good morning.
Ms. Lee. As a former Federal prosecutor, I want to begin by
telling you how much I appreciate your work, that of your team,
and your presence here today.
You may begin by answering the prior question, if you wish.
Mr. Durham. With respect to Ms. Dannehy, I have the
greatest respect for her. She is a friend of mine. She is very
well educated; she is an honest person. We had some
disagreements on issues, and I don't really have any comment
beyond that. I am not going to discuss the internal management
and decisionmaking.
I will tell you this, that every agent and every lawyer who
worked on this project had a full voice in the decisions that
were going forward. I made the final decisions.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Durham. I would like to focus on
the Department of Justice's procedures as to FISA applications
when that process is conducted appropriately. To begin with, so
FISA surveillance application must include an affidavit from a
Federal law enforcement officer, correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. That affidavit must demonstrate cause to believe
that the target of the surveillance is an agent of a foreign
power, is that also right?
Mr. Durham. Right, if it relates to U.S. citizen. It has to
be that they are a knowing agent. If it is a non-U.S. person, a
knowing element is not required.
Ms. Lee. It is intended that this affidavit should rely on
reasonable, trustworthy information, is it not?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. In some cases, and including the case of Carter
Page, those affidavits, that information can include that use
of information obtained from a confidential human source,
correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. When information from a confidential human source
is included, would you agree that it is important that material
related to the reliability or trustworthiness of that
confidential human source is disclosed within the affidavit?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Ms. Lee. I believe you testified here earlier today that in
this case, information in that Carter Page application related
to the reliability and credibility of the confidential human
source was not included in these applications. Is that right?
Mr. Durham. I believe that is correct.
Ms. Lee. Would you tell us, in your experience, in your
many years working with the department, why is it important
that this type of information is included and disclosed to both
Federal prosecutors and to the court?
Mr. Durham. When matters are submitted to the court, it is
for a reason, to a judge. It is to let an independent judicial
officer weigh the questions of whether probable cause exists or
not.
In providing that information to independent, objective
judicial officers and judicial magistrates, if there is
confidential human source information that is being provided,
it is important for the person, the judge who is reviewing
this, to know what is the basis of the person's knowledge. Is
it hearsay or do they have personal knowledge, as an example.
Then whether or not there is some track record of basis to
believe that the information would be credible coming from this
person.
Ms. Lee. Of course at this stage of the proceeding, the
person who is the subject of the investigation has no idea that
this application is even being made or considered or reviewed
by the court in most cases.
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. So, it solely rests with the government, the
responsibility to ensure that this power, that this
surveillance power that is being used is being done in a way
that is appropriate and compliant with the law.
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. You mentioned something earlier about that in this
case, agents immediately moved to the most intrusive
investigative means that were available, referring of course to
the interception of live communications, correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct. In this instance, the Bureau
almost immediately, when they opened this full investigation,
the umbrella case, Crossfire Hurricane, and then the four
subfiles, the immediately went to try to get FISA coverage on
Papadopoulos, which they weren't able to do. Then Carter Page.
Ms. Lee. Some of the techniques, for law enforcement there
are myriad of other things they can do to collect surveillance
information short of this interception of the communications.
Like pole cameras, pen registers, trap and trace, trash pulls,
correct?
There are many things that in investigations are often
utilized prior to taking this step of attempting to intercept
live communications.
Mr. Durham. Right. Those are typically building blocks for
electronic surveillance.
Ms. Lee. So, based on your testimony so far, what we are
hearing is that here, a FISA application was pursued without
disclosing some relevant information to prosecutors or the
court, without following standard procedural rules, utilizing
investigative techniques that were the most intrusive without
first exhausting other techniques. Instead pursuing the most
invasive method possible from the outset against Mr. Page.
Mr. Durham. That is essentially correct, yes.
Ms. Lee. Now, one other thing. You mentioned earlier during
your testimony that the failures identified during your
investigation, that if they were not addressed, they would
result in national security risks and continued public lack of
confidence in our institutions of justice. That there were no
overnight fixes, but we needed accountability standards and
consequences. Would you elaborate please?
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The
witness can respond.
Mr. Durham. The national security interests here include
liberties of the American people. One of the things that was
most disturbing about the dossier, the Steele Dossier, is
whether or not this is--at least some of it was Russian
disinformation.
Whether Igor Danchenko, who personally wrote that he was
responsible for 80 percent of the intelligence in the dossier
and 50 percent of the analysis, whether or not Mr. Danchenko
was the source of Russian disinformation.
If you don't run some of those things to ground, it does
affect the liberties, or potentially affects the liberties of
the American people and the national security interests of this
country.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, sir.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
California is recognized.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin my questioning, I want to say that the House
Judiciary Committee is responsible to helping to ensure the
rule of law. The Chair of this Committee ignored a bipartisan
Congressional subpoena. The precedent set by this Chair has
damaged the ability of Congressional Committees to get
information from witnesses and damaged the rule of law.
Now, Mr. Durham, thank you for being here voluntarily
today. In your report, not only did the FBI have information,
as stated before, that the Australians knew that Trump Foreign
Policy Advisor George Papadopoulos had suggested that the
Russians were going to release anonymous information damaging
to Hilary Clinton.
The FBI also knew and had information that the Democratic
National Committee was hacked by the Russians and information
was being released to the American public.
The FBI also had information from various media reports
that Trump had relations with different Russian businessmen,
and the FBI had information that Trump said, ``Russia, if
you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 3,000 emails
that are missing.''
The FBI had all that information prior to opening Operation
Hurricane, correct? Crossfire Hurricane, is that right?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Mr. Lieu. OK. If the FBI had chosen to do so, the multiple
pieces of information they had would have allowed them to open
a preliminary investigation, is that right?
Mr. Durham. Not a report but I would say that the FBI
certainly had an obligation to assess the information perhaps
make it a preliminary investigation.
Mr. Lieu. OK, in fact, it would have been a dereliction of
duty for the FBI to have just sat on their hands and done
nothing with the information that they had, isn't that right?
Mr. Durham. The FBI should not have ignored that
information.
Mr. Lieu. OK. It is also true, isn't it, that the Inspector
General of the Department of Justice looked at this situation
and concluded that not only did FBI have enough information to
open a preliminary investigation, but the FBI had enough
information to open a full investigation. That was the
conclusion of the Inspector General, correct?
Mr. Durham. My recollection is that the Inspector General
said it is a low bar and he thought it had been met. Inspector
General didn't necessarily address--
Mr. Lieu. So, thank you. I would like to enter the
Inspector General's report dated December 2019 into the record,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Mr. Lieu. OK. It turns out the FBI was correct. The
Department of Justice found that the Russians interfered in our
elections in a ``sweeping and systematic manner.'' A bipartisan
U.S. Senate Report confirmed that the Russians interfered in
the 2016 elections, and that interference benefited Donald
Trump.
Paul Manafort, Trump's former Campaign Chair also publicly
admitted to giving internal Trump Campaign data to the
Russians. The U.S. Treasury Department found that this data,
which it said was ``sensitive information on polling and
campaign strategy'' was then passed to Russian intelligence
services.
There is a phrase to describe the facts I just set forth.
It is called Russian collusion.
Mr. Chair, I would like to enter both the Treasury
Department documents dated April 2021, as well as the
bipartisan Senate Report intelligence dated August 2020.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Mr. Lieu. OK, now, Mr. Durham, I would like to ask you the
following simple yes-or-no questions. Trump's former Campaign
Chair Paul Manafort was convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry, could you just repeat that one.
Mr. Lieu. That Trump's former Campaign Chair, Paul
Manafort, was convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct. Not in connection to--
Mr. Lieu. Trump's former Foreign Policy Advisor to the
campaign, George Papadopoulos, was convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's former Deputy Campaign Manager, Rick
Gates, was convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. Not in connection with a Russian matter.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's--all right. Mr. Durham, you can hold
yourself out as an objective Department of Justice Official or
as a partisan hack. The more that you try to spin the facts and
not answer my questions, you sound like the latter.
So, I am just going to ask this simply. Trump's former
National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, was convicted,
correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's longtime advisor, Roger Stone, was
convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. I am sorry, I missed the last thing you
mentioned.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's longtime advisor, Roger Stone, was
convicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Lieu. In contrast, multiple Trump associates were
convicted, you brought two cases to jury trial based on this
investigation, and you lost both. So, I don't actually know
what we are doing here. Because the author of the Durham Report
concedes that the FBI had enough information to investigate.
Thank goodness the FBI did, because multiple Trump associates
who committed crimes were held accountable. The best way to
summarize what happened is thank you to the brave mem and women
of the FBI for doing their jobs.
I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired,
he yields back. The gentleman from California, Mr. McClintock,
is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. First, Mr. Durham, I apologize for the
personal attacks that have been leveled on you from sources on
the other side of the aisle. This is what they do, this is how
they argue. So, we have gotten used to it, and I hope you will
too at some point.
The central charge in the Russian collusion hoax was that
Trump Campaign operatives were in contact with Russian
intelligence sources. Were Clinton Campaign operatives in
contact with Russian intelligence sources?
Mr. Durham. That is beyond the scope of our report. I can
only speak to the former, and the former is there was no such
evidence. As we reported in the report, there was--
Mr. McClintock. Well, was Danchenko a Russian intelligence
source?
Mr. Durham. Mr. Danchenko had been investigated by the FBI
for espionage. They closed the case when they mistakenly
thought he had left the country. Mr. Danchenko's status in
connection with that espionage matter was never resolved by the
Bureau. The Bureau, in fact, never opened it or pursued it.
Mr. McClintock. He was the source for much of the Steele
Dossier.
Mr. Durham. He said that he was responsible for 80 percent
of the intelligence in the dossier and 50 percent of the
analysis.
Mr. McClintock. Who commissioned the Steele Dossier?
Mr. Durham. The Steele Dossier was done by Fusion GPS, who
was hired by Perkins Coie, who represented the Clinton Campaign
and the DNC.
Mr. McClintock. So, what role did the Clinton Campaign play
in this hoax?
Mr. Durham. What, I am sorry, did they play?
Mr. McClintock. What role did the Clinton Campaign play in
this hoax?
Mr. Durham. The Clinton Campaign funded the work, the
opposition research, that was done by Fusion GPS. GPS paid Mr.
Steele for the dossier.
Mr. McClintock. Who in the Clinton Campaign approved that
relationship?
Mr. Durham. Well, we lay some of the out in the report. I
think it was Mr. Elias, who was General Counsel to the
campaign, who engaged the services of Fusion GPS.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Jordan referenced the Clinton plan
intelligence. Exactly what was the Clinton plan?
Mr. Durham. Based on declassified documents in the public
record, there was intelligence information that was received at
virtually the same time that the information came from the
Australians. I mean, within a day or two.
That intelligence included information that there was a
purported plan designed by one of Ms. Clinton's foreign policy
advisors to create a scandal tying Donald Trump to the
Russians. That is the essence of the intelligence as contained
in the declassified information.
Mr. McClintock. Did the President receive this
intelligence?
Mr. Durham. On August 3, 2016, then-Director Brennan had
briefed the President, Vice President, Director of National
Intelligence, the FBI, the Attorney General, and others.
Mr. McClintock. When you say the FBI, you mean Mr. Comey?
Mr. Durham. On August 3rd it was conducted at the White
House, so it was Director Comey himself.
Mr. McClintock. So, Mr. Comey knew about this, President
Obama knew about this. Vice President Biden knew about this. It
wasn't provided to the agents on the case or provided to the
secret FISA Court, is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Mr. McClintock. Why wasn't it?
Mr. Durham. We can tell you what the facts are. People can
draw their own conclusions from them.
Mr. McClintock. About the Papadopoulos comments at the bar
that were used as justification for this whole thing, what
would the FBI have learned had it looked into this information
honestly?
Mr. Durham. If before opening Crossfire Hurricane they had
checked their own files and communicated with other
intelligence agencies and the like, they would have found that
there was nothing at that time in their files that would
corroborate the information, the suggestion of a suggestion
that the Russians might provide some kind of assistance. There
is nothing in their files that would corroborate that.
Mr. McClintock. The Steele Dossier was entered into the
Congressional Record. Was it true?
Mr. Durham. I am sorry, the Steele Dossier--
Mr. McClintock. The Steele Dossier was entered into our
Congressional Record. Was it true?
Mr. Durham. There is not a single substantive piece of
information in the dossier that has ever been corroborated by
the FBI or to my knowledge anyone else.
Mr. McClintock. You mentioned that the FISA Court
criticized the misleading and false information that was used
to request the FISA warrants. Did the FISA Court hold anyone in
contempt for that?
Mr. Durham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. McClintock. Did they apply any sanctions to anyone
responsible for that?
Mr. Durham. Not to my knowledge. They issued--
Mr. McClintock. Did they even yell at anybody?
Mr. Durham. They issued an appropriately harsh memo,
something about what the expectation is when a document is
submitted to that court, that it be truthful and accurate and
complete. That was the expectation, is the expectation.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Washington.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, thank you for being here today to speak with us
about the report you have produced looking at the FBI's
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Your report took four years and over six and a half million
dollars in taxpayer dollars to produce.
Mr. Durham, how many cases did you bring to trial during
your time investigating the 2016 election?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry, just missed part of that because--
Ms. Jayapal. How many cases did you bring to trial?
Mr. Durham. Two.
Ms. Jayapal. Two. In how many of those two cases did the
juries vote to convict?
Mr. Durham. Neither one.
Ms. Jayapal. Neither one. Neither jury voted to convict the
gentleman that you prosecuted. In fact, in one case, the trial
judge threw out one of your charges because the claim that you
were charging as false was, as he put it, ``literally true.''
Mr. Durham, I think you were given an impossible task by
Attorney General Bill Barr. He asked you to figure out how to
make Donald Trump's Spygate claims true. You couldn't do that
because you quickly realized that the claims were false. So,
you set about, as many Republicans on cable news do, trying to
find a way to blame Hilary Clinton for Donald Trump's woes.
Mr. Durham, do you know how many people Special Counsel
Mueller indicted or obtained guilty pleas from?
Mr. Durham. They indicted or charged a number of people. I
think--
Ms. Jayapal. It was 34 people and three companies. Do you
know how many of those indictments were of individuals who were
acquitted in court?
Mr. Durham. I don't know that anybody was acquitted.
Ms. Jayapal. That is right, the answer is none. So, I think
the difference between your investigation and Mr. Mueller's was
that Mr. Mueller actually found actual evidence of crime.
We know that Russia did attempt to interfere in the 2016
election. We know that Russia did hack into the DNC email
server. Mr. Mueller's prosecutions reflected that reality, such
as the case of 12 Russian military intelligence officers who he
charged with crimes related to the hacking and the leaking of
leading Democrats' emails in 2016.
Similarly, the Mr. Mueller found repeated instances of
Trump Campaign associates lying when asked about their
interactions with Russian interests. As a result of Mr.
Mueller's investigation, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in
October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI.
Trump Campaign aide Rick Gates pleaded guilty to one false
statement charge and one conspiracy charge. Trump National
Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to making false
statements to the FBI.
In November 2019, Trump advisor Roger Stone was convicted
on seven counts, including lying to House Intelligence
Committee and tampering with a witness.
Again, Mr. Mueller indicted or got guilty pleas from 34
people and three companies.
Mr. Durham, you are a career prosecutor, correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Jayapal. You started working as a State Prosecutor in
1977, and you joined the Justice Department in 1982. Yes or no,
prosecutors prioritize bringing cases to court that have a high
likelihood of winning.
Mr. Durham. I would not say that is the standard, no.
Ms. Jayapal. So, you don't think that to call an
investigation successful, you should at least reveal some new
information. Most of your report, Mr. Durham, is a rehashing of
old news, including process-related concerns that the FBI had
already addressed.
In fact, that is why you said you were not recommending any
further changes to FBI policies or procedures. So, at the very
least, I would think that you would need to win some of the
cases on their merits. That is not what happened, and that is
not what many Republicans are looking for.
Chair Jordan seems to be looking for any excuse to
discredit law enforcement and DOJ, who are finally holding
Donald Trump accountable for his serious violations of the law.
Violations, by the way, that Donald Trump just admitted to last
night on Fox News. Americans will see through this facade.
I wanted to ask Mr. Schiff if he wants my additional 40
seconds of time. If so, I yield.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you. I just want to followup on my
question before. Nora Dannehy was a very well-respected member
of your team. Why did she resign?
Mr. Durham. I am sorry?
Mr. Schiff. Nora Dannehy was a very well-respected member
of your team. Why did she resign?
Mr. Durham. That is not part of the report and I'm not
going to discuss internal matters--
Mr. Schiff. Did she resign over disagreements she had with
you about how you were handling the investigation?
Mr. Durham. Not part of the report and I am not going to
discuss it.
Mr. Schiff. It is not part of the report, but you--
Mr. Durham. I have the highest regard for Ms. Dannehy.
Mr. Schiff. You know the answer, Mr. Durham. Why won't you
tell us?
Mr. Durham. Because that is not part of the report, that's
not part of the mission. I am not going to discuss internal
discussions.
