[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 30 (Tuesday, February 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S691-S692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Special Counsel Durham Court Filing

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor to give you an 
example of some of the hypocrisy that goes on in this town.
  On February 11, last week, Special Counsel Durham made another filing 
with respect to the case against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael 
Sussmann.
  I have spoken to my colleagues before to discuss Special Counsel 
Durham's findings in this matter. Today, I want to highlight new 
evidence that has come with this filing.
  Special Counsel Durham's filing said that at trial, his team will 
establish that a firm tied to the Clinton campaign misused internet 
traffic pertaining to four entities: a healthcare provider, Trump 
Tower, a Donald Trump apartment building in New York, and the Executive 
Office of the President of the United States.
  The Clinton campaign essentially spied on the Trump campaign. After 
Trump was elected, the Clinton campaign's work continued.
  Now, how did they do it?
  According to Special Counsel Durham, the Clinton campaign worked with 
cyber researchers to infiltrate private and government servers 
connected to Donald Trump. Their main conduit was Tech Executive-1.
  In July 2016, according to Special Counsel Durham, ``Tech Executive-1 
also enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university 
who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in 
connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research 
contract.''
  In addition, Tech Executive-1 had access to dedicated servers for the 
Executive Office of the President as part of a ``sensitive 
arrangement.'' This individual ``exploited this arrangement . . . for 
the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.''
  According to Special Counsel Durham, the Clinton campaign through 
Tech Executive-1 abused ``non-public and/or proprietary Internet 
data.''
  One question that needs to be answered is whether any of this 
exploited information and data included classified information.
  The available facts show that the Clinton campaign abused Federal 
Government contracts to exploit government information to use against 
Trump. If the Republicans did the same thing, we all know you wouldn't 
hear the end of it. The Democrats and media would want another 
impeachment of Trump.
  All of these outrageous acts were done to create fake connections 
between Trump and Russia. That included the fake Alfa Bank narrative. 
That narrative centered on allegations that Trump had a secret 
communications channel with the Russian bank. It was all fabricated by 
the Clinton campaign. There was nothing to it.
  And let's not forget that Jake Sullivan spread the fake Alfa Bank 
narrative, and he spread it far and wide. Sullivan is now President 
Biden's National Security Advisor. He needs to answer for his role in 
this entire fiasco.
  Even the Obama administration's servers communicated with the same 
Russian servers that were apparently the basis of the false Russia 
connections. Now, just think how ridiculous this rollout was. With this 
so-called evidence against Trump in hand, on February 9, 2017, Sussmann 
provided updated allegations to an unnamed U.S. Government Agency. Of 
course, he left out the Obama administration connections.
  Some of those allegations included that Trump and his associates used 
rare, Russian-made wireless phones near the White House. Durham said 
that there was no evidence of that.
  But some evidence is very, very clear. During the election, the 
Clinton campaign spied on the Trump campaign. After Clinton lost, the 
Clinton campaign spied on the Trump administration. And they did it by 
abusing Federal Government contracts; and they did it by abusing their 
access to government information.
  Trump has repeatedly said that the Clinton campaign spied on his 
campaign. The mainstream media either ignored him or called him a liar.
  Based upon Special Counsel Durham's filings, Trump, it turns out, was 
right.
  The Clinton campaign, mainstream media, and the Democratic Party did 
whatever they could do to destroy Trump, no matter the cost to the 
truth or the cost to the country.
  The House Democrats, with the backing of corporate media, set up the 
January 6 Commission to investigate what they termed the Big Lie.
  Where are those on the January 6 Commission when it comes to 
investigating the Big Lie where the Clinton Campaign worked with the 
sitting Obama administration and taxpayers' money in trying to destroy 
their political opponent?
  That is just as dangerous to our democracy.
  As I conclude my remarks, lets come to grips with this absolute fact: 
The Clinton campaign's conspiracy of dirty tricks set in motion a chain 
of events that have ripped this country apart for years.
  So much for a peaceful transition to power.
  Now, what is disturbing to me about the hypocrisy in this town is 
that we have the First Amendment, freedom of press, where I see 
journalists as keeping government honest, and I don't see the people 
that knew that they were wrong about this issue for 4 or 5 years 
willing to admit that now they haven't done their job properly.
  And a lot of things that made government dishonest--and I just told 
you how this was done--don't seem to be worried about policing the 
political system the way they should.
  I haven't seen anybody apologize.
  I did see a rerun of something that happened October 2020 within the 
last couple of days, an interview between one of these journalists and 
President Trump where President Trump was trying to tell people that 
this stuff was going on, and they said, No, there is no proof of it. 
There is no proof of it.
  Are they saying today there is no proof of that?
  I think we all know that Trump wasn't in government. Maybe he even 
lacked some understanding of how the political system works, but he 
came to town to challenge the elite that are inside the beltway and 
change things.

[[Page S692]]

And somebody knew that he was up to that, and they wanted to stop him 
from doing it; so they spied on the campaign so he wouldn't be elected. 
And once he was elected, they spied on the Executive Office to see what 
they could do.
  I remember a story that a friend of mine told me about talking to 
some Democratic Senator in February of 2017, who told that friend of 
mine that Trump would not be President by the end of that year of 2017. 
Now, whether that Senator knew what he was talking about, I don't know; 
but I reflect back on that conversation I had with that friend, and I 
wondered if they really thought that by doing what we know now they 
were doing, that they were going to be able to get him out of office 
before the end of 2017. So I give you a little example of what I call 
hypocrisy in this city.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.