Source 6A: John Durham’s Twitter Charges

According to the Igor Danchenko indictment, John Durham does not claim to have interviewed the most important witness in the four false statements charges against Danchenko relating to Sergei Millian: Sergei Millian.

After laying out some of the facts behind the charges that accuse Danchenko of falsely telling the FBI on five occasions (just four of which are charged) that he received a call from someone he assumed to be Millian, who told him about ongoing communications between Trump and Russia, Durham notes that on Twitter, Millian has claimed that he and Danchenko never communicated directly.

Chamber President-1 has claimed in public statements and on social media that he never responded to DANCHEKNO’s [sic] emails, and that he and DANCHENKO never met or communicated.

Let me be clear: the filing of a report based off a call like the one Danchenko described, even assuming it exists, is dodgy as hell. I’m not defending that or arguing that Danchenko didn’t lie; I’ll wait for the trial on the latter point.

But it is astounding that Durham appears to have filed an indictment without ever requiring Millian to go on the record, under oath, particularly given all the evidence about Millian in DOJ’s coffers and some of the other things Millian has said online. If that’s what happened, it exactly replicates the sin that, Republicans wail, happened with the Steele dossier, taking the word of someone who once was under counterintelligence investigation (as Danchenko was years before his work on the dossier and Millian was in 2016), though does so here not just to obtain a FISA warrant, but to obtain an indictment.

Absent a great deal more evidence than what Durham describes here, I think these four counts will pose remarkable challenges for Durham’s prosecution (some of which I’ll explain in a follow-up, hopefully my last post on this indictment).

The general outline of the charge is that, starting with his very first interview, Danchenko attributed significant parts of this report to Millian, whom the FBI referred to as “Source 6”:

a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidates campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, whom President PUTIN apparently both hated and feared.

Danchenko never described this exchange as anything but sketchy and by his description, he claimed Steele overstated the claim. Here’s how it appeared the first time:

This report involves reporting from “Source E” — reporting which [Danchenko] ties, at least in part, to [Millian]. [Danchenko related the story about his contact with [Millian], in either late June or July 2016. [redacted] — he reached out to [a Novosti journalist]. He asked [the journalist who had written about Millian] some of the questions Orbis had tasked him with regarding Trump’s Russian connections, and [the journalist] put him in contact with another of his [redacted] colleagues, [USPER 2]. [The journalist] said that [USPER2] had [Millian’s] contact information, and that [Millian] was someone with whom [Danchenko] should speak. [Millian] was, according to [Danchenko], someone with whom “they” [redacted] were talking. There was even talk about [Danchenko] meeting with [USPER2] in person, but it did not happen.

[Danchenko] reached out to [Millian] via email twice. He never received a response from the first attempt, but after the second attempt, he received in circa late [redacted] 2016 a very strange phone call from a Russian male who he believed to be [Millian], but who never identified himself. The individual on the other end of the call never identified himself. The two of them talked for a bit, and the two of them tentatively agreed to meet in person in [NY] at the end of July. At the end of July, [Danchenko] traveled with [redacted] to [New York], but the meeting never took place and no one ever called [Danchenko] back. Altogether, he had only a single phone call with an individual he thought to be [Millian]. The call was either a cellular call, or it was a communication through a phone app. [Danchenko will look back at his phone to see if he can get caller information].

The following day, as he did with a few other allegations he explained in the first day of a serial interview, Danchenko provided more details, some of them additional details — such as that he met the Novosti journalist who first directed him to contact Millian at a Thai restaurant — and some clarifications, such as that one email was June or July and a follow-up was September (which was incorrect; it was late August). That clarification, however, should have alerted the FBI that the timeline of this explanation didn’t work, as it would put the claimed phone call before the second email.