I can tell you this, that with respect to every major
decision that was made by our team, every agent, and every
lawyer, had full voice in expressing their opinions, and we
proceeded accordingly when we made the final--
Mr. Schiff. Some voted with their feet to leave your
office.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Ms. Jayapal. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Gooden. Thank you, Mr. Durham. That is not part of the
report is a lot of what I have heard from my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle. One of my colleagues from California
said, ``I don't know what we're doing here.''
What we are doing here is going through this very damning
report. The FBI has failed many times over the years that you
investigated them.
I would like to ask, did the FBI open Crossfire Hurricane
without speaking to the people who provided the information?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Gooden. Did the FBI open Crossfire Hurricane on a
Sunday, only three days after reviewing the information?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Gooden. Did the FBI open Crossfire Hurricane without
any significant review of its own intelligence data base?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Gooden. Did the FBI open Crossfire Hurricane without
interviewing the essential witnesses?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Gooden. Did the FBI open Crossfire Hurricane without
using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed
in evaluating intelligence?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Gooden. Did the FBI consider the possibility that it
was the target?
Mr. Durham. It didn't appear so to me, from the evidence.
Mr. Gooden. So, I am curious if you could tell me, because
I am not a prosecutor. Some of my colleagues here are, but the
average American is not. Can you tell us why and under what
motivation would a prosecutorial agency act in such a way where
it willfully ignores multiple instances of exculpatory evidence
throughout the course of its investigation? Because I just
don't understand that.
Mr. Durham. That, in my experience, is not the norm. That
is not how the FBI performs. In this particular case, as is
reflected in the report, there appear to be people, persons in
the FBI who were central to opening the investigation that had
rather strong views concerning then-candidate Trump.
Mr. Gooden. We have heard in your report that you reference
confirmation bias. A lot of times, or sometimes we see that the
investigators, perhaps the FBI investigators, they have a
confirmation bias because they want a guilty outcome. They want
to find the suspect guilty.
We did not see that to be the case for Hilary Clinton. So,
it makes me think that based on the investigation into the
conduct and the continuous disregard for duty, there was
obviously a special motivation to find this suspect, Donald
Trump and his campaign, guilty above anyone else. Would you
agree?
Mr. Durham. I can speak to what the facts show, as
documented in the report. Again, people draw their reasonable
inferences, conclusions from those facts. With an honest
reading of the report.
Mr. Gooden. If either you or someone on your team willfully
ignored exculpatory evidence, refused to interview key
witnesses, favored one suspect over another, or did any or all
the things that the FBI did there in Crossfire Hurricane, would
you face repercussions?
Mr. Durham. There ought to be repercussions if that ever
happened in connection with an agent that I was working with
and I knew about it.
The first thing would be to report it to the court.
The probable second thing would be to report it to their
superiors.
The third thing would be to ensure that agent never worked
with me again.
Mr. Gooden. I appreciate that. I also appreciate your
remarks earlier in your opening testimony where you said,
My colleagues and I carried out our work in good faith with
integrity in the spirit of following the facts wherever they
lead without fear or favor.
I believe you did that.
I am disappointed in some of my colleagues that have said
disparaging remarks about you. I have seen very few that
actually talk about your report. They want to talk about
everything else, which tells me you are onto something.
I would also yield the balance of my time to the Chair.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.
So, Danchenko's the primary subsource. A few years before
he does this work, he was investigated by the FBI for
espionage. Is that right, Mr. Durham?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Chair Jordan. That case was halted because the FBI thought
he left the country, right?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Chair Jordan. Had he left the country?
Mr. Durham. No.
Chair Jordan. Where was he living?
Mr. Durham. He remained living in the place that he was
living when they opened the investigation.
Chair Jordan. Right here in DC, right.
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Chair Jordan. He hadn't left anywhere, he was right here in
DC. We are going to stop this. Then they go hire him, use the
tax money of the people I get the privilege of representing to
pay this guy, who they obviously knew was a Russian spy. They
hire him, who is the source of all the false information. Is
that true?
Mr. Durham. They paid him, they hired him, and they paid
him.
Chair Jordan. A couple hundred thousand if I recall, right?
Mr. Durham. It was over $200,000.
Chair Jordan. Yes, and then this guy is hanging out with
Dolan, Charles Dolan, who is a buddy of the Clinton's, who's
also a source for the false dossier that was used to spy on an
American citizen. He is hanging out with Dolan. In fact, don't
they meet on a park bench somewhere in Arlington, Virginia, on
New Year's Day?
Mr. Durham. New Year's Day, middle of the day.
Chair Jordan. This is straight out of the movies, right.
The FBI says but we are not going to talk to Charles Dolan.
This is two of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
They won't talk--they pay a guy who is a Russian spy who is
the source of the dossier. The other source of the dossier is
Charles Dolan, who meets with that guy on a park bench in
Arlington, and they don't want to interview him.
You can't make this stuff up. That is what Comey's FBI did.
They are still doing this kind of baloney, because Mr.
D'Antuono told us so. Running operations, running
investigations out of headquarters, instead of assigning a U.S.
Attorney, a job you did for a long time and did very well.
That is a huge problem. Your report, that is why your
report is valuable.
I yield back to the gentleman who was out of time, and we
now recognize the gentleman from--oh, Mr. Correa. Oh, we got
it. Oh, I am sorry, right here. The gentlelady from
Pennsylvania is recognized for five.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Thank you for coming to testify
today, I know it's not a comfortable experience, obviously.
Clearly the questions have exposed that we have many areas of
disagreement across the aisle.
I am relieved that we have no disagreement about one of the
fundamental conclusions of your report, that it was incumbent
on the FBI to open some form of investigation when presented
with evidence that a Presidential candidate and his associates
are either coordinating campaign efforts with a hostile Nation,
or being manipulated by such a hostile Nation.
This is a fundamental conclusion, right? Some of form of
investigation was necessary.
Mr. Durham. Right. The FBI, when they receive information,
this information, other information, they almost always have
some obligation to assess that information.
Ms. Scanlon. Sure.
Mr. Durham. That is what the assessment is about.
Ms. Scanlon. Sure. So, we have established over the course
of question that the current Attorney General, Merrick Garland,
allowed you to run your investigation, I think you said,
independently and without interference, right?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Scanlon. You have talked about the thoroughness of your
investigation as you performed it over the course of 4-4\1/2\
years, $6.5 million, hundreds of FBI agents, six million pages
of documents. Not hundreds of FBI agents, hundreds of personnel
working with you.
Mr. Durham. That would not be accurate, but.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, well, you also had the benefit of prior
investigations, including the Mueller Report.
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Ms. Scanlon. The 2019 Department of Justice Office of
Inspector General's Report, which concurred with you that there
was an obligation to investigate, right?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Ms. Scanlon. Although it disagreed with you about precisely
the form, correct?
Mr. Durham. I think it is more than form, but we had a
disagreement in that regard.
Ms. Scanlon. There was also a 2020 select, Senate Select
Committee Report on intelligence run by Senator Rubio that
affirmed that Russia, in fact, had sought to interfere in our
elections to benefit the Trump Campaign, correct?
Mr. Durham. That report--I don't remember if Senator Rubio
was the Chair at the time or not.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, but there was.
Mr. Durham. I don't think he was.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. So, with all that, you and Attorney
General Barr had both been appointed by President Trump, right?
Mr. Durham. I am sorry, can you just repeat that one again?
Ms. Scanlon. You and Attorney General Barr had both been
appointed to serve at that time by President Trump, correct?
Mr. Durham. I had been nominated by President Trump. I
believe that Mr. Barr was nominated to be Attorney General by
Mr. Trump.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, and the AG Barr appointed you to be
Special Counsel, right?
Mr. Durham. He appointed me as Special Counsel, yes.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. In contrast to the independence and lack
of interference, which you have noted on multiple occasions
that has been performed by Merrick Garland, Agent Barr had a
very active role in your investigation. I just wanted to
mention a couple instances.
First, shortly after your appointment, you and AG Barr both
traveled overseas and met with Italian officials who provided
some allegations with respect to criminal activity by the
former President, correct?
Mr. Durham. We traveled to--well, this is outside the
report, so I am not sure that I'm authorized to talk about it.
We went to Italy to try to pursue leads involving a particular
mysterious professor.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. So, you don't mention in your report those
allegations of misconduct concerning the former President,
correct? It is not in your report. You didn't include that
information in your report, right?
Mr. Durham. Which information?
Ms. Scanlon. About your trip to Italy with AG Barr.
Mr. Durham. No, I don't know why I would have put that in a
report.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, and the day the Inspector General's report
was published, you issued a press releases saying that you
didn't agree with some of his conclusions. Did AG Barr ask you
to issue that press release?
Mr. Durham. Absolutely not.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, who did?
Mr. Durham. I made that decision. Do you want to know why
or no?
Ms. Scanlon. Actually, I wanted to know first can you
identify any other occasion in which a Special Counsel has
released a press statement questioning another Special Counsel
or Inspector General's Report? Can you name one?
Mr. Durham. Yes, I don't know of any.
Ms. Scanlon. OK.
Mr. Durham. They may have, but I don't know about it.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. So, did you communicate with AG Barr about
your press statement before his released the same day, or was
that just a fantastic coincidence?
Mr. Durham. Did I communicate with Attorney General Barr
about what?
Ms. Scanlon. About your press release questioning the IG's
Report.
Mr. Durham. I told Attorney General Barr, I didn't ask his
permission, I told him that I was going to do it.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, one more question. There has been mention
of the resignation, Nora Dannehy, in the Fall 2020. Isn't it
true that she resigned in protest concerning pressure by AG
Barr for you to deliver an interim report or other results
before the 2020 Presidential Election?
Mr. Durham. You would have to ask Ms. Dannehy that. I am
not going to discuss the internal discussions in our group.
Ms. Scanlon. Or we could Google it. Thank you, I yield
back.
Mr. Durham. It's a pretty good source of information.
Chair Jordan. Sure is. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Durham, for being here today and for your
patience with us. I want to talk about that space between law
and policy, I guess, if you will. I want to go back to--I got
your words written during your opening statement where you said
there were troubling violations of law and policy. Do I have
that right?
Mr. Durham. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bentz. So, the assertion has been that perhaps there
should have been more indictments, more people brought before
the court for their actions, but it appears to me that you
tried that and perhaps encountered--I have not looked at the
two trials that turned out not to reach convictions, but was it
a situation where there was something wrong, but it didn't rise
to the level of a crime? Is that what was going on in that
space?
Mr. Durham. You conduct these investigation--conducted this
investigation, the other public corruption investigations,
organized crime investigations. When there's sufficient
evidence that you believe that the evidence is sufficient to
prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, that case should be
brought, and maybe evidence that you have, but you're not
confident that would be sufficient to prove a case beyond a
reasonable doubt and sustain that case on appeal and you don't
bring the action. Here there was conduct, some of which was
misconduct. There's conduct that was probably criminal, but you
couldn't prove it. That's true here it appears in other
instances as well.
Mr. Bentz. Right, and I think the phrase ``political bias''
or ``confirmation of bias'' has been used a number of times. Is
that a crime?
Mr. Durham. Confirmation of bias is not a crime; it's part
of our human condition, I suppose.
Mr. Bentz. Yes. So, you may well have found; and this
sounds like you did, troubling violations of law and policy
which perhaps would not lead to, and did not of course,
convictions, but it doesn't make it any less wrong when we have
our law enforcement agencies engaging in this kind of conduct.
I think that is why you call it troubling. Do I have that
right?
Mr. Durham. You have that right.
Mr. Bentz. The question I suppose is what can we do about
this situation looking forward? If it is not a crime, but we
know it is wrong, what should we be doing? I think you made
some suggestions. Can you recite those for us and what--you
spent four years in this space, and there is, obviously, things
going wrong that we can't convict people for, or at least it
doesn't rise to the level that will warrant that approach. What
should we be doing?
Mr. Durham. Yes, the real difficulty, in my view, is trying
to figure out how to hold people accountable for their conduct.
It's not a simple problem to solve.
In the context of the FISA situation, for example, or maybe
it would be the case in any instance in which there's what's
referred to in the bureau as a sensitive investigative matter,
a SIM, that there are additional rules that apply there, you
know? Maybe, there's--it's time where if an agent is going to
sign a FISA application in a sensitive investigative matter
that they not only understand that they're signing under the
penalties of perjury, but if the bureau determines that they
intentionally misstated anything that their employment will be
terminated. There's real teeth in--when somebody signs an
affidavit, swears to something before a judicial officer, there
are consequences if that is untrue. There are criminal
penalties, but there sure as heck ought to be other penalties
as well. I mean, there are things like that in these sensitive
cases.
This is not a normal case. This is a Presidential Election
and it affected the Nation. Maybe they ought to instill a
practice, for example, of red teaming, which we tried to do to
the extent in our investigation, which is you have a group of
people who take the opposite side to make the argument to try
to point out either where the weaknesses are or where
additional evidence needs to be developed.
It may be that the benefit--that the bureau would benefit,
as it said in the report, from having something of an ombudsman
who would look at FISA applications or look at the
investigative effort being undertaken in these sensitive
investigative matters who looks at how the investigation is
progressing and whether or not in that person's estimation the
investigation is being done independently and in a disciplined
way. There are those kinds of things. Ultimately, I don't know
how you hold people responsible absent their integrity and that
kind of overview, or review of what the investigation is doing.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Durham.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. Neguse. I thank the Chair.
Mr. Durham, thank you for testifying today. Thank you for
your service to our country.
Mr. Durham. It's been a real pleasure.
Mr. Neguse. Well, we appreciate your service to our
country, to the Department of Justice. I have read your report,
as I suspect most of the Members of the Committee have, and
appreciated your work.
I want to talk a bit about your interactions with main
Justice, with the Department of Justice, in particular, with
Attorney General Garland. Did Attorney General Garland permit
your inquiry to proceed independently?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Neguse. Did Attorney General Garland interfere with
your inquiry, your investigation in any way?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Neguse. Did Attorney General Garland attempt to prevent
or stop you or your team from taking any investigative step
that you deemed necessary?
Mr. Durham. He did not.
Mr. Neguse. Did Attorney General Garland provide support to
your efforts?
Mr. Durham. In terms of occasionally we'd need some
personnel, in a couple of instances we had a person that was
detailed from main Justice, yes. So, in that respect, yes.
Mr. Neguse. Did Attorney General Garland decline to
implement any of the recommendations that you have made?
Mr. Durham. I don't know that.
Mr. Neguse. The letter, the report; I believe it is on page
3 of your report, you say, and I'll quote,
After the inauguration of President Biden, Attorney General
Garland met with the Office of the Special Counsel. The office
very much appreciates the support consistent with his
testimony.
Referring to Attorney General Garland,
. . . during his confirmation hearings that the Attorney
General has provided to our efforts and the department's
willingness to allow us to operate independently.
You stand by that, I suspect?
Mr. Durham. I do.
Mr. Neguse. Sounds like the Department of Justice and the
Attorney General were supportive of your efforts, did not
interfere in any way with the work that you did over the course
of the last several years. There are some folks here in
Congress, some colleagues of mine on the other side of the
aisle, who have talked about or indicated their desire to
defund the Department of Justice. Do you believe the Department
of Justice should be defunded?
Mr. Durham. I don't believe these discussions about
defunding the police make any sense at all for the security of
the Nation and I don't think defunding cornerstone law
enforcement entities make a whole lot of sense. Maybe more
oversight. Defunding in our cities and streets and so forth?
No, that doesn't make sense to me. I've only been at this for
40 years.
Mr. Neguse. Sure. As I said, I am grateful to your service
and--for your service rather and I guess I just want to put a
finer point it because I don't--I guess I didn't hear that in
your answer. You said a cornerstone of law enforcement. I take
that you mean the Department of Justice. The Department of
Justice obviously should not be defunded, right? You have
committed your career to the Department of Justice. You are a
former U.S. Attorney, a former Acting U.S. Attorney, 35 years
as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, you have a decorated record of
service to the department. I am hoping you are willing to say
on the record clearly that you don't believe the department
should be defunded.
Mr. Durham. I don't believe the Department of Justice or
the FBI should be defunded. I think there maybe ought to be
some change and the like. Defunded? No.
Mr. Neguse. Thank you. I appreciate your candor. I agree
with you.
With respect to the Office of the Special Counsel, of
course you have concluded your service. As you know, there are
different Special Counsels that are appointed from time to
time. You have served in that capacity multiple times yourself.
There is discussion of defunding Special Counsels. Do you
support more broadly the principle of defunding the Office of
the Special Counsel?
Mr. Durham. Yes, I guess I would have to the particulars of
what the discussion is, but the general notion that you had
established Special Counsel Office--Special Counsels doing
investigation, that you're going to defund it would not make
sense to me, no.
Mr. Neguse. I agree. Just to put a finer point on this, you
served as Special Counsel for a period of years. During the
course of your investigation for the bulk of that time
Democrats were in control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
There was no effort that I am aware of to defund your office. I
assume that you would have construed that if someone had made
an effort to defund the Office of the Special Counsel, your
office, as you were undertaking your investigation, as
political interference to the extent that was being done to try
to impair or impinge on your investigation. Is that an accurate
statement?
