Did the DOJ Hide Key RussiaGate Scandal Documents From Durham For Almost 2 Years?
This Seems To Be The Narrative Many Are Instantly Adopting - But It Likely Isn't True
John Solomon and his website Just The News has been doing stellar work covering recent events, including the Durham Special Counsel’s investigation.
Which makes this story right here exceedingly strange.
Solomon writes:
In the final hours of the Trump presidency, the U.S. Justice Department raised privacy concerns to thwart the release of hundreds of pages of documents that Donald Trump had declassified to expose FBI abuses during the Russia collusion probe, and the agency then defied a subsequent order to release the materials after redactions were made, according to interviews and documents.
The previously untold story of how highly anticipated declassified material never became public is contained in a memo obtained by Just the News from the National Archives that was written by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just hours before Trump left office on noon of Jan. 20, 2021.
The claim is Donald J. Trump declassified a binder full of key documents related to the RussiaGate scandal and ordered the DOJ to make those documents immediately available to the public. Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows wrote a memo for the record about the required public disclosure of these declassified documents.
This supposedly happened just as Trump was leaving office in January of 2021.
Now, at this late date, somebody from Just The News just happens to stumble over the Meadows memo at the National Archives showing the Department of Justice defied a direct Presidential order to publicly release these newly declassified RussiaGate documents to the US Congress, the news media, and by extension, the American public.
A media narrative quickly began forming that Attorney General William Barr ordered these documents to be held back and not publicly released, stabbing Trump in the back on his way out the door.
And since Barr had just secretly designated Durham as an official Special Counsel in October [Congress was not alerted that this happened until receiving a letter from Barr in December], you’re being asked to believe that Barr then turned around and sandbagged Durham by ordering these newly declassified RussiaGate documents to be hidden from the Special Counsel’s Office as well as from the public.
This is a nonsensical narrative for several reasons.
Let me remind everyone that Barr resigned as the US Attorney General in December of 2020. He was gone from the DOJ by the time Trump supposedly did this declassification discussed in Meadow’s memo. Jeff Rosen was the Acting Attorney General from December 23rd until Merrick Garland could be sworn in the following April.
Here’s one thing Solomon and others in their coverage of story seem to be determined to avoid:
This declassification of these key RussiaGate documents **had to have been done** to assist the Durham Special Counsel in it’s already-ongoing investigation of the RussiaGate scandal.
That is the only narrative that makes sense.
All classified evidence must be declassified before it can be presented to a grand jury. Let me explain why that is.
Why classified evidence has to be declassified before being presented to a grand jury.
To pursue criminal investigations using federal grand juries, either a US Attorney or a Special Counsel is appointed. If you were going to try to run **still classified evidence** through the grand jury system, you are facing an insurmountable host of problems.
You would literally be faced with having to give top secret security clearances to all involved. That means:
All the prosecutors handling the evidence.
Every member of the grand jury and their alternates who see the evidence
The witnesses subpoenaed to appear and answer questions about the evidence
Many of these witnesses subpoenaed to appear against their will may or may not be allowed to have their legal counsel present during their questioning by the grand jury. If defense counsel is allowed to be present, they are limited to consulting with their client at any time, but only that. They may not object or challenge any of the procedures; they can only consult with the client as how to best answer the questions put to them.
All grand jury proceedings are transcribed. That means the court reporter is hearing and writing down classified information.
So you begin to see why running highly classified national security documents through the federal grand jury system would be problematic, if not impossible.
This is why even though Durham and some of his prosecution team may have been given the prerequisite national security clearances to see the classified documentation, before they can present that evidence to a grand jury to pursue cases against targets, that evidence is going to have to be declassified before they can bring it into a courtroom.
Durham Would Get It First And Nobody Else Until He Says So
And if these key RussiaGate documents were in fact declassified and given to a Special Counsel’s Office already hip-deep in a then 2 year long probe of the RussiaGate scandal, the idea this same evidence would be simultaneously handed to the news media or the US Congress while Durham was still investigating is simply ludicrous.
Key evidence in on-going criminal cases by a Special Counsel’s Office are most certainly **not** simultaneously shared with the drunken leakers of Congress or the Fake News Media. I have to explain this yet again?
The fact the Solomon story at Just The News is a red herring disinformation story is revealed by one fact: nowhere in the article does Durham’s name or his Special Counsel investigation get even one mention. It’s like Solomon completely forgot Durham exists.
As I said on Telegram the day the news broke:
How amazing is it that Durham and his Special Counsel's Office, which has been investigating this very SpyGate issue for going on 3 years now isn't mentioned even one time in this article?
An investigation that's returned 3 indictments thus far and is getting ready for it's 2nd trial?
It's like the Sherlock Holmes story where the dog not barking was the clue.
All the chatter in the article is about getting these SpyGate declassified documents to the Congress, getting them to the news media, getting them to the American public.
Why does nobody chatter about maybe, oh I don't know, I'm just spit-balling here, getting them to the DURHAM SPECIAL COUNSELS OFFICE?
Because that would make it too obvious. People would figure out Durham already had all this stuff long ago.
He's given the green light to go public with it.