Mr. Durham. Yes, if it were our office, our team, I guess
I'd have to know the basis of that to see if I thought it was
political or that we were--
Mr. Neguse. Well, let's say it is because people--
Mr. Durham. --we were spending too much money.
Mr. Neguse. Sure. Let's say it is because people disagreed
with the work that you were doing. They didn't like the
investigation. They disagreed fundamentally with decisions you
were making. I presume you would construe that as political
interference.
Mr. Durham. Special counsels should operate independently.
That's the whole purpose of Special Counsels, so--
Mr. Neguse. I certainly agree. I again, I thank you for
being here.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, I appreciate you being here today. Sobering I
think is a pretty good word. I think that is a good description
of what we are talking about. When I read your report and as we
talk about it, when I am in the district very often one of the
major concerns is the weaponization of investigations in the
Department of Justice against certain people in our society.
So, yes or no, did the FBI place significant reliance on
information given to them by President Trump's political
opponents?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry. Could you just repeat that one?
Mr. Moore. The FBI, did they place significant reliance on
information given to them by President Trump's opponents?
Mr. Durham. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation--well,
the FISA, in particular, and Carter Page, the bureau had
concluded itself, absent the dossier, they wouldn't have been
able to establish probable cause. There was--
Mr. Moore. Did the dossier come from President Trump's
political opponents?
Mr. Durham. It was funded by the Clinton Campaign and the
DNC. So, in that degree, yes, it came--that's how it was paid
for.
Mr. Moore. Can you connect the dots between the Trump--I'm
sorry, between the Clinton Campaign and the investigation of
the FBI?
Mr. Durham. We were investigating--did investigate what was
behind that investigation, how did it get started, was it
properly predicated as a full investigation by the FBI, and why
did it then continue even after Director Mueller had found lack
of sufficient evidence concerning conspiracy or collusion?
Mr. Moore. Mr. Durham, is that what you call sobering?
Would that be sobering to you?
Mr. Durham. What's sobering to me in connection with this
investigation is the FBI, the people who were involved in the
Crossfire Hurricane investigation, ignoring exculpatory
information, discarding information that was inconsistent with
the investigative narrative, with using information; in this
instance from the Steele Dossier, to establish probable cause,
to electronically surveil a United States citizen who happened
to be a Naval Academy graduate. Those things are sobering to
me.
Mr. Moore. Are sobering? I would agree with that. Did the
FBI ever fail to take or delay taking action in an
investigation involving Hillary Clinton?
Mr. Durham. Well, there's a portion of the report that
relates to the disparate treatment. So, did the FBI delay?
There are three instances that are identified in the report
where the FBI's investigative efforts were considered
considerably more disciplined than was the case with respect to
Mr. Trump.
Mr. Moore. More disciplined you mean biased? Let me move
on, Mr. Durham. I don't want to run out of time.
Did the FBI give the Clinton Campaign a defensive briefing?
Mr. Durham. They--in a particular matter the FBI gave Ms.
Clinton's legal representatives a debriefing of a defensive
nature, yes.
Mr. Moore. Why wasn't the same done for the Trump Campaign
and President Trump?
Mr. Durham. We explored that during the course of the
investigation. What we learned is set out in the report. It
would appear, from at least what we were told, very little
thought went into whether they should give anybody on the Trump
Campaign a defensive briefing. They didn't do it.
Mr. Moore. A lot of thought went into giving Hillary
Clinton's Campaign a defensive briefing apparently, but not
President Trump.
Mr. Durham. In one incidence the--I think you're referring
to the submission of a FISA application. In that matter against
the foreign interest was premised on them giving a defensive
briefing to Ms. Clinton and some other political--
Mr. Moore. Mr. Durham, is it safe to say that the Clinton
Campaign colluded with the Russians to accuse Donald Trump of
colluding with the Russians?
Mr. Durham. I could not phrase it that way. I could say is
that the Clinton Campaign funded the information that showed up
in the dossier. The Clinton Campaign funded the information
that was put together concerning an alleged secret
communications channel between Trump and Alfa Bank, which was
presented to the FBI through Mr. Sussmann. So, yes, there are
those things that definitely occurred. The evidence establishes
that.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Durham. I appreciate your
service.
I yield back to the Chair.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Durham, Carter Page is an American citizen who--a Naval
Academy grad--served our country. Why not just talk to him
before you spy on him?
Mr. Durham. In this instance, I don't know if people looked
at this in the report--there was a particular piece of
information that had been given to Michael Isikoff and appeared
in a Yahoo! News article--
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Durham. --on September 23rd in which Mr. Isikoff lays
out what he's obviously been told. It's clearly the information
from Steele, but it also included a statement that a senior law
enforcement official confirmed that Carter Page was on the
radar screen. That matter was never referred for investigation
as to who leaked that. This was an investigation that was
supposed to be closely held--
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Durham. --a confidential, sensitive investigative
matter. That's never referred to. Nobody ever looked at who's
the senior law enforcement officer who gave the information to
Michael Isikoff that Carter Page was on their radar screen?
That's No. 1.
Chair Jordan. Who do you think it was?
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, the time is well-expired. The
witness could answer the question. You cannot ask another one.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate that, Ranking Member, for
pointing that fact out.
Mr. Durham. OK. I'm not sure. Am I supposed to answer or
not? I'm I done?
Mr. Nadler. You are done.
Chair Jordan. I will let you answer.
Mr. Durham. Oh, OK. So, then with respect to Carter Page,
Carter Page within two days of that article wrote a letter to
Director Comey saying,
I didn't do the things that are suggested. I didn't meet with
these people. I'm willing to sit down and talk to the FBI. Tell
me when and where essentially.
Chair Jordan. He offered to be interviewed.
The gentlelady from Texas is recognized for unanimous
consent.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Let me
submit into the record an article dated June 18, 2023. ``After
Years of Political Hype the Durham Inquiry Failed to Deliver.''
I ask unanimous consent.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I would then ask unanimous consent to
place into the record this language from a letter directed to
Mr. Durham on May 15, 2023.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation appreciate the Special
Counsel's independent review. We also appreciate your
acknowledgement of the extensive cooperation the FBI provided
to your team throughout the review including production of
nearly seven million pages of documents, assignment of full-
time FBI special agents to assist in your fact finding process
and provision of FBI technical.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Special Counsel Durham, for being here today. As
has been noted, it has been four years and $62 million of an
investigation of an investigation. The Durham Reports makes no
new recommendations to change FBI policy or procedure. It does
not conclude that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation should
not have been opened. It even acknowledges that the Clinton
Campaign did nothing worthy of prosecution. Sadly, the Durham
Report dredges up allegations from unsuccessful prosecutions
including claims that have been rejected by judge and jury.
The flaws of the Durham process were so troubling that some
aides resigned in protest. I did google, and, in fact, read the
news articles around the resignation of Nora Dannehy that--it
is reported that she resigned because of pressure on and the
Special Counsel group to produce a report or an interim report
prior to the Presidential Election.
You can't comment on Nora Dannehy's personnel matter. Were
you ever encouraged, persuaded, pressured to issue an interim
or a report prior to the Presidential Election?
Mr. Durham. I can say without hesitation I was not
pressured into doing anything.
Ms. Dean. Was it suggested to you?
Mr. Durham. It was not suggested to me.
Ms. Dean. Yet, it might have been suggested to someone who
worked under you, separate from you?
Mr. Durham. I don't believe so.
Ms. Dean. OK. Mr. Durham, would it have been a dereliction
of duty if the FBI sat on its hands and did not investigate
with the information, they had in front of them? Isn't it
true--
Mr. Durham. I'm sure the Bureau has an obligation to
investigate. They should investigate information that they
receive from the public or otherwise. Generally speaking, yes,
they have an obligation to look at and assess information.
Ms. Dean. In this case, they had an affirmative duty to
investigate, would you agree?
Mr. Durham. They had an affirmative duty to assess the
information they had gotten from the Australian diplomat.
Ms. Dean. Which would be an investigation. You were
assigned to investigate that investigation. Mr. Durham, when
did you first meet with Attorney General Barr about a potential
investigation into the Mueller Report, the Mueller
investigation?
Mr. Durham. I was appointed in May 2019. I had met Attorney
General Barr after--not in connection with these matters, but I
think I initially met the Attorney General when I came the U.S.
Attorney for Connecticut, so I--
Ms. Dean. Let me just put the calendar together. It was on
March 22nd that the Mueller Report was submitted to Attorney
General Barr. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Durham. That's yes, March 22nd, correct.
Ms. Dean. According to public records you met with Attorney
General Barr on March 25th, three days later?
Mr. Durham. OK.
Ms. Dean. On March 24th Attorney General Barr released his
so-called summary document of a 448-page report which blatantly
mischaracterized the findings in the Mueller Report. Would you
agree with that?
Mr. Durham. No.
Ms. Dean. Did you discuss the Mueller Report during your
meeting with Mr. Barr on March 25th?
Mr. Durham. I don't believe so. I think that--
Ms. Dean. The timing was three days after he received the
report, and you don't think in your meeting you talked about
the Mueller Report?
Mr. Durham. I don't think that it was when I was meeting
the Attorney General because I had become the U.S. Attorney in
Connecticut in mid to late-February.
Ms. Dean. Maybe you could search your memory and get back
to us on that. It is troubling to me because it is clear you
were brought in by Attorney General Barr the same week the
Mueller Report was released and the day after his misleading
letter, which hung out there for 25 days before the public got
our hands and our eyes on the redacted report.
You were hired to investigate the investigators. One week
after you met with Mr. Barr, on April 13th, Attorney General
Barr's counselor Seth DuCharme emailed you offering assistance
on behalf of Barr saying, quote,
John, the AG has made me aware of the redacted material you're
working with him on and he asked me to provide you with my
support and assistance.
Is that true?
Mr. Durham. I think that's correct.
Ms. Dean. OK.
Mr. Durham. I don't remember the date, but that sounds
right.
Ms. Dean. That is only April, so I am wondering if you
weren't yet put into this field.
Donald Trump was very vocal on Twitter, as he always has
been, about his belief that the Mueller investigation should
never have been taken. Are you aware of his tweets?
Mr. Durham. I know that the former President was a tweeter,
yes.
Ms. Dean. He was a tweeter. Some Republicans on this
Committee believe that part of your purpose was to exonerate
Mr. Donald Trump. I want to take you back to your opening
statement. It is at paragraph 4. As you know, Mr. Durham, you
said this morning:
If repeated or left unaddressed these issues could result in
significant national security risks and further erode public
faith in our justice system.
We now sit with a former President indicted 37 counts of--
around the documents, the classified documents that he took, he
held, me moved, he concealed, he lied about, and he showed to
other people. Thirty-seven counts. If repeated or left
unaddressed these issues could result in significant natural
security risk and further erode public faith in our justice
system.
I thank you for your service, for pointing out what really
matters when we have a very dangerous former President and
criminal indictment to come, a mess of Mr. Trump's on making.
Chair Jordan. The time--
Ms. Dean. I am baffled by this Committee's lifting up of a
corrupt President.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Ms. Dean. I thank you for indulging me just as you indulged
yourself. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. God bless you. That's right.
Ms. Dean. God bless you.
Chair Jordan. Equal opportunity.
Mr. Durham, if you can go one more round--
Mr. Durham. You do this every day?
Chair Jordan. Yes. Well, this is relatively calm to some
hearings we have. If you can go one more and then we will give
you a break. We will recognize the gentleman and we will give
you a quick break, maybe 5-10 minutes, then we will come back
and finish.
The gentleman from California is recognized for five.
Mr. Kiley. Mr. Durham, several people today, including
Ranking Member Nadler and three representatives from
California: Mr. Schiff, Mr. Swalwell, and Mr. Lieu, have
attacked you. Ranking Member Nadler called your report a
political exercise with ethical ambiguity. Mr. Lieu called you
a partisan hack. However, it seems that they are taking issue,
not so much with the conclusions of your report as those of Mr.
Mueller's Report, which concluded that the investigation did
not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or
coordinated with the Russian government in its election
interference activities.
That conclusion directly contradicted statements made on
the record by those representatives. For example, Mr. Schiff in
2017-2018 made statements such as:
The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help, the
Russians gave help, and the President made full use of that
help, and that is pretty damning.
He also said,
There's clear evidence on the issue of collusion. I think
there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain
sight.
Mr. Durham are those statements supported by the
conclusions of the Mueller Report?
Mr. Schiff. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Kiley. No.
Mr. Durham, are those statements supported by the Mueller
Report?
Mr. Durham. I don't believe so.
Mr. Kiley. Mr. Nadler stated,
It's clear that the campaign concluded and there's a lot of
evidence of that. The question is was the President involved?
Mr. Nadler also said, ``There was obviously a lot of
collusion.''
Mr. Durham, were those statements supported by the Mueller
Report?
Mr. Durham. I don't believe they were supported by the
Mueller Report.
Mr. Kiley. Mr. Lieu stated in a press release in March
2017,
The bombshell revelation that U.S. officials have information
that suggests Trump associates may have colluded with the
Russians means we must pause the entire Trump agenda. We may
have an illegitimate President of the United States currently
occupying the White House.
Mr. Durham, did the Mueller Report establish that we had an
illegitimate President occupying the White House?
Mr. Durham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Kiley. Mr. Swalwell stated in 2018, ``In our
investigation we saw strong evidence of collusion.'' Did the
Mueller Report support that there was strong evidence of
collusion?
Mr. Durham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Kiley. Even here today we had Mr. Schiff raise
questions about your public statement during the investigation
saying that somehow violated a DOJ policy, however Mr. Mueller
himself made a public statement in January 2019. This is an
article from CNN headlined ``Mueller's Office Disputes Buzzfeed
Report that Trump Directed Michael Cohen to Lie to Congress.''
So, whatever policy there might exist in the DOJ with
respect to public statements by Special Counsels it would seem
that you and Mr. Mueller would be on equal footing with respect
to it. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. Would seem so.
Mr. Kiley. Ranking Member Nadler also suggested that we are
only here today because of the recent indictments of President
Trump, however you received your assignment as Special Counsel
in 2019. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct. In 2020--Special Counsel was in
2020.
Mr. Kiley. In 2020. Was that before or after the events
alleged in the recent indictments by the President?
Mr. Durham. That was before.
Mr. Kiley. Is it customary for a Special Counsel to come
testify in Congress on the issuance of their report?
Mr. Durham. This is my first experience with this sort of
thing, so I know that Director Mueller had the occasion to
testify before Congress, so I guess this is not unique.
Mr. Kiley. So, it is pretty likely you would have been here
whether or not the President had been recently indicted?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Kiley. Contrary to Ranking Member Nadler's statement?
I want to quote from you a part of your report where you
say,
There are reasons why in examining politically charged and
high-profile issues the office must exercise and has exercised
special care.
One of those statements you said is that,
. . . even when prosecutors believe that they can obtain a
conviction there are some instances in which it may not be
advisable to expand government time and resources on a criminal
prosecution, particularly, where it could create the
appearance, even unfounded, that the government is seeking to
criminalize the behavior of political opponents or punish the
activities of a specific political party or a campaign.
Could you just expound on that a little bit, this idea that
there are prudential considerations that may counsel against
prosecution even if there has been some technical violation of
a statute?
Mr. Durham. Sure. The standard principles of Federal
prosecution include kind of as a bedrock that you ought not to
bring a prosecution unless you believe in good faith that
there's sufficient evidence to prove a case beyond a reasonable
doubt and the jury will convict and that the conviction can be
sustained on appeal.
There may be those instances, in which, you're pretty well
convinced that a crime was committed and can identify the
person who committed it, but you can't in good faith say a jury
is likely to convict in this case, we believe that a jury will
convict and that we can sustain it on appeal. Those are the
principles we tried to apply here, that we followed here, the
same principle I've followed for 40 years as a Federal
prosecutor.
Mr. Kiley. What are you referring to when you say that
there might be additional considerations involving the
perception that you are criminalizing the behavior of political
opponents?
Mr. Durham. Yes, these are difficult things. For example,
take in this case, I think all the Members of the Committee
have had access to--whether they took advantage or not I don't
know, but we filed a classified appendix here, right? So, there
are some prosecutions where it may very well be that it looks
like and you think you can prove the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt, but because of the classified nature of much of your
evidence it's never going to see the light of day. So, that
might preclude a prosecution. Things of that sort come up that
are part of the prudential judgment that a prosecutor has to
make in these matters.
Mr. Kiley. I yield back. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Committee will take a short break, short recess. If we
can come back in 10 minutes, so at 12:05, we will come back.
Give everyone a short break before we resume.
[Recess.]
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order. The
gentlelady from Texas is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr.
Durham. Mr. Durham, after Inspector General Horowitz found
serious errors last year with one aspect of the Russia
investigation but found accusations of a politically motivated
FBI plot to be baseless, Donald Trump said, quote,
I look forward to the Durham Report which is coming out in the
not too distance future. It's got its own information which is
this information.
Meaning the Horowitz information, ``plus, plus, plus.'' Mr.
Durham, do you consider your report to be the Horowitz report
``plus, plus, plus''? Can you turn your mic on? I'm sorry.
Mr. Durham. I suppose that's for other people to judge. The
report speaks for itself in my view.
Ms. Escobar. OK. Your one criminal conviction was for
doctoring an email about a surveillance warrant, wasn't it?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Ms. Escobar. Who referred this information for prosecution?
Mr. Durham. That matter was referred by the Inspector
General's office.
Ms. Escobar. OK. This individual pleaded guilty. Isn't that
right?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Ms. Escobar. OK. Can you tell us what his sentence was?
Mr. Durham. He was sentenced to 12 months' probation--
Ms. Escobar. That's right.
Mr. Durham. --for fabricating a document which was used to
get a surveillance order on an American citizen.
Ms. Escobar. Did you charge any high-level FBI or
intelligence officials with a crime?
Mr. Durham. No.
Ms. Escobar. Right, you did not. In your report, you are
highly critical of the FBI's Russia investigation. Is that fair
to say?
Mr. Durham. Certain aspects of it, yes.
Ms. Escobar. OK. Did you recommend new charges as a result
of those criticisms?
Mr. Durham. We weren't able to prove matters--I couldn't
say under the guiding principles to be able to prove matters
beyond a reasonable doubt because of lack of recollections,
passages of time, and inconsistent statements. So, no, we
didn't.
Ms. Escobar. So, no, you did not. Right. Did you suggest
any significant changes to how future investigations should be
conducted?
Mr. Durham. I guess it's for others to judge whether
they're significant suggestions or not. I think that more
disciplined approaches to these matters can be affected by some
of the recommendations we made, yes.
Ms. Escobar. OK. I would say you did not suggest any
significant changes. In the FBI statement in response to your
report, it said that the FBI conduct you examined was, quote,
The reason that current FBI leadership already implemented
dozens of corrective actions which have now been in place for
some time.
Mr. Durham, do you know why the corrective actions have been in
place for some time at the FBI?
Mr. Durham. I think I know, yes.
Ms. Escobar. OK. Is it because the Inspector General
finished his report 3\1/2\ years ago, making recommendations
for changes that the FBI could make?
Mr. Durham. In part.
Ms. Escobar. OK. In the four years that you spent tracking
down Donald Trump's conspiracy theories, other investigations
were conducted and completed. These investigations and the
Horowitz investigation primarily identified the problems with
the FBI investigation. The one thing the Horowitz Report did
not do was give Donald Trump and my Republican colleagues
across the aisle talking points for their conspiracy theories.
On that front, you delivered. I'd like to yield the remainder
of my time to my colleague, Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, your report attempts to make a case
that the investigations of Clinton were given more favorable
treatment to that of President Trump. You leave out one very
notable example and that is your report makes no discussion of
the fact that the email investigation to Hillary Clinton was
made very public before the election, was it not?
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Schiff. You had James Comey discussing Hillary
Clinton's emails on the days leading up to the election?
Mr. Durham. If I follow your question, I don't think that
the report says that the Clinton--that Ms. Clinton was given
more favorable treatment. I think what the report says is that
the RBI exercised some considerable discipline and how it was
going to approach those matters as compared to how the FBI
people who were involved in Crossfire Hurricane--
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Durham. --approached Crossfire Hurricane.
Mr. Schiff. Why, Mr. Durham, would you leave out a glaring
contrast between the FBI's public discussion of the Clinton
investigation right before the election and it's keeping
confidential the Trump investigation? Wasn't that a glaring
disparity in how they were both treated?
Mr. Durham. I don't know. I mean--
Mr. Schiff. You really don't know the answer to that
question?
Mr. Durham. --the FBI did, and Mr. Comey did what they did.
I was asked to--
Mr. Schiff. Yes, they did what they did and in glaring
contrast how they treated the Trump investigation which was
kept secret before the election whereas the Clinton
investigation was discussed publicly affecting the outcome.
Isn't that correct?
Mr. Durham. I can tell you that the FBI had that
information and sat on it for months before they acted and
making a public disclosure.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman's time is expired. The gentleman
from Texas is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Durham, thank you for
coming to testify today before the Committee. I'm a recovering
attorney and a former judge.
Mr. Durham. God love you.
Mr. Moran. Thank you. As such, I know firsthand the
importance of following procedures. I know law enforcement and
prosecutors across this Nation do that on a daily basis. They
do that because they want to ensure that the criminal
investigation is conducted properly.
They need to adhere to a full due process of law and fair
application of the law. Quite frankly, process matters because
how we go about our investigations will either give credibility
to our conclusions or will belie or conclusions. Do you agree
with that?
Mr. Durham. Wholeheartedly.
Mr. Moran. Would you agree that some of the important steps
in an investigation would including simply vetting the initial
information in claims, obtaining the relevant documents,
talking to the relevant witnesses, determining the credibility
of those witnesses and documents, and doing a lot of that by
seeking corroboration of what is either provided in written
testimony or oral testimony or in documentary form? Is that
true?
Mr. Durham. That's absolutely true.
Mr. Moran. The definition of corroboration is not
difficult. Evidence that supports or confirms a statement,
theory, or finding is effectively confirmation. That's what we
need in an investigation is we need to confirm whether or not
an allegation is true or not, correct?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Moran. As your report showed, the FBI did not follow
its well established procedures and did not corroborate the
information that they were receiving. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Durham. That's a fair statement.
Mr. Moran. Take, for example, page 54 of your report. You
show that the FBI opened a full investigation into George
Papadopoulos. They did so a mere three days after receiving
intelligence from Australia. During those three days, do you
think the FBI attempted to corroborate the information they had
initially received?
Mr. Durham. If they did, we didn't see any evidence of that
fact.
Mr. Moran. In fact, on page 112 in your report, you say,
quote,
Despite the lack of any corroboration of the Steele reports,
sensational allegations. However, in short order, portions of
four of the reports were included in the initial Carter Page
FISA application without further verification or corroboration
of the allegations contained therein.
You also state on page 57 about Australia.
Australia could not and did not make any representation about
the credibility of information.
That's because they couldn't verify or corroborate that
information. Is that truth?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Moran. You further go on to say on page 57 that, quote,
The Office of Special Counsel found no indication from witness
testimony, electronic communications, emails, calendar entries
or other documentation that at the time the FBI gave any
consideration to the actual trustworthiness of information
diplomats received from Papadopoulos.
Do you remember writing that portion of the report?
Mr. Durham. I do.
Mr. Moran. It seems amazing to me that the FBI would not
give consideration to the actual trustworthiness of certain
information found in an investigation at this level. You write
extensively on how the FBI elected to not interview Carter
Page, George Papadopoulos, or Charles Dolan. Would interviews
with those key individuals have helped to corroborate or
dispute the information that the FBI was receiving?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Moran. Through your investigation, did you uncover any
reason as to why the FBI elected to not interview these
individuals?
Mr. Durham. I know that the people--operational people
doing the investigation were told they could not interview Mr.
Page until the seventh floor authorized it. Then the director
didn't authorize the interview of Mr. Page until March 2017.
Mr. Moran. You also noted that it took 75 days to pass the
Steele Dossier to the Crossfire Hurricane team. Seems to me
that is belying the ability of the investigative team to
actually corroborate what the allegations were. Would you agree
with that as well?
Mr. Durham. I would agree with that.
Mr. Moran. Mr. Durham, in my opinion, a failure to
corroborate information leads to holes in credibility. It also
gives rise to potential corruption or actual corruption. The
American people now know based on your report that during the
peak of the Presidential Campaign, the FBI elected not to
follow its own basic procedures and instead watch a politically
motivated investigation into a leading Presidential candidate.
I am confident and hopeful that there are still many good
agents within the FBI who are there to perform their sacred
duty of protecting and serving our Nation that undertake
investigations on a daily basis without regard to political
affiliation. That's my hope. That's my belief.
Mr. Durham. That's my experience.
Mr. Moran. Your report, Mr. Durham, shows that at least top
FBI leadership in this case was politically motivated and did
not follow longstanding procedures necessary for a proper
criminal investigation. I heard you say to my colleagues on the
left a little while ago, quote, ``Nothing in the files would
corroborate the claims.'' Another quote, ``Not one single fact
in the Steele Dossier has been corroborated.''
It is amazing to me that we would go through a high-level
investigation like this and fail to adhere to a basic principle
of investigative procedures and that is corroborate the witness
testimony and corroborate the evidence. With that, I yield my
time. I thank you for your efforts on this.
Mr. Massie. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. Now,
I'll recognize Ms. Ross from North Carolina for her questions.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Durham for
your endurance. You have cited and discussed the Justice
Department's principles of Federal prosecution. I'd just like
you to explain for the public what that is. What are those
principles?
Mr. Durham. Sure. The general principles of Federal
prosecution, as I've indicated, provide that Federal
prosecutors should not bring criminal charges unless he or she
believes that the evidence that will be admissible at trial is
sufficient to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt and that a jury can convict based on evidence. That if
the conviction were obtained, then the conviction would be
sustained on appeal or upheld on appeal.
Ms. Ross. OK.
Mr. Durham. Those are the basic principles we operate
under.
Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. One major goal of the
principles is to ensure that individuals' rights are, quote,
``scrupulously protected.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Ms. Ross. The principles also contain a limitation on
identifying uncharged third parties publicly. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. There's a limitation on that, yes.
Ms. Ross. It states that,
In all public filings and proceedings, Federal prosecutors
should remain sensitive to the privacy and reputation interests
of uncharged third parties.
I'm just quoting it. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That is correct.
Ms. Ross. Great. Do you believe that you adhere to this
limitation in your prosecutorial filings in the Sussmann and
Danchenko cases?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Ms. Ross. Now, that's very interesting because many legal
scholars noted that in your filings you laid out not just the
prosecution for the court to consider, but you appear to be
alleging a conspiracy that you did not intend to prosecute.
Rather than indicting Mr. Sussmann on the narrow charge of
lying to the FBI, this is a charge which a unanimous jury of
his peers acquitted him of. Your filing broadly alleges a vast
Clinton conspiracy identifying various individuals and at least
one of whom you never prosecuted.
After the Sussmann indictment was filed, on September 16,
2021, for example, President Trump's allies used the broad
conclusions you allege to construct a political narrative
damaging the reputations of uncharged individuals. In fact, on
September 19, 2021, Eric Trump spoke with the Washington
Inquirer treating these uncharged allegations as fact. The next
day on September 20, 2021, Trump associate Kash Patel told Fox
News that the indictment offers a good view into future
charges, including what he called a very well laid out
conspiracy charge that will envelope people in and around
Hillary Clinton's Campaign. Did you read these interviews or
are you aware of them?
Mr. Durham. I did not read them. I can imagine that's what
people were saying. I did not read them. I don't read a lot of
newspapers or listen to a lot of news.
Makes my life a lot easier.
Ms. Ross. Had you known that was what was going to be done
with the indictment, would you have used greater caution?
Mr. Durham. I think we took great care in drafting and
crafting that indictment and did to the best of our ability
comply with all the departments' policies and procedures
regarding third persons. I think if you take a look at the
indictment and any number of instances, for example, people's
identities were masked. We didn't use a person's name.
Ms. Ross. So, I'm just going to reclaim my time because I
think that there were people who were implicated and there was
not a narrow enough tailoring of the indictment. Then, in fact,
after the February 11th filing in the Sussmann case, Donald
Trump told Fox News that the conspiracy he claims you described
but never prosecuted amounted to treason at the highest
If you read the filing and have any understanding of what took
place and I called this a long time ago. You're going to see a
lot of other things happening having to do with what really
just is a continuation of the crime of the century.
This is such a big event. Nobody has seen anything like it.
Given that kind of politicization of what you did, do you think
that you could've exercised more caution again with respect to
third parties?
Mr. Durham. I exercised my judgment under the guiding
principles that I had and whether or not an indictment ought to
be returned and decided on that basis. Did I give consideration
to what Donald Trump might say about it? I would say that was
not part of my consideration.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Massie. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
New Jersey is not recognized for his questions.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Durham, thank you
for being here. I know it's been one heck of a slog. I wish
that we could just stick to the matter at hand which is your
report. It's been interesting. We've been all over the place.
Fidelity, bravery, and integrity, these are the words that
have guided the FBI through countless generations. Dishonesty,
deception, and corruption and I'm sad to say, historic contrast
and unfortunately reality we now find ourselves in. A reality
that has revealed a politicized, weaponized, and corrupted
Federal Bureau of Investigation in desperate need in my opinion
for complete restructuring.
One of the most egregious examples of dishonest that the
Durham Report reveals relates to a critical piece on page 16
that summarizes a deeply troubling chain of events. Igor
Danchenko who is instrumental in the formation of a Steele
Dossier claim that one of his subsources was Sergei Millian, a
Belarusian-American businessman and publicly known to be a
Trump supporter. The report goes on to highlight that Danchenko
claimed to have received an anonymous phone call from an
individual he later claimed to be Millian.
On page 173, it is stated this call supposedly revealed,
quote, ``a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between the
Trump Campaign and Russian leadership'' The kicker here? The
kicker is Danchenko had never meeting nor spoke with Millian
prior to this call and told the Crossfire Hurricane team that
despite never actually meeting Millian, he recognized his voice
from a YouTube video.
This blatant lie was taken at face value by both
Christopher Steele and the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane
investigation. Think about that. Everybody think about that.
Danchenko was a foreign agent who the FBI was paying by the
way. We haven't talked about that much. Hundreds of thousands
of your taxpayer dollars, tells a blatant lie which leads to
four FISA applications and lays the foundation for the Trump-
Russia collusion hoax. That's what it was.
You may not like it, but that's what it was. One of the
greatest disgraces this country in my opinion has ever seen.
Americans are literally paying the price for this corruption.
Such an egregious and intentional abandonment of the common
procedures that FBI agents are supposed to follow truly
encapsulates why so many Americans including myself are calling
for complete restructuring of the FBI. There's a reason why now
years later the country finds itself so divided. Mr. Durham, is
it accurate to say the Crossfire Hurricane investigators made
little to no effort to corroborate Danchenko's version of
events relating to Millian?
Mr. Durham. That would be correct.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. Is it accurate to say that despite
not corroborating this information that Crossfire Hurricane
still used the Millian accusation to bolster the Carter-Page
FISA applications?
Mr. Durham. That information was used in the initial FISA
application and the three renewal applications.
Mr. Van Drew. So, the answer is yes?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Van Drew. Given the lack of effort by the Crossfire
Hurricane investigators to validate Danchenko's assertions
about Millian and their use of these unverified allegations in
the Carter-Page FISA application, does this raise any legal or
ethical concerns about the validity of these FISA applications?
Mr. Durham. I think it's been recognized by the department
and certainly by the FISA Court to do it respective at least
some of those applications. They would never have been
authorized. So, it wouldn't have been granted had the
information been disclosed.
Mr. Van Drew. So, it did help in achieving FISA approval?
Mr. Durham. Without question.
Mr. Van Drew. OK. We're getting into the real--these are
the real issues, disinformation, bad people, moving forward,
getting FISA applications, doing all that they did. I have one
quick last question. Do you believe the FBI has been
politicized and weaponized and is in need for complete
restructuring?
I know I do. I know you have a softer version of it. I
think too much happened. Too many bad things happened that you
just can't move a few people around and make some minor
changes.
I think you need some major changes. I also want to say
there are many good people that work for the Department of
Justice and work for the FBI. Proud to know them. These folks
surely were not.
Chair Jordan. [Presiding.] Gentleman's time has expired.
The witness may respond if he chooses.
Mr. Durham. What I can say is that there were identified
documented significant failures of a highly sensitive, unique
investigation that was undertaken by the FBI. The investigation
clearly reveals that decisions that were made were made in one
direction. If there was something that was inconsistent with
the notion that Trump was involved in a well-coordinated
conspiracy with the Russians and that information was largely
discarded or ignored. I think unfortunately that's what the
facts bear out.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Georgia is recognized.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Special
Counsel Durham, for your time today. I yield the balance of my
time to my colleague from California, Representative Adam
Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. I thank you for yielding. One of my colleagues
in the Republican side of the aisle took issue with my saying
that the Trump Campaign invited Russian help, received Russian
help, made use of it, and then lied about it. So, let's break
this down.
Let's go to invited Russian help. Mr. Durham, you're aware
of Donald Trump's public statements along the lines of, hey,
Russia, if you're listening, hack Hillary's emails. You'll be
richly awarded by the press. Are you aware of that?
Mr. Durham. I'm aware of that.
Mr. Schiff. You're aware that Mueller found that hours
after he made that plea for Russian help, the Russians, in
fact, tried to hack one of the email servers affiliated with
the Clinton Campaign or family.
Mr. Durham. If that happened, I'm not aware of that.
Mr. Schiff. You're not--
Mr. Durham. It could very well. I just don't know.
Mr. Schiff. --aware of that in the Mueller Report? When
you're saying you're not aware of evidence of collusion in the
Mueller Report, it's because apparently you haven't read the
Mueller Report every well if you're not aware of that fact. Let
me ask you about something else.
Mr. Durham. Sure.
Mr. Schiff. Don Jr. when offered dirt as part of what was
described as Russian government effort to help the Trump
Campaign said, ``if it's what you say, I love it.'' Would you
call that an invitation to get Russian help with dirt on
Hillary Clinton?
Mr. Durham. The words speak for themselves, I supposed.