Another weird thing about this story that nobody is bringing up: Meadows zips his lip and waits almost 2 full years until his memo is suddenly found inside the National Archives by Just The News in order to find his tongue and speak up? He couldn’t have done that at any time since Trump left office in January 2021?
And what about Trump himself? There certainly are plenty of statements he’s made about having done a full declassification of all the RussiaGate scandal documents, but I don’t recall him ever once saying “and the DOJ is refusing to make them public, as I ordered them to do!”
We had recent public drama with the National Archives sending agents to seize documents at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort because the documents were supposedly still classified, something that both Trump and Kash Patel strongly dispute.
And now a memo surfaces at the National Archives in which Meadows was reminding the DOJ that President Trump wanted these newly declassified RussiaGate scandal documents publicly released as fast as possible. Which meant rushing them out to the US Congress and the news media.
Was the Meadows Memo one of the documents seized from Mar-A-Lago and did Kash Patel play any role in Just The News suddenly finding it so this issue could be raised?
The main thing is both stories, the Mar-A-Lago seizure and now the Meadows memo, have kept the issue of RussiaGate in front of the public, with the theme being there’s key evidence still coming that hasn’t been disclosed yet.
No Disclosures Until Durham Says So
I certainly understand some people are upset that they had to wait 2 years to find out Trump did this declassification of key RussiaGate evidence but the public still hasn’t been able to see any of it yet.
Let me make this clear: I’m all for declassification and public disclosure of any RussiaGate scandal information - with one emphatic exception.
If such a disclosure would impede, compromise, sabotage or undermine any of the cases presently being pursued by the Durham Special Counsel’s Office.
Yes, I know there’s a popular narrative that there are no further indictments coming from Durham, and that after he watches a Virginia jury let Danchenko walk exactly the same way the DC jury let Sussmann go, Durham’s going to pack it in and go home.
As I discussed with Dave at X22 Report in my recent interview, not only are more indictments coming from Durham, I’m pretty sure who will be targeted by these new indictments when they are unsealed.
So since Durham was still building his cases back in January 2021, it’s no mystery to me at all where the newly declassified RussiaGate evidence ended up.
And if the Meadows memo is being produced now, and Meadows is suddenly finding his voice about that declassification, after zipping his lip for two years, this is strong circumstantial evidence that Durham has at last agreed making this stuff public at this juncture will not damage his investigation or prosecutions.
Who Gets Indicted Next?
Durham’s made it clear he’s working his way up the chain of the criminal ‘joint venture’ by starting with the ground level private contractors who did most of the grunt work in stealing classified federal data and assembling it into two specific Trump/Russia collusion hoaxes.
Those two hoaxes were The Alfa Bank Hoax and the Steele Dossier Hoax.
Data stolen off of federal databases regarding 7 specifically targeted individuals in Trump’s circle of acquaintances as well as data stolen directly out of the Executive Office of the President in January 2021 were used in both hoaxes. Durham will prove this.
Those seven individuals specifically targeted by the federal contractor network using it’s access to federal databases to spy privately on the side for Hillary Clinton’s campaign are believed to have been:
Candidate/President-elect/President Donald J. Trump
General Michael Flynn
Carter Page
George Papadopoulos
Michael Cohen
Steve Bannon
Paul Manafort
The private contractors hired by the Clinton campaign to construct these two hoaxes who haven’t been indicted by Durham yet are:
Marc Elias of Perkins Coie
Christopher Steele of Fusion GPS
Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS
Nellie Ohr of Fusion GPS
Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS
Rodney Joffe of Neustar
The Georgia Technical researchers, of whom there are three: David Dagon, Manos Antonakakis and April Lorenzen.
So Durham’s next indictments are very likely to be several, if not all, of these remaining private contractors.
Watch The Danchenko Court Filings Carefully
How many more filings would Durham need to make in order to lay out the ‘joint venture’ that the Clinton campaign launched via it’s operatives at Fusion, Perkins Coie, and Neustar/GT to create the Alfa Bank Hoax? None that I can see. He’s pretty much got it all out there. The role each of the contractors played in the Alfa Bank Hoax has been fully exposed.
That brings us to the Steele Dossier. Because there’s still plenty waiting to be revealed when it comes to **that** particular Clinton Campaign cooridnated Trump/Russia collusion hoax.
Either in his filings in the next two months leading up to Danchenko’s October trial, or during the trial itself, Durham will repeat the same pattern he did in the Sussman case, revealing many key previously unknown details about how the Steele Dossier was concocted.
Sure, as with Sussmann, Danchenko is being charged only with making false statements to federal officials. But it should be clear by now what Durham is doing: he’s using the most minor charges the private contractors are facing to reveal an awful lot about how the Clinton campaign’s criminal joint venture worked, the nuts-and-bolts details of the crimes.
Remember how Durham didn’t leak that long-time Clinton family associate Chuck Dolan was a key dossier source. Danchenko was so determined to steer the FBI away from Dolan as a dossier source that he ended up repeatedly lying to federal agents during multiple interviews.
And then Durham successfully hid the Clinton cyber-spying network active inside the White House itself until he was ready to reveal it in his own court filings.
How do you keep any of this key stuff from leaking over a 5 year period? I think the answer to that is simple. You put John Durham in charge.
And you can quote me on that.
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Fantastic article!!!
Brian Cates knows how stuff works. I like that about him.