Mr. Schiff. I think they do. In fact, he said, especially
late in summer. Late in summer was around when the Russians
started to dump the stolen emails, wasn't it?
Mr. Durham. Late in the summer, there was information that
was disclosed by WikiLeaks in mid to late July. I think there
had been some in June, and then there was maybe some later in
October was it, I think. Don't hold me to those dates.
Mr. Schiff. This gets to the receipt of help, second thing
I mentioned, receiving Russian help. The dumping of those
emails by the way just as forecast by what Papadopoulos told
the Australian diplomat. That is that the Russians would help
by leaking dirt anonymously through cutouts like WikiLeaks and
DCLeaks.
Mr. Durham. I don't think that's exactly what he told the
Australians.
Mr. Schiff. Well, he said that he was informed that the
Russians could anonymously release this information, right?
Mr. Durham. Release what?
Mr. Schiff. By anonymously releasing information damaging
to Hillary Clinton, right?
Mr. Durham. I think if you read what's in the cable and
what's in the report as to what the diplomats reported there
was a suggestion of a suggestion that the Russians could help.
They have damaging information as to Ms. Clinton.
Mr. Schiff. By releasing it anonymously, right? That's
exactly what happened, isn't it?
Mr. Durham. I don't--
Mr. Schiff. You really don't know?
Mr. Durham. I'm not sure--when you say exactly what
happened--
Mr. Schiff. Well, the Russians released stolen emails
through cutouts, did they not?
Mr. Durham. There were emails that were released by
WikiLeaks.
Mr. Schiff. It's a very simple question. Did they release
information, stolen information, through cutouts, yes or no?
Mr. Durham. I'm not sure that--
Mr. Schiff. You really don't know the answer to that? The
answer is yes, they did. Through DCLeaks--
Mr. Durham. In your mind, it's yes.
Mr. Schiff. Well, Mueller's answer is yes. More important
than mine, Mueller's answer was yes. Now, that information, of
course, was helpful to the Trump Campaign, wasn't it?
Mr. Durham. I don't think there's any question that
Russians intruded into hacked into the systems.
Mr. Schiff. Well, I just want to get--
Mr. Durham. They released information.
Mr. Schiff. That was helpful to Trump Campaign, right?
Mr. Durham. The conclusion in the ICA and in the Mueller
investigation was that the Russians intended to assist--
Mr. Schiff. Can you answer my question, Mr. Durham? That
was helpful to Trump Campaign, right?
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Schiff. Trump made use of that, as I said, didn't he,
by touting those stolen documents on the campaign trail over
100 times?
Mr. Durham. Like I said, I don't really read the newspapers
or listen to the news.
Mr. Schiff. You were totally--
Mr. Durham. I don't find them reliable, so I don't know
that.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, you were totally oblivious to
Donald Trump's use of the stolen emails on the campaign trail
more than 100 times?
Mr. Durham. I'm not aware of that.
Mr. Schiff. Did that escape your attention?
Mr. Durham. I am not aware of that.
Mr. Schiff. Are you aware of the final prong that I
mentioned, that he lied about it, that the Trump Campaign
covered it up? It's the whole second volume of the Mueller
Report. I hope you're familiar with that.
Mr. Durham. Yes, that's a section of the report, the second
volume relating to their obstruction of justice.
Mr. Schiff. Well, thank you for confirming what my
Republican colleague attacked me about. He also criticized the
use of the word collusion. Apparently giving private polling
data to the Russians while the Russians are helping your
campaign, they don't want to call it collusion.
Maybe there's a better name for it. Maybe they would prefer
we just call it good old fashioned GOP cheating with the enemy.
Maybe that would be a little bit more accurate description.
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Schiff. Because this is what happened. They seem
allergic to calling it for what it is. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman yields back. Gentlelady from
Indiana is recognized.
Ms. Spartz. Mr. Durham, I recall excepts from your report
describing the actions in Trump's case. You call them sobering.
I call them alarming.
Rapid opening, made no sense, no sound reason, no
explanation, difficult to explain, no followup on corroborated
evidence, unevaluated information, rumors and speculation, thin
intelligence, and exculpatory statements were not included.
Misrepresentation of the recorded conversation, noticeable
departure, not using typical tools, serious lack of rigor,
choose to ignore red flags, unwarranted delay, ignoring all
recommendation to disclose intelligence, not informed.
Inconsistent, did not give proper attention to facts,
didn't adequately examine, did not receive satisfactory
explanation, was not informed, never corrected assertion, never
advised, never been apprised, and never give proper
consideration.
No action, failure to make known, failure to act, failure
to follow logical leads, failed to interview, failed to revise
the paperwork, failure to take even the basic steps, failure to
determine, failure to provide, and failure to integrate.
Failure to fully explore the materials, failure to
critically analyze information, failure to properly consider,
failure to correct errors, ignored contrary evidence, was never
brought to the attention, and intentionally falsified material
documents.
Fabricated delegation, omission of material fact, numerous
significant facts, 17 material errors and omissions, inaccurate
representation, deliberately shut down, told not to write and
provide findings, orally incorrectly noted, and missed
opportunity.
Omitted email, omitted information, did not corroborate,
never sought to obtain records, resisted efforts, conflicted
recollection, failure of recollection, not a single FBI
employee, changing assessment, and key players declining to be
interviewed.
Lacks sufficient probable cause, frustration on the part of
investigators, sense of betrayal, highly unusual instruction,
director was really, really shocking, and the list goes on.
Dolan with extensive connection to the Democrat Party had
access to senior Russian officials and Putin's think tank was
never interviewed. Request was denied. Case was never open.
On an instruction to cease all research and analysis
related to Dolan. Leadership directed to dedicate no resources
to Dolan. FBI interviewed hundreds of individuals, yet they did
not interview Dolan.
[Inaudible] failure to properly consider prior Russian
counterespionage case, FBI's validation unit raise serious
concern. Management ignored and resisted nearly all
recommendations and supported continued payment to him.
[Inaudible] Special Envoy Secretary Kerry to lead it, who
worked as lobbyist for Russian oligarch Deripaska with ties to
Putin. Disseminated the dossier to U.S. officials and destroyed
his record. Deripaska was allowed to buy, control, and package
in uranium company with extensive mining projects in the United
States approved by Secretary Clinton's State Department in
2010.
The former head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division
in New York, McGonigal, involved with this case recently was
accused of taking money from Deripaska. Clinton case from your
report stands in stark contrast, lack of action, considerable
caution, never open inquiry, in limbo, linger, defensive
briefing, corroborate information, no effort to investigate
cease and desist due to decline to issue subpoenas.
Your concerned with FBI's reputational harm, but it appears
to me using [inaudible] lexicon, this case has all classic
earmarks of collusion and cover-up. However, not one person
went to jail, and Clinton Campaign operatives like Jake
Sullivan, now have the highest national security position in
our government who's actually driving a very slow response to
the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So, you believe that justice
has been served?
Mr. Durham. I can speak to what my team and I did, which
was to try to--
Ms. Spartz. Just tell me yes or no. Do you believe it has
been served?
Mr. Durham. We try to serve justice to the best of our
ability. I can speak on that.
Ms. Spartz. You also State Russian intelligence
investigation for the Clinton Campaign before Crossfire
Hurricane was open. Still subsources could have been
compromised by Russia. However, FBI have not considered the
possibility that there are still reports of Russian
disinformation. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. We're talking about Mr. Danchenko?
Ms. Spartz. No, just you said--this is in your report. You
say that Russian FBI never considered the possibility that
still reports of Russian information and [inaudible]. Is that
correct? Do you know why?
Mr. Durham. I don't know why.
Ms. Spartz. OK.
Mr. Durham. I think that's correct.
Ms. Spartz. OK. Another one.
[Inaudible] Stefan Halper invited Page at the request of
FBI to conference in UK, created Manafort-Page conspiracy
allegation in direct consequence his recordings. FBI never
fully transparent. Recording misstated that Crossfire Hurricane
significant [inaudible] on Page-Session conversation. He
wouldn't [inaudible] subpoena [inaudible] case in 1980's. In
your report, you were able to establish the CHS intentionally
lied to the FBI, but we are not able to establish. Why and what
you did?
Mr. Durham. OK. I'm not sure I--
Ms. Spartz. CHS-1.
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry?
Ms. Spartz. CHS-1, you said that you were not able to
establish that CHS-1 intentionally lied to the FBI. What did
you do or didn't do to establish it--not able to establish?
Mr. Durham. Let me see. This is on page 89?
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady's time has expired. We'll let the
witness answer. I think she's referring to Confidential Human
Source No. 1, Mr. Durham.
Ms. Spartz. Yes, you said you were unable to establish.
It's at the end of your report. It's on page 243.
Mr. Durham. 243? OK.
Ms. Spartz. Yes.
Mr. Durham. So, the context of that is in the Steele
reporting, one of the pieces of information that had been used
in the dossier was that Mr. Page allegedly--
Ms. Spartz. Did you interview him? What did you do to
establish?
[Crosstalk.]
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady's time is expired. We'll let the
witness answer the question. We are going to have to stick
close now--closer to the five-minute rules because they're
holding votes on the floor until we finish today's business.
Mr. Durham. OK. So, I can--
Chair Jordan. You can answer really quick, sure.
Mr. Durham. So, one of the things in the Steele Report was
that Carter Page allegedly had met with two sanctioned Russians
when he was in Moscow in July. We are able to establish that
this was not the truth. I mean, look at the evidence.
That's not true. The FBI should've been able to detect that
and they didn't detect it. That was a meeting that supposedly
occurred in July 2016, or meetings, one of them with Mr.
Sessions.
Later, when the FBI had opened Crossfire Hurricane and in
December 2016, CHS-1 met with Mr. Page, again, recorded a
conversation with Mr. Page. He several days later told his
handling agent that, oh, I forgot to tell you that Page said
that Page's most recent trip to Russia where he worked or had
business interest, he met with Sessions. The FBI when you look
at the communications in the FBI, they're saying, that sounds
kind of screwy here, but we should look at that.
They apparently never looked at that. We went and got the
recording of that conversation that had occurred between CHS-1
and Mr. Page in December 2016. Page never said that he had meet
with Sessions on his most recent visit.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, that overruns--I appreciate the fact
you gave him a chance--
Chair Jordan. You're definitely going to get asked your
question. The Republicans will be squeezed. I think the
gentlelady's times has expired. We'll now go to the gentlelady
from--I appreciate your answer, Mr. Durham. I think we
understand what you're headed. The gentlelady from Missouri is
recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. St. Louis and I are here today to set
the record straight about this political investigation
conducted on behalf of the twice impeached, twice-indicted,
former White-supremacist-in-chief Donald Trump. From the start,
this entire investigation has been an attempt to undermine the
findings of the Mueller investigation and distract the people
of this country from Donald Trump's corruption. That's why it
began just days after the release of the Mueller Report. That's
why four years later and no matter how much my colleagues
across the aisle claim otherwise, the Durham investigation did
not exonerate Mr. Trump or any of his associates.
Mr. Durham, I'd like to briefly discuss a few of the
different Trump-related items that your report does not touch
on. In the interest of time, you can just simply answer yes or
no. The Mueller Report found that Trump Campaign Chair Paul
Manafort knowingly shared internal polling data and information
on battleground States with a Russian spy. Did you find this to
be untrue?
Mr. Durham. I did not find that to be untrue.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. Thank you for that. The Mueller Report
found that Mr. Manafort shared this internal polling data with
a Russian asset with the expectation it would be shared with
Putin-linked oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Did you find this to be
untrue?
Mr. Durham. I didn't find it to be untrue, but I didn't
look at it either.
Ms. Bush. The Mueller Report found that Russian military
hackers first targeted Hillary Clinton's personal office within
hours of Trump's infamous July 27, 2016 press conference, which
we've heard already where he said, ``Russia, if you're
listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that
are missing.'' Did you find this to be untrue?
Mr. Durham. When you say, this, what? Mr. Trump clearly
said that. It was publicly recorded.
Ms. Bush. Did you find--the Mueller Report found that
Russian military hackers first targeted her personal office
within hours of the infamous press conference where Trump said,
``Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the
30,000 emails.''
[Crosstalk.]
Ms. Bush. Did you find this to be untrue?
Mr. Durham. I would not--I did not find that to be untrue.
Ms. Bush. OK. Thank you. So, again, your investigation, Mr.
Durham, did not undercut the basic findings of the Mueller
Report. Those who read your report as exonerating Donald Trump
are willfully deluding themselves and the people of this
country.
Let's take a step back for a minute. In the chaos created
by all these conspiracy theories and other propaganda amplified
by right-wing hate machine, the one we continue to hear, a very
simple point is getting lost. Republicans will do anything, say
anything, and spend any amount of money to hide the basic truth
that their leader is a criminal, corrupt, narcissistic buffoon.
That's why we're still talking about Carter Page. That's
why anyone even knows who John Durham is. That's why
Republicans are still carrying on Mr. Durham's work by
launching frivolous investigations that end with them
embarrassing themselves, by propping obvious lies. It has
always been about gaslighting the country.
So, instead of holding these farcical hearings about
farcical investigations, I urge my colleagues, my Republic
colleagues, to get serious and start legislating on behalf of
their constituents instead of helping the twice impeached,
twice indicted Donald Trump further evade accountability. Thank
you and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
Texas is recognized.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Durham, I thank you
for being here today and thank you for your tireless work on
this, as you called it, a very sobering report. The American
people were forced to endure years of the Trump-Russia probe
and for what?
I'll tell you why. It's because my Democrat colleagues
across the aisle, the Clintons, the dishonest mainstream media,
and the rest of the deep-state have been terrified of Donald
Trump from the beginning. Their hatred and fear remain today.
From the 34-count felony indictment from the radical DA in
Manhattan to the most recent 37 count felony indictment in Mar-
a-Lago that just won't stop. They won't stop. Mr. Durham, I
want to walk through a few things for the American people in
this 300-page report on Crossfire Hurricane.
For those that are watching who don't know, this was the
codename for the investigation undertaken by the FBI into
whether the Trump Campaign was coordinating with Russia to
interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election. Mr. Durham, it
says on page 9, at the direction of FBI Deputy Director Andy
McCabe and FBI Deputy Assistant Director for
Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, Crossfire Hurricane was
opened immediately. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Nehls. First, let's talk about who these two characters
where. On page 9 of your report, it says, ``Strzok and Deputy
Director McCabe, Special Assistant, have pronounced hostile
feelings, hostile feelings toward Trump.'' In text messages
before and after the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the two
had referred to him as loathsome, an idiot, Donald Trump an
idiot, someone who should lose to Clinton 100 million to zero.
Strzok once wrote, ``we'll stop mini-Trump from becoming
President.'' So, here we have these two leaders and the FBI.
Strzok clearly expressing his hatred toward Trump from the
beginning, opening an investigation six months before the 2016
election. Where are these two guys now?
McCabe, he's been a contributor at CNN, the Clinton News
Network, since 2019. Strzok is an expert on the Mar-a-Lago
raid. Strzok is an expert on the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Both continue to dispel lies to the American people. On
page 10 in your report,
. . . within days after opening Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI
opened full investigations on members of the Trump Campaign
team.
The FBI then began working on requests of the use of FISA
authorities against Carter Page. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Nehls. Folks, let me highlight who this American hero
is. Carter Page was painted as an alleged Russian agent. Carter
Page served his Nation honorably. He was a Naval Academy
graduate and the FBI spied on Carter Page through the use of
FISA authority. Sir, do you believe that this FISA warrant
against Carter Page was flawed?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Nehls. Mr. Durham, Section 702 of FISA expires this
year. I'm sure you're familiar with FISA and Section 702. Just
for the people listening at home, FISA stands for the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act which is created in 1978.
In 2008, FISA 702 was added. Section 702 was created for us
to have the authority to spy on non-U.S. citizens, non-U.S.
citizens. Mr. Durham, we all know that Carter Page is an
American citizen who served his Nation honorably.
Yet, the FBI conducted surveillance, including wire taps
based on falsified information provided by agents in the FBI.
Mr. Page was an honest American, innocent man. Mr. Durham, the
FBI obviously abused its FISA authority.
They went after Carter Page. It is my intent and I hope the
intent of my colleagues that we do not reauthorize Section 702
because the FBI cannot be trusted. Finally, I want to talk
about Charles Dolan and Mr. Danchenko who was the main source
of the Steele Dossier.
Dolan had played multiple roles in the Democrat National
Committee, Democrat Party. He worked on both Clinton Campaigns,
Bill and Hillary. He was working with them, friends.
On page 15 of your report, it says that in the Summer and
Fall of 2016, Dolan and Danchenko travel to Moscow in
connection with a business conference. The business conference
was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow which, according to the
Steele Reports, was allegedly the site of salacious sexual
conduct on the part of Trump. Parents, if you're watching,
earmuff your kids now, folks. Put earmuffs for your children.
Mr. Durham, was this salacious sexual conduct--what is
that?
Mr. Durham. The allegation was that--
Mr. Nehls. OK. Don't answer it. I will.
Mr. Durham. OK.
Mr. Nehls. Think about this, America. In the game of
politics, it gets dirty and nasty. The people will say anything
to beat their opponent. This is the government doing it. Even
the Director of the FBI, Comey, said, ``it's possible Trump was
with hookers peeing on each other.'' Christopher Steele said an
infamous Trump pee tape probably exists. Alleged pee tape
incident was the only sex Trump party in Russia.
You want to irritate the suburban mom at home, five months
before an election, tell them the Republican leading candidate
is peeing on prostitutes. We are aware of the Member of this
Committee having an alleged affair with a Chinese spy I refer
to as Yum Yum. This is a new low for anyone. I would hope Mr.
Swalwell would agree with me. Imagine if somebody would've
said, and taken this step further, Mr. Swalwell was peeing on
Yum Yum.
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentleman--
Mr. Nehls. It's unacceptable. This has got to stop. The FBI
needs to--
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Nehls. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman--
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, I ask that the last comments be
stricken with respect to Mr. Swalwell.
Mr. Nehls. My point is this. If you're going to say the
President of the United States was in Russia peeing on
prostitutes or vice versa, I'm just saying could you imagine
how that would affect any Member of this Committee. It would
affect you. You're going to pick up a primary opponent, I'll
guarantee that.
Mr. Ivey. That's a little different than making a specific
allegation about a specific individual on this particular
Committee.
Chair Jordan. If I could, the gentleman from Maryland. The
Chair has been very lenient in things being said. Previous
speaker from the Democrats called the former President of the
United States all kinds of things, and we sat here and let it
go.
Probably should've said something then. Maybe everyone
should be careful about what they say. The gentleman from
Maryland is recognized for his five minutes. We have to move
fast.
Mr. Ivey. Before we get to that, Mr. Chair, those rules
don't cover--the rules that govern this Committee don't cover
statements about people--
Chair Jordan. I'm talking about decorum in--
Mr. Ivey. --who are not on the Committee.
Chair Jordan. I'm just talking about general decorum.
Mr. Ivey. They do cover statements about Members of the
Committee and Members of the House.
Chair Jordan. I've admonished the gentleman, he should
watch what he says, just like other Members should watch what
they say about the former President of our country. Gentleman
from Maryland is recognized for five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Ivey. The former President is not a Member of the
Committee--
Chair Jordan. I know that.
Mr. Ivey. --and is not protected by the House rules--
Chair Jordan. I understand that.
Mr. Ivey. --that govern these kinds of statements.
Chair Jordan. I understand. The gentleman is recognized for
five minutes to question the witness.
Mr. Ivey. Well, Mr. Durham, good afternoon. I appreciate
you being here, although I'm sure as you expressed earlier
there are probably other places you'd rather be. I did want to
followup on your prior testimony about the trip that you and
the Attorney General Barr took to Italy. I wanted to ask you to
elaborate on that. I take it that was at the point to you
becoming Special Counsel, but not by much. Is that right?
Mr. Durham. It was prior to that. I think it was a while
before.
Mr. Ivey. The dates I've got, just to help out, August 15th
and September 27, 2019. Does that sound about right?
Mr. Durham. Yes, and I was appointed Special Counsel in
October 2020, so more than a year before that.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Why did you go on that trip?
Mr. Durham. I want to be careful as to what I'm authorized.
Mr. Ivey. Sure.
Mr. Durham. I'm here speaking outside the report. I think
Members are probably aware of the fact that there was a
particular person who supposedly have provided or had made
statements to Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos, not when he talked to
the Australians, but when he was interviewed by the FBI,
attributed information he had to this particular person who's a
European. There's a reason to believe that person lives in
Italy or had been in Italy.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Let me ask just to followup on that.
Why did the Attorney General come with you to investigate that?
Mr. Durham. This is my understanding. These weren't
communications I had. The Italian authorities wanted to deal
with a person at an appropriate level, not with me. So, that's
what that was about. That's my understanding.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Was it unusual for the Attorney
General of the United States to go on trips to interview
witnesses, whether overseas or even domestically?
Mr. Durham. Yes, he didn't--to my knowledge, the Attorney
General didn't interview any witnesses. My understanding was
that in accordance with what the Italian authorities wanted, he
was going to go over--did go over and introduce me to them so
that they would work with us to see if they could be of
assistance in our locating a particular witness.
Mr. Ivey. All right. So, he personally traveled to Italy in
the pursuit of this investigative lead?
Mr. Durham. In opening the door for our group--
Mr. Ivey. To pursue an investigative lead. All right. Then
you said you'd been at the Department of Justice for 40 years?
Mr. Durham. I have been.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Do you recall the Attorney General of
the United States ever taking a step like that to travel
overseas in pursuit of a lead and an investigation?
Mr. Durham. I don't know. It may happen all the time. I can
only talk by my experience.
Mr. Ivey. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. I take it
that whatever investigation was done over there in Italy didn't
lead to any type of prosecution or convictions in your
investigation?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right. I want to yield the remainder of my
time to Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Durham, did you seek communications
pertaining to someone named Mr. Bernard from a Federal District
Judge?
Mr. Durham. I'm not--assuming that prosecutors go to judges
for certain kinds of orders there, typically sealed
proceedings. I'm not speaking--
Mr. Schiff. Did you seek an order to--
Mr. Durham. I'm not going to comment on anything that I
believe is under seal.
Mr. Schiff. Did you seek a court order to obtain personal
communications returning to Mr. Bernard?
Mr. Durham. I'm not going to speak beyond the report and
that point. I'm not going to violate any--
Mr. Schiff. Were you--
Mr. Durham. --sealing orders.
Mr. Schiff. I don't think it violates any sealing orders to
tell us if you sought personal communications by court order.
Did you?
Mr. Durham. Again, beyond the report--
Mr. Schiff. Well, let's not even--
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Durham. --subject to sealing orders--
Mr. Schiff. Did you seek court orders to obtain particular
records? Were you denied by the judge?
Mr. Durham. I think the question is intended to suggest
that I don't want to disclose something I'm uncomfortable with.
Mr. Schiff. The question is what I asked you, Mr. Durham.
You get to give the answer, not the question. The question is,
did you seek a court order to get records from a judge
pertaining to private communications? Were you turned down by
the judge for lack of a sufficient basis?
Mr. Durham. I told it's beyond the report.
Mr. Schiff. Yes or no?
Mr. Durham. I don't think I'm authorized to talk about, and
I'm not going violate--
Mr. Schiff. It's not beyond the report. It's not beyond the
report.
Mr. Durham. Do you see anything in the report about that?
Mr. Schiff. Yes. Did you seek an order, and were you turned
down? Then did you seek to go around the court order by going
to the grand jury?
Mr. Durham. No. Would you like to know what that was about?
Mr. Schiff. What I would like to know, Mr. Durham, is does
Ms. Dannehy who resigned from your team raise ethical concerns
about your trying to go around the court order?
Mr. Durham. To my knowledge, no.
Mr. Schiff. Then why did she leave?
Mr. Durham. I told you before previously that I have the
highest regard for Ms. Dannehy. Ms. Dannehy and I are friends.
Ms. Dannehy--
Mr. Schiff. You know why she left, right?
Mr. Durham. I'm not sure--
Mr. Schiff. You do know the answer to the question. You
know why she left, right?
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentleman has expired. The Chair
now recognizes--
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, if I might ask unanimous consent to
offer two articles for the record. The first is by Charlie
Savage, Adam Goldman, and Katie Benner, ``How Barr's quest to
find flaws in the Russian inquiry unraveled.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Ivey. Then the second is Anna Momigliano, sorry,
``Italy did not fuel U.S. suspicion of Russian meddling, Prime
Minister says,'' both from The New York Times.
Chair Jordan. Without objection. The gentleman from North
Carolina is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bishop. Mr. Durham, I've got a number of things I want
to ask you. Do you desire to address what was being raised just
now in fairness?
Mr. Durham. Yes, apparently, Mr. Schiff's questions are
from an unsourced The New York Times article written by Charlie
Savage. I don't believe there's anything in that article that
is attributed to Ms. Dannehy in my recollection. I could be
mistaken. My recollection is that Ms. Dannehy did not comment
or wasn't quoted anyway in that article. So, to the extent that
The New York Times wrote an article suggesting certain things,
it is what it is.
Mr. Bishop. What Danchenko's status as a paid confidential
human source concealed from you for any period of time?
Mr. Durham. I'm not sure it was concealed. We found that
out. Once--
Mr. Bishop. When did you learn about it?
Mr. Durham. When we started to, the investigation and how
long it took for the FBI to identify the principle subsource
and why the principle subsource wasn't identified earlier.
That's when we came across Danchenko. We then asked the Bureau
for--we found out he was a confidential human source. We asked
the Bureau for his informant file. That's when we gleaned that
information.
Mr. Bishop. OK. So, it was from his informant file once you
got that from the FBI. Was there any delay in furnishing that
to you?
Mr. Durham. Not that I recall, no.
Mr. Bishop. Do you have any recollection--you were
investigating you said from May 2019, he was a CHS until
October 2020?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. Do you know when in that period of time roughly
you learned that he was a CHS?
Mr. Durham. Probably halfway through there. I'm not
certain.
Mr. Bishop. OK. Why didn't you interview him while he was a
paid source for the FBI?
Mr. Durham. So, with respect to Mr. Danchenko, he was
interviewed by the Bureau in February 2017. We had brought it
to the attention of the new administration and the FBI. Mr.
Danchenko's circumstances including the prior espionage case
that they never resolved or addressed.
Mr. Bishop. Right. I understand all those details. I'm
asking why you didn't interview him.
Mr. Durham. So, when we were dealing with that section, Mr.
Danchenko was represented by counsel. Mr. Danchenko as you may
know in the normal course, you have to advise people whether
they're subjects or targets of investigations. We did not
arrive at a point where we could interview Mr. Danchenko.
Mr. Bishop. Now, FBI made Danchenko a CHS on March 7, 2017.
After the factual predicate for Crossfire Hurricane in the
Steele Dossier or had collapsed in January 2017 in his
interview because he could not corroborate the dossier. He
revealed to the FBI that he was not a Russian based source nor
did he have a high-level network of sources.
The next day, March 8th, the FBI finalized talking points
drafted by Lisa Page on direction of Andrew McCabe for use in
briefing the Gang of Eight in Congress. Congress was briefed
prior to Director Comey's testimony on March 20th. Attorney
General Barr told the Nation December 2019 that you were
examining the continuation of the investigation beyond the
January collapse of the supposed factual basis. Looking at
irregularities, misstatements, and omissions, yet your report
makes no mention of the March 8th talking points prepared for
Congress. Why?
Mr. Durham. I'm aware that there were talking points. It
just was part of the crux of the proportion of what we're
reporting on.
Mr. Bishop. I want the clerk to put up on the screen what
is marked #7 while I'm asking you this question. These talking
points emerged into public as a defense exhibit in the Sussmann
case. They contained lurid allegations about Manafort operating
high-level contacts with the Kremlin through Carter Page, that
Steele had a primary subsource who was Russian-based.
The primary subsource had a network of high-level
Republican subsources. Same garbage that Danchenko had debunked
in his January interview, these talking points were circulated
among senior FBI leaders and Department of Justice leaders,
more than a dozen. Did you interview them all about how this
could occur or consider this material as the basis of
prosecutable offenses?
Mr. Durham. We identified and interviewed many people in
the FBI. I guess I would have to know who this particular email
was circulated to, to be able to tell you whether we
interviewed each of those persons or not.
Mr. Bishop. Last point, I guess, because I'm about out of
time, you identified the failure of the FBI to interview Dolan
as sort of inexplicable, totally agree. As I go through your
report and look, there are people who declined to be
interviewed, not only Dolan, Danchenko, Comey, McCabe,
Priestap, Strzok, Page, Glenn Simpson, among others. Seems
inexplicable to me that you didn't compel their testimony. Can
you explain that?
Mr. Durham. Sure. First, let me make it clear that it is as
disappointing, perhaps more disappointing to me and my
colleagues that these people would not agree to be interviewed.
I know some of them had a lot to say publicly. They refused to
be interviewed by our folks.
I'm not going to speak to any particular person because I
don't want to violate any rules. I'm going to give you the
general kinds of considerations that go into these things.
First, the only way in which you can compel as it were a
person's testimony would be to get a court order after somebody
asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege.
So, one factor, there are multiple factors. One factor is
that a grand jury subpoena doesn't give a Federal prosecutor
the authority to simply force people to talk about things that
the prosecutor or this instance the investigative reviewers
might be interested in. To properly use a grand jury subpoena,
you need to have an active grand jury investigation that's
ongoing and a reasonable belief to believe that the person you
want to have come in has relevant information about that
information.
Otherwise, you run up against claims of grand jury abuse or
claims of trying to set a perjury trap or other bad faith
reasons. So, you can't just subpoena people to make them talk.
You can subpoena people when you believe they have relevant
information. So, that's a factor.
You also take into consideration if a person has previously
refused to cooperate. They won't cooperate with you on matters,
even matters that they previously talked about. On prior
occasions, as people have repeatedly said, I don't recall, I
don't remember, and so forth and so on.
You have to make the prudential judgment, well, OK, if you
were to subpoena a person because you can make an argument that
they have information that might be relevant to the
investigation, is it going to be worth the effort to have them
come in and then repeatedly say, I don't recall, I don't
recall? You look at the most sensitive piece of information you
all saw in classified information, right, that source. Mr.
Comey was asked about that in a Congressional hearing under
oath, and he didn't recall. So, you make the decision, OK, are
we likely to get something or not.
Ms. Balint. Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham. We over?
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Durham. All right. Thanks for--
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady from Vermont, our newest Member,
is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Durham, thanks so
much for being here. I know we've been at this for hours now,
so I'll get right to it.
Nothing in the report that I've heard so far today that
I've read exonerates Donald Trump. You didn't find that his
campaign did not overtly flirt with Russia. You didn't find
that he did not attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
You also cannot exonerate Donald Trump for the things he
does in the future obviously, just as you cannot control the
agenda of Congress or what we do here in our hearings under
Chair Jordan. Now, Mr. Durham, I don't necessarily agree with
the origins of your investigation, nor the conclusions that you
reach in the report. I do absolutely respect your position as
Special Counsel and the actions of the DOJ as an independent
entity. So, Mr. Durham, I think it's really important for us to
establish do you agree that it's important for the Justice
Department to be independent from the rest of the Executive
Branch?
Mr. Durham. Obviously, the Department of Justice plays some
role in connection with--
Ms. Balint. It must be independent?
Mr. Durham. --the department decisions.
Ms. Balint. Must have some independence?
Mr. Durham. Right.
Ms. Balint. It was important to you that Attorney General
Garland did not interfere with your Special Counsel
investigation, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Ms. Balint. In fact, as we mentioned earlier, you thanked
him for giving you the latitude to operate without his
involvement or interference, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Ms. Balint. Donald Trump has consistently eroded the
barrier between the DOJ and the rest of the Executive Branch.
During his administration, Trump interfered in Mueller's
prosecutions such as when he criticized Roger Stone's
sentencing recommendations as, quote, ``horrible and very
unfair,'' which resulted in the DOJ overturning its
recommendation and all four career prosecutors handling the
case, actually withdrew within hours of that decision for
ethical objections. Are you familiar with the Roger Stone
sentencing recommendations? Do you follow that at all?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry, the Roger Stone sentencing
recommendation?
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Durham. No. I know there was one made. I don't recall
what it was.
Ms. Balint. OK. So, regardless of the sentencing
recommendations, is it appropriate for any President to
interfere with a Special Counsel's prosecutions?
Mr. Durham. No, the Special Counsel is supposed to be
independent of the Department of Justice.
Ms. Balint. That's right. Not appropriate. Never
appropriate. Donald Trump has promised to do more of this if
he's reelected. He has said it publicly on numerous occasions.
So, Mr. Trump, should the DOJ continue to operate independently
from the President, again, any President, yes or no?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry. Can you just repeat that one?
Ms. Balint. Should the DOJ continue to operate
independently from the President, yes or no?
Mr. Durham. Yes, the Department of Justice should operate
independently.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Durham. As I said, Donald Trump
has made it clear that if he is reelected, he wants to use the
DOJ to go after his political enemies regardless of the facts.
He has shown that he is willing to dismantle American democracy
if it will put him on top.
He has demonstrated his willingness to do this as
President. He's promised publicly to continue to do this if he
is reelected. Taking apart our institutions is a refrain that
we have heard over and over again from some of my Republican
colleagues.
We even have seen a Subcommittee created under Chair Jordan
that is essentially tasked with rooting out examples of our
government being weaponized. Those branches of government and
those agencies within government that are trying to hold people
accountable should be dismantled. I think they're essentially
being accused of weaponizing specifically because they're
choosing to hold people accountable.
I find that deeply disturbing as an American. I think we
all should be alarmed by this trend. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Gentlelady yields back. Gentleman from Texas
is recognized.
Ms. Balint. Mr. Chair, if I could. I have some documents to
ask to be--
Chair Jordan. If you do it really quickly. They're going to
call votes. We want to get moving.
Ms. Balint. Yes. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record William Barr's February 6th letter.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Balint. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record Order No. 4878--from October 19, 2020.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman from Texas--
Mr. Durham. Mr. Chair, could I just add one thing?
Chair Jordan. Sure.
Mr. Durham. I'm unsure that I understood your question.
When you say the department should operate independently of the
White House, and I think in investigations and so forth and so
on, that's absolutely true. The Department of Justice obviously
plays a role in, and the Executive Branch of the government
represents the President on occasion and so forth and so on.
So, I was talking about should the White House interfere
with criminal investigations and the like. The answer is
absolutely no. In terms of operating completely independent of
the White House, that would not be accurate.
Chair Jordan. They're part of the Executive Branch.
Gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Roy. I thank the Chair. Mr. Durham, October 3, 2016,
the FBI offered Christopher Steele a million dollars to provide
corroborating evidence of the allegations in his reporting. Is
that correct?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Was that paid to him?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry. What that what?
Mr. Roy. Was that paid to him?
Mr. Durham. That money was never paid out.
Mr. Roy. Right.
Mr. Durham. There was no corroborating information.
Mr. Roy. Mr. Steele relied solely on a single unnamed
subsource, correct?
Mr. Durham. He said that he had a primary subsource who had
a network of subsources.
Mr. Roy. On October 18, 2016, the FBI submits the
application for FISA surveillance relying heavily on the Steele
Dossier. No corroboration, correct?
Mr. Durham. No corroboration for the substantive claims in
that.
Mr. Roy. They knew Steele was a sign up paid informant.
Could've asked for sources. Never did. Said he was reliable. No
record of reliability, correct?
Mr. Durham. Mr. Steele had provided information in other
areas, not in this area, prior occasions.
Mr. Roy. The FISA application relied, according to your
report, at least in part on the Clinton plan intelligence,
correct?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry?
Mr. Roy. The FISA application relied, according to your
report, at least in part on the Clinton plan intelligence,
correct?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Roy. They knew Steele had been hired by Fusion GPS.
Fusion had been hired by a law firm on behalf of senior
Democrats that H.C. was aware, correct?
Mr. Durham. At various points in time, those things became
known to the FBI, yes.
Mr. Roy. In December 2016, the FBI determined that Igor
Danchenko, a Russian nationalist previously subject to FBI
investigation to be Steele's subsource, correct?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Roy. They do not talk to Danchenko before the next FISA
application, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Roy. On January 12, 2017, the FBI goes back to renew
the application for FISA surveillance, correct?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Coincidentally, one week before Trump is
inaugurated, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Roy. They then after two trips to FISA finally talked
to Danchenko. Basically, determined it's all crap, because
they've been relying on a Democrat operative, Dolan, correct?
Mr. Durham. Well, part of that is they clearly had relied
on the information in the Steele Dossier. There's a portion of
one report from Steele that was definitely tied to Mr. Dolan.
Mr. Roy. Then in March 2017, Jim Comey testified here on
Capitol Hill that the FBI under its counterintel authorities
has investigated Trump for collusion with Russia and people
might get indicted, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Roy. Is it normal for the FBI Director to talk about
FISA-related investigations publicly as a general matter?
Mr. Durham. I would say general matter, I would say no.
Mr. Roy. Right. Again, knowing full well the uncorroborated
allegations and knowing full well the genesis of said
investigation was tied to Hillary Clinton's Campaign which the
FBI Director would've known?
Mr. Durham. People in the FBI knew that.
Mr. Roy. Correct. In April 2017, they go back to FISA. They
report they've interviewed principal source, that the source is
credible. They leave out the entire fact that it's only
credible in making clear what they relied on before was total
garbage. They continued to the Summer of 2017, correct?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Roy. Under Federal law and FISA rules, once they know
there's an error. Some material fact is incorrect in previous
applications. You've supposed to correct that, right?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Roy. Was that done here, yes or no?
Mr. Durham. Not at the time.
Mr. Roy. Was Deputy Director McCabe in charge of this
investigation?
Mr. Durham. Deputy Director McCabe had direct involvement--
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Roy. Was Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok heavily
involved in the investigation? Was FBI Director Comey briefed
on the investigation?
Mr. Durham. The evidence we came on was, yes, they were
definitely. This is driving by--
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Roy. Each FISA application is a verified application,
and there's a Woods file with every factual assertion kept in a
file, correct?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Roy. Is it reasonable to believe that senior FBI
leadership and indeed senior leadership at the DOJ did not know
all these failures to ensure truthful facts were used for each
FISA application, an application directly focused on an
American Presidential Campaign? Is it reasonable to believe
that senior FBI leadership and indeed senior leadership at DOJ
did not know these failures?
Mr. Durham. I would distinguish between what the FBI knew
and what Department of Justice knew.
Mr. Roy. So, FBI leadership knew it?
Mr. Durham. The FBI and people in the FBI knew this
information. Not everybody knew everything, but they had all
this information.
Mr. Roy. Two final questions, in the fall of 2021, our
colleague, Mr. Schiff, said in an interview, but that the
beginning of the Russia investigation, I said that any
allegation should be investigated. We couldn't have known, for
example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. Is it
remotely conceivable that the Chair of the House Intelligence
Committee and the lead prosecutor of the impeachment of
President Trump was uninformed that this investigation was
kicked off based on a Clinton Campaign Democrat funded report
where they witnessed Mr. Steele claiming facts that were
uncorroborated and that ultimately came from a subsource, a
Democrat operative, Mr. Dolan. Is that conceivable?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Roy. In fact, is evidence out of the House Intelligence
Committee that directly contradicts that and he did know, in
fact?
Mr. Durham. Yes, I wouldn't know what Mr. Schiff would know
at the time.
Mr. Roy. Finally, a final question. For the average
American watching this besides being fired, have Jim Comey,
Andrew McCabe, or Peter Strzok been held accountable for these
glaring violations? Have they been hauled before a grand jury
or charged in any way? If not, why not?
Mr. Durham. So, they have not been--I'm not going to talk
about matters that occurred before the grand jury because I
can't. With respect to have any of those individuals been
charged, the answer is no.
Mr. Roy. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from Texas--the other gentleman from Texas is
recognized.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for appearing
today. I really appreciate it. I want to tell you about how my
friends, neighbors in Tomball, Spring, Texas and of course
Americans across this country are feeling today after listening
to this.
They feel that we have a two-tiered justice system in this
country and it's terrifying. So, I applaud your work. I
actually find it to be sincere in working on behalf of the
American people. I recognize that.
I also feel like we need to hold the people accountable for
participating in a sham of an investigation. I'm going to tell
you why. What happened in 2016 was unprecedented.
The same government agencies that were investigating
President Trump and his campaign were looking the other way
when it came to the allegations against the Clintons. At the
same time, the Clinton Campaign paid for the Steele Dossier the
DOJ and FBI were helping to cover up Clinton's crimes. We know
this to be a fact.
Thirty-three thousand emails miraculously disappeared.
Phones were smashed with hammers by the FBI. Even CNN fact
checked this, and it turned out to be true. Yes, CNN. They
refused to prosecute her.
This selective prosecution doesn't only favor the Clintons,
those as we have seen in very recent history. Sir, I'm sure you
are familiar with what's going on with Hunter Biden's plea deal
and his refusal to pay his taxes and a separate agreement to
dismiss his felony gun possession, both of which were announced
yesterday. Are you familiar with that, sir?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Hunt. Hunter Biden will likely serve no jail time for
his offenses, and yet there was no early morning SWAT raid on
Hunter's home in coordination with the media either. The
American people are sick and tired of this two-tiered justice
system. As a Black man, I'm tired of seeing this kind of
discretion used to favor people like Hunter Biden because he's
White and a son of a President.
Hunter Biden will serve no jail time for these charges.
Black men across this country are imprisoned for years for the
exact same crimes. I'm not surprised because I guess selective
justice shouldn't become as a surprise to anyone in this room.
Because after all, Joe Biden was one of the authors of the 1994
crime bill, one of my all-time favorites.
We can see what that has done to Black men across this
country. Back to this report, this report concerns, one, many
investigations into Trump that led absolutely nowhere with vast
amounts of resources and time to spread lies, rumors, and
innuendos about Trump across this country. What we know is that
the Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid for the Steele Dossier
which was used as a basis for the FISA warrants to spy on an
incoming President. Correct, sir?
Mr. Durham. Much of that the dossier was paid for was from
the campaign through Perkins Coie hiring of Fusion and Fusion's
hiring of Steele.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, sir. The biggest problem that I have
is that not of the significance has been prosecuted over this
sham investigation. No one who participated in this
investigation is serving any jail time today.
I think we've kind of heard that resonate throughout the
halls of this room today. Meanwhile, the DOJ, the same agency
that is responsible for this phony investigation in 2016 is at
this very moment seeking to put Donald Trump in prison for over
400 years over a document issue. Last I checked, President
Biden has a bit of a document issue himself before he was even
the sitting President of this country.
Again, it's another example of this two-tiered justice
system. My colleagues on the left talk about democracy. Well,
here's what I know about democracy.
In 2016, Donald Trump was elected by the American people to
be their Commander in Chief. He wasn't allowed to serve in that
capacity because he and his administration spent four years
responding to Democrat invented scandal after Democrat invented
scandal. Here we are seven years later, still talking about
President Trump and this Democrat invented scandal.
This does not look like a Democracy to me. As a West Point
graduate and combat veteran, I fought broad against
authoritarian countries. I know what they look like, and I know
what those countries do and how they treat their people.
I also know what democracy looks like. My fear is that this
looks like the death of democracy. It's up to us in this room
to do something about it.
Sir, I thank you very much for your time. Thank you for
hanging in there. I really appreciate it, and I yield back the
rest of my time, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields
back. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin for
five minutes.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Durham, did you see evidence of collusion
between Russia and the Trump Campaign in 2016?
Mr. Durham. No.
Mr. Tiffany. So, the American public that has been told
this hoax for years, it was just that, a hoax. Is that correct?
Mr. Durham. Our investigation showed that there were a lot
of failures in the FBI and how they did this investigation that
did not disclose or reveal information or evidence concerning
any conspiracy or collusion between Mr. Trump and Russian
authorities.
Mr. Tiffany. By the way, I hope you'll give me a full five
minutes, Mr. Chair. Are you familiar with the January 5, 2017,
meeting that was held in the White House? President Obama was
there. Vice President Biden was there. Susan Rice was there and
others. Are you familiar with that meeting?
Mr. Durham. I know that meeting occurred.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you know that FBI Director James Comey was
there?
Mr. Durham. That's my understanding.
Mr. Tiffany. Did you get access or try to get access to
Director Comey's notes?
Mr. Durham. We reviewed--in connection with our inquiry, we
looked at phone records, notes, those sorts of things. I don't
recall seeing any notes of Mr. Comey's from that meeting. They
could exist, but I don't recall having seen them.
Mr. Tiffany. So, Special Counsel, you were authorized to
investigate whether any Federal official, employee, or any
other person violated the law in connection with individuals
associated with campaigns and individuals with the
administration, including Crossfire Hurricane. Did you think
this wasn't relevant to go after these notes? January 5, 2017,
or in the process of the transition, weren't you inquisitive
about that?
Mr. Durham. Yes, as I said, I don't know. We had sought
from the FBI all such records. What I can't tell you is that
there were any records. That's what I'm saying.
Mr. Tiffany. Could you repeat that last answer?
Mr. Durham. Sure. I think as we set out in the report, the
Bureau produced in excess of--I think it was 6,800,000 pages of
records that were reviewed. Among the records that we sought
from the FBI were relevant notes, records, telephone records,
and the like. What I can't tell you is whether--and Mr. Comey
being one of them. What I can't tell you because I just don't
know is whether or not there were notes of Mr. Comey's from
that meeting.
Mr. Tiffany. Are you aware that in 2017 prior to the
Department of Justice filing a motion to dismiss the case
against General Flynn? They interviewed Mr. Priestap?
Mr. Durham. Yes.
Mr. Tiffany. During that interview, the Department of
Justice found Mr. Priestap's notes, which suggested that the
FBI was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn. Why didn't you interview
Mr. Priestap?
Mr. Durham. With--
Mr. Tiffany. Why do you think it wasn't relevant to
subpoena Mr. Priestap to gather information on his involvement
with Crossfire Hurricane, especially the Attorney General at
the time said they're trying to lay a perjury trap for Mr.
Flynn?
Mr. Durham. Sure. So, as it relates specifically to Mr.
Priestap and it's reflected in the report, Mr. Priestap did
agree to talk to us with regard to the Alfa Bank matter. So, we
interviewed him on that matter. He was not willing to talk
beyond that. As previously indicated, we were disappointed with
some of these decisions on the part of high-ranking members of
the FBI not to cooperate as you are.
There are reasons. If you've got to subpoena someone to the
grand jury which is one of the more powerful tools that you
have, you've got to look at a number of factors that determine
whether or not it's appropriate, whether it makes sense,
whether it be productive. In this case, not speaking to Mr.
Priestap's situation alone, but one of the decisions was, OK,
does Priestap have information that would be relevant or is
likely to be relevant to the criminal matters, not the general
inquiry into what happened in the investigation of the
campaign, but the criminal matters the grand jury is looking at
or not.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Durham, I only have 30 seconds here.
Mr. Durham. Oh, OK.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, we're very disappointed also. I keep
hearing this term, disappointed all day long. Let's sum it up.
Vice President Biden and President Obama knew about it. Hillary
fabricated it.
The FBI orchestrated it, and the media sold it to the
public. It's still out there. The question is, who watches the
watchmen?
The FBI has become a praetorian guard here protecting the
Nation's capital but not the people of the United States of
America. It is going to be up to us as Republicans and solely
us as Republicans starting on this Judiciary Committee to get
accountability to the FBI in the United States of America.
Chair Jordan. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. I
apologize, Mr. Durham, but we are going to have to--I apologize
to my colleagues. I was wanting to get this done before votes,
and we've been working with the floor.
Unfortunately, they have called them. So, we're going to
recess. It'll probably be 30 minutes, more or less. Then we'll
come back and you can make yourself comfortable.
Again, I apologize to our team here. I was hoping to be
able to get through that. We'll be back in approximately half
an hour. Committee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Chair Jordan. Committee will come to order. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. I yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady from
Indiana.
Ms. Spartz. A quick followup on CHS-1 from page 243, who,
according to your report, created conspiracy allegation in
direct conflict with his recording and misstated significant
material fact to the FBI, among other things, and you are
unable to establish his intent. Would you be able to provide to
the Committee recording of your CHS-1 interview on April 6,
2021, for page 192, and any other interviews in your
possession, yes or no?
Mr. Durham. Did you refer to page 43? I'm sorry. If I can
just find it on page 43.
Ms. Spartz. Page 192. Will you provide recording to the
Committee that you list, yes or not?
Chair Jordan. The recording with Confidential Human Source
1, I think is what she is asking about.
Mr. Durham. Oh.
Chair Jordan. She would like that provided--she is asking
if that could be provided to the Committee, Mr. Durham.
Mr. Durham. It's a piece of evidence that belonged to the
FBI. I think probably that's better directed to the FBI.
Chair Jordan. OK.
Mr. Massie. Reclaiming my time. Mr. Durham, this seems to
all started with one person, but I don't see his name in your
report. I see it in Mueller's Report 89 times. Who did Mr.
Papadopoulos meet with that gave him this supposed Russian
information?
Mr. Durham. When Mr. Papadopoulos was interviewed by the
FBI, he had identified Joseph Mifsud as the person who had
provided him that information.
Mr. Massie. Did you interview Joseph Mifsud?
Mr. Durham. We attempted to interview him. We pursued every
lead that we had. We talked to a lawyer that he had in Europe,
but we never were able to actually make contact with him so we
could interview him.
Mr. Massie. Do you think he is a Western source? Is he
associated with Western intelligence?
Mr. Durham. It's hard to say who Mr. Mifsud is associated
with. He was tied up with Link University, Mr. Scotti, who had
been involvement in the Italian government, and they were
appointed--hard to say who Mr.--
Mr. Massie. I am going to yield the remainder of my time to
Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. Hard to say who Mifsud is? He is the guy who
started the whole thing. We have known it for years.
Go ahead and play the video.
[Video played.]
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Durham, was that what you were doing?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry. Is that what?
Mr. Gaetz. Was finding out who Mifsud was what you were
doing?
Mr. Durham. We pursued that avenue yes.
Mr. Gaetz. Right, but was he--this whole thing was an op,
Mr. Durham. This wasn't like a bumbling fumbling FBI that like
couldn't get FISAs straight. They ran an op. So, who put Mifsud
in play? You don't know, do you?
Mr. Durham. I do not know that. I can't give you the answer
to that.
Mr. Gaetz. You had years to find out the answer to what Mr.
Jordan said was the seminal question, and you don't have it. It
just begs the question whether or not you were really trying to
find that out, because it is one thing to criticize the FBI for
their FISA violations, to write a report. They have been
criticized in plenty of reports. Some have referred to your
work as just a repackaging and regurgitation of what the
Inspector General already told us. So, if you weren't going to
do what Mr. Jordan said you were going to do in that video and
give us the basis for all of it, what has this all been about?
Mr. Durham. Well, I'm not exactly sure of the import of
your question. If your question is did we try to locate and
interview Mr. Mifsud, the answer is yes.
Mr. Gaetz. Why didn't you--
Mr. Durham. We expended--
Mr. Gaetz. Wait. Why didn't you subpoena him to a grand
jury?
Mr. Durham. I'm sorry. Why what?
Mr. Gaetz. Why didn't you send him a grand jury subpoena?
Mr. Durham. Mr. Mifsud? You'd have to find Mr. Mifsud
before you could serve a grand jury subpoena on him.
Mr. Gaetz. You guys were out in Italy. Were you and Bill
Barr looking of authentic pasta over there or Mifsud?
Mr. Durham. No, we were looking for information that might
help us locate Mifsud.
Mr. Gaetz. You know who I think would probably locate him?
The features of Western intelligence and possibly our own
government that put him in play. Like your report seems to be
less an indictment of the FBI and more of an inoculation, lower
case I of course. Like many inoculations it may have worse
consequences down the road. We will have some time to discuss
this matter further, but it is just hard to pretend as though
this was a sincere effort, when you don't get to the
fundamental thing that started the whole deal. I yield back.
Mr. Durham. I was away from my family for four years
essentially doing this investigation. This, my view, is a
sincere effort. The fact that you can't find somebody overseas
should not come as a big surprise.
Mr. Gaetz. Could you find out [inaudible]?
Mr. Massie. Reclaiming my time. Is he alive or dead?
Mr. Durham. We don't know.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr.
Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Durham, isn't it true that Danchenko admitted that
information he provided to Christopher Steele in June 2016 was,
quote, ``rumor and speculation''?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Biggs. Danchenko himself estimated that he was
responsible for 80 percent of the intelligence and 50 percent
of the analysis in the Steele Dossier. Is that right?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Biggs. Do you agree with his estimate or his estimate
of his participation in the dossier?
Mr. Durham. Yes, we have no reason to doubt that. I mean
Steele identified him as the primary subsource or the principle
source of the information.
Mr. Biggs. Yes, and that is that I mean. Steele used that
rumor and speculation to build his dossier. We have wandered
all of this. None of the statements were corroborated at all.
Yet, Danchenko's reputation for veracity was considered bad. He
was considered a boastful man who had low credibility, right?
Mr. Durham. There was information that the bureau had along
those lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. In fact, when he lost his visa, his work
permit, he used a Russian business as a front to basically
fraudulently get a visa to work in the United States? That
right? Page 128 of your report?
Mr. Durham. Yes, he went to work for a company in the
United States and Steele was paying him through a cut-out
through that company in the United States.
Mr. Biggs. Yes, most of us who look at that area of the law
regularly like I do would say that is immigration fraud. It is
also true--we talked about this. It is true there was an FBI
counterespionage investigation into Danchenko 2009-2011. That
was a result of him approaching some--a Brookings Institution
coworker trying to essentially solicit espionage on behalf of
the Russian government. Then even though the Washington Field
Office is right there and he lived just a few miles from the
Washington Field Office, the case was closed on Mr. Danchenko,
that investigation. Right?
Mr. Durham. The Danchenko Investigation was being done by
Baltimore, the Baltimore Field Office, but that's right. He
stayed where he--
Mr. Biggs. Nonetheless, he lived--I live out there. I know
it is literally around the corner from there.
So, let's take a look at--let's boil this down. After
determining that nothing that Danchenko told Steele could be
verified, it was all a pack of lies, innuendo, and rumor, to
further determining that he had attempted to solicit espionage
for Russia, and he had himself been the subject of an
investigation by the bureau, and after having committed
immigration fraud the FBI hired him on as an informer and paid
him 220 grand and proposed an additional 300 grand to be paid
to him. That is your testimony. That is in the report. It is
all there. That is even after the Validation Management Unit
has determined that Danchenko was a concern and likely had
connections to Russian intelligence. That is in your report as
well.
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Biggs. Very Special Agent Helson knew most of these
facts, but continued to endorse Danchenko's recruitment and
payment as a confidential human source, right?
Mr. Durham. That's correct.
Mr. Biggs. So, I am going to give you these things and I
think you understand why so many of us are over--underwhelmed
with some of your recommendations for the FBI but overwhelmed
by what is going on here.
The FISA application. We have talked about that, where that
came from. We have talked about that the FBI has conducted
millions of unconstitutional back door FISA-702 searches.
Disparate treatment of Hillary Rodham Clinton, which you
discuss in your report. The sweetheart Hunter Biden plea deal
that would send normal Americans to jail for years. He is
getting nothing.
We have 50 intelligence officers signing onto a letter
stating they would rather have a job in the Biden
Administration than tell the truth to the American people. The
Hunter Biden laptop suppression. The DOJ targeting parents at
school board meetings. A Federal prosecutor setting a quota,
essentially an additional--January 6th individuals. He said he
has got to get 2,000 more. That is a quota. That is a bounty.
DHS targeting Catholics at church. Hoaxes villainizing border
agents while the border itself is under attack. That is all
from this agency.
I understand that you are loyal to your institution. I get
that. Ms. Spartz gave an excellent enumeration of all the
things that you found in your report. That is why people like
me; and I don't want to speak for anybody else on here, we are
baffled, just utterly baffled that more people have not been
held accountable for their crimes. Because these are crimes.
What is going on in this country, the division in this
country today I can trace back to one thing: It isn't Trump
going down the escalator. It is the Steele Dossier paid for by
Hillary Clinton through the cut-outs. That has caused the
division in this country today. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The witness can respond.
Mr. Durham. I'm not sure there was a question at the end.
Chair Jordan. No, I am just giving you the opportunity.
Mr. Biggs. I was going to. I didn't get there.
Chair Jordan. Yes. The gentleman from Florida is
recognized.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, I agree with Mr. Biggs. You have given us
testimony today that you are disappointed that the FBI didn't
cooperate more, right? That was your testimony?
Mr. Durham. Said that.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, so we are disappointed too, but the
difference is when regular folks do things that are wrong and
unlawful, there is typically greater effort to try to get those
people before a grand jury, to utilize criminal process where
appropriate, not for other purposes. It is just like oh, well,
Bill Priestap, the guy who might have set this whole op in
motion, he just didn't want to talk to you about certain
things. You were really accommodating to that.
Then Mifsud, the person who juices Papadopoulos to create
this predicate that you find improper, I mean did you ever know
who is lawyer was, Mifsud's lawyer?
Mr. Durham. Talked to his lawyer in Europe, not in--I don't
know--
Mr. Gaetz. So, wait.
Mr. Durham. --his representative in the United States.
Mr. Gaetz. You could find the guy's lawyer, but you
couldn't find him?
Mr. Durham. We contacted somebody that we knew had
represented him in part of the effort to try to locate him.
Mr. Gaetz. You got the lawyer. Then now you are sitting
here in from the Judiciary saying you could find the guy's
lawyer, but you couldn't effectuate the service of a subpoena
because you couldn't find him?
Mr. Durham. Well, first,--
Mr. Gaetz. Do you know how silly that sounds?
Mr. Durham. --as you may or may not know, we wouldn't have
the authority to serve a subpoena overseas. The lawyer didn't
know where Mifsud was. He was in communication with him but
claimed not to know where he was. We were trying to arrange an
opportunity to talk to Mifsud.
Mr. Gaetz. Did you take possession of two BlackBerry phones
from Mifsud in any way?
Mr. Durham. There were phones that were provided to us by
his lawyer.
Mr. Gaetz. So, you could find the phones, but not the guy?
Mr. Durham. Correct.
Mr. Gaetz. Do you see how silly this looks? Like you found
the lawyer, you found the phones, but the actual dude who got
ordered by Western intelligence to go start this thing you
couldn't find? It is kind of laughable. It seems like more than
disappointment. It seems like you weren't really trying to
expose the true core of the corruption, that you were trying to
go at it another way.
Mr. Durham. Yes, as we said in the report and as I said in
my opening remarks, we pursued the facts as best we could.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, how about this fact?
[Crosstalk.]
Mr. Gaetz. OK. How about this fact, Mr. Durham? The entire
Mueller team does a hard reset on their Apple phone in
synchronization to wipe away evidence. Did you investigate
that?
Mr. Durham. I've read that.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, why didn't you investigate it? Who gave
the order on the Mueller team to wipe the phones?
Mr. Durham. Yes, that was not something that we were asked
to look at. We didn't look at that.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, no, that is not true, Mr. Durham. That is
not true because I am holding the document that authorizes your
activity and it specifically says the investigation of Special
Counsel Robert Mueller.
Mr. Chair, I see unanimous consent to enter into the record
the order that says that you are supposed to investigate these
things.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Gaetz. So, like whether it is the Mueller team,
Mifsud--how about Azra Turk? What is Azra Turk's real name? Do
you know that?
Mr. Durham. I'm not going to be disclosing the names of FBI
personnel that are otherwise unavailable.
Mr. Gaetz. Oh, so the FBI sent somebody to go honey pot
George Papadopoulos. Who gave the order to do that?
Mr. Durham. I think that's beyond the scope of what's in
the report.
Mr. Gaetz. It is literally the scope of what your charging
order is. Who put it in motion? We get, after it was put in
motion, the FBI did a bunch of wrong and corrupt things.
Totally understand. We are trying to deal with that. When you
are part of the cover-up, Mr. Durham, then it makes our job
harder.
Mr. Durham. Yes, well, if that's your thought, there's no
way of dissuading you from that. I can tell you that it's
offensive and that the people who worked on this investigation
have spent their lives trying to protect the people in this
country and pursue within the law--
Mr. Gaetz. You went 0-for-2, Mr. Durham.
Mr. Durham. --what it is that we could and we are
authorized to do.
Mr. Gaetz. Wait. Hold on. You tried two cases; lost both of
them. Then the one guilty plea you got, Clinesmith, Clinesmith
is back to practicing law in Washington, DC, today.
Mr. Durham. Yes, that's beyond my control.
Mr. Gaetz. Right, but the fact that you allowed that plea
to occur, right, and then the punishment was insufficient, the
fact that you didn't charge Andrew McCabe, you didn't convict
lying Democrats or the lying Russians, you didn't investigate
Mifsud or the Mueller probe even though as we sit here today in
black letter that was your charge--have you ever heard of the
Washington Generals?
Mr. Durham. The Washington Generals? Yes.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, and they are the team that basically gets
paid to show up and lose, right?
Mr. Durham. Well, I'm sure that the players who exert
blood, sweat, and tears don't view it that way, but you might.
Mr. Gaetz. I think they do. I think they do, because the
job of the Washington Generals is to show up every night and to
play the Harlem Globetrotters. Their job is to lose.
Mr. Durham. So, I'm thinking, I'm sorry, of a different--I
was thinking of a different--
Mr. Gaetz. Yes. Yes, so their job is to lose. I am kind of
wondering--and it just seems so facially obvious that it is not
what is in your report that is telling. It is the omission; it
is the lack of work you did. For the people like the Chair who
put trust in you, I mean you let them down. I think you let the
country down. You are one of the barriers to the true
accountability that we need.
Mr. Durham. Do I get to respond to that or comment on that?
Chair Jordan. Go ahead.
Mr. Durham. Yes. Well, I don't know if you've ever
investigated a crime. If you've ever investigated a crime--
Mr. Gaetz. I don't know that you have. You didn't
investigate these, Mr. Durham.
Mr. Durham. Whether or not--
Mr. Gaetz. How about Andy McCabe? Did you charge him? Did
you investigate him?
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired. The witness
can respond and then we will move onto our last--
Mr. Durham. I don't know, sir, whether or not you've ever
had occasion to try to investigate crimes under the rules and
regulations and under the Constitution that we're bound by. We
can gather evidence, in particularly, lawful ways. Can't charge
people because we might have something we can charge people--
Mr. Gaetz. It's not just that you didn't charge. You didn't
investigate.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time--
Mr. Gaetz. You didn't investigate the Mueller team wiping
their phones and you won't tell us who gave the orders because
you are protecting those people.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired.
The gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized.
Ms. Hageman. Mr. Durham, in reviewing your report I
sincerely wanted to understand the work that you did and
decipher the various investigations that we have been
discussing: The origins, the history, the back story, the whos,
the whys, the whats, the what ifs, and the hows.
I desperately wanted to figure out what happened to what
was once our flagship law enforcement agencies: The FBI and the
DOJ, to determine what went wrong and to evaluate how we can go
forward from here. I have listened with great interest hoping
to find some answers to the burning questions of the day and I
have reached a few conclusions that I do not believe are
subject to dispute or debate.
Now, I truly appreciate your regard for the agency you have
dedicated your career to. I am sure that as your investigation
progressed you must have been truly saddened by what you found.
What you have exposed however is that we are dealing with
something so corrupt and so rotten that no amount of face
paint, deflection, or whitewashing can fix this.
You have been asked lots of questions about predicates,
protocols, the Steele Dossier, the Australian connection, Mr.
Papadopoulos, Mr. Carter, the FISA Court, and Crossfire
Hurricane, among others. Your responses have been enlightening,
but let's get to the brass tacks.
None of those people or documents or reports were relevant
to the FBI when it identified Donald Trump as Public Enemy #1.
What do I mean? The accuracy and veracity of the Steele Dossier
was irrelevant to the FBI. The accuracy and veracity of the
reports coming from the Australian Embassy were irrelevant to
the FBI. The fact that the Russian experts in the CIA, FBI,
NSA, and other agencies had no evidence of any kind of
relationship between Mr. Trump and Putin or Russia was
irrelevant to the FBI. The fact that there was no verifiable
evidence such as testimony, documents, videos, or recordings of
Russian collusion was irrelevant to the FBI.
Nothing, and I repeat nothing that the FBI did was designed
to show that Donald J. Trump was a Russian asset. That wasn't
the purpose of the entire charade. How do I know this is true?
Because they told us so. The very people who cooked this up,
the ones who ran this entire operation: Strzok, Lisa Page,
Andrew McCabe, Clinesmith, Steele, the DNC, and Perkins Coie.
It was never their purpose to prove Russian collusion. In fact,
from the very beginning they knew that no such thing actually
existed.
They knew that the entire Russian collusion narrative was
fabricated by the Clinton Campaign to deflect attention from
her mishandling of classified materials and destruction of
official emails. They didn't need to prove Russian collusion.
They just had to keep the investigation alive. So long as they
had a complicit press, and so long as they had people in this
very body who has been here--one of the gentlemen who has been
here much of the day who would go on TV every night and lie
about the smoking gun, they could further their personal and
political agendas.
No, the purpose of Crossfire Hurricane wasn't to prove
Russian collusion. It was to destroy Donald J. Trump. They told
us that with the text messages that are set forth on page 49
and 51 of your report--49 and 50 of your report.
Then if they failed at blocking Mr. Trump from being
elected as President, well they had a backup plan. They had
their insurance policy, to use Strzok's terminology, which was
to make it impossible for him to govern, to use whatever tools
were available to taint his Presidency, the legitimacy of his
election, his ability to work with foreign leaders and to make
everything about Russia, Russia, Russia.
How has this corruption and rot manifested itself in our
everyday lives, in our natural culture, and our ability to
solve the problems we are facing? It has destroyed some of the
key foundations of this country, a foundation built on equal
protection, on the belief that justice is blind, on the belief
that you will be held accountable if you commit a fraud of the
magnitude of what we have been discussing here today, on the
belief that due process, justice, and constitutional rights are
more than mere words.
It has left a smoldering hot volcanic mess where the soul
of this country used to be, all because a few people in the FBI
decided they wanted to destroy a political candidate and
ultimately a President and anyone associated with him.
While these folks set out to destroy a Presidential
candidate and later a Presidency the fact is that they
destroyed so much more, and that will be their ultimate legacy.
One casualty is America's faith in our institution and another
casualty is the erosion of a justice system that is supposed to
apply equally to all Americans, but that has been weaponized to
protect the favored few elites: The Clintons, the Bidens, while
targeting political enemies.
That is the current legacy of the FBI and DOJ.
Mr. Durham, here is my question: How long do you think that
this country will survive a two-tiered justice system that
seeks to persecute people based on their political beliefs?
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, the time is expired. She can't ask
her question.
Chair Jordan. The witness may respond. The gentlelady's
time is expired.
Mr. Durham. Do I respond?
Chair Jordan. Sure.
Mr. Durham. I don't think that things can go too much
further with a view that law enforcement, particularly FBI or
the Department of Justice, runs a two-tiered system of justice.
The Nation can't stand under those circumstances.
Chair Jordan. Well said.
Ms. Hageman. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
This concludes today's hearing.
Mr. Durham, we thank you.
Ms. Hageman. Could I put--with unanimous consent could I
put two documents into the record?
Chair Jordan. I take that back. The hearing is not over.
The gentlelady may make her unanimous consent request.
Ms. Hageman. One is ``Don't Miss the Most Damning Durham
Finding,'' and the other is ``6 Documented Instances Of
Systematic Pro-Democrat FBI Corruption.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection, so entered.
Again, Mr. Durham, thank you. Thank you for your work.
Thank you for long time being here. Almost six hours is a lot
of work, so we appreciate that.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witness or
additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:47 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
All items submitted for the record by Members of the
Committee on the Judiciary can be found at https://
docs.house.gov/Commit-tee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116122.
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