As Danchenko described the actual content of the conversation with the anonymous person who called him, all details were arguably true at the time of the conversation in July 2016:

  • There was communication between Russia and Trump
  • There was “exchange of information” but there was “nothing bad about it”
  • Some of this could be damaging to Trump, but deniable, and some could be good for Russia

As he had the previous day, Danchenko offered to pull up his communications to provide more details about this, making it clear that he had not yet done so. Obviously, DOJ ultimately did obtain the emails Danchenko exchanged with Millian and the Novosti journalists, because they are one of the only pieces of proof offered in the indictment for these charges.

Durham didn’t charge this January 2017 instance of what he claims was a lie, perhaps because the FBI came away from that interview believing that Danchenko was, “truthful and cooperative,” probably in part because Danchenko had clarified that the report was overblown.

Instead, Durham charged four other interviews in which Danchenko told the same story: March 16, May 18, October 24, and November 16, 2017, the latter two of which post-dated a Steele interview with the DOJ.

In each instance where Durham quotes Danchenko’s actual words (he doesn’t quote much from the November 16 instance and Durham doesn’t claim that interview was recorded, as the March and May ones were), Durham eliminates a caveat Danchenko made in the interview when describing the alleged lie in the actual charge — “I don’t know,” I’m not sure if I, he called … at the time I was under the impression it was him,” “at least someone who I thought was him” — maintaining a consistent pattern, on Durham’s part, of making material omissions in indictments charging material omissions. He treats a likely inadvertent misstatement from October 24 — that Danchenko believed he spoke to Millian a couple of times — as a lie unto itself.

And Durham lards on the same alleged lie, over and over and over and over. Even if Danchenko were found guilty on all four counts, it would have little effect on the sentence (though if Danchenko is found guilty, the real sentence will be deportation after sentence, after which he surely will face stiff retaliation in Russia for his role in all this).

This is the action of a prosecutor who is either throwing a tantrum, or someone who is uncertain of his own charges, and so is ensuring he gets multiple shots at proving an alleged lie by charging it in four different ways (perhaps hoping he can get Danchenko on his statement that he believed he spoke to Millian a couple of times).

As noted, Durham doesn’t claim to have testimony from Sergei Millian, beyond Millian spouting off on the Internet.

Durham also doesn’t properly account for the fact that Danchenko’s belief that this was Millian in July 2016, which is how the report in question was sourced, would easily have been different than his belief in August 2016, when he sent a follow-up email to Millian, and different still in a series of interviews in 2017, which makes his omission of Danchenko’s caveats on that point all the more problematic.

He similarly doesn’t commit to whether he believes Danchenko made up the entire phone call and attempted meeting in New York (Durham did not, for example, charge Danchenko with fraud for billing poor Christopher Steele for claiming he tried to meet a suspected source when, instead, he was on a jaunt to the Bronx Zoo), or whether he believes someone else called Danchenko, knowing precisely the information Danchenko was looking for, and provided — at least according to Danchenko’s description — accurate information that reflected some knowledge of ongoing contacts between Trump and the Russians.

Again, given that there are no records about what Danchenko told Steele and given their conflicting testimony, he likely can’t know what the truth is (even assuming he’s right that Millian did not call Danchenko, a claim he doesn’t claim to have gotten Millian to assert under oath).

Danchenko replaced his phone before any of these FBI interviews, so unless FBI found a way to retrieve it and managed to reconstruct contents after a factory reset, it’s not clear Durham can rule out a Signal call.

The proof that Durham offers that this is a lie is that, after the failed (claimed) attempt to meet in New York, Danchenko sent an August 18 email to Millian that reflected no prior direct communication, and an August 24, 2016 email to one of the Novosti journalists stating that,

for some reason [Millian] doesn’t respond.

[snip]

Would you be able to ask him to reply to me? I could call or write on Linkedln, but until he responds I would not like to pester him.

It will be a cinch for Danchenko to explain away both of these communications.

Durham doesn’t mention a claim Danchenko made about a conversation he had with the Novosti journalists after the first attempted contact, who told Danchenko that Millian asked them about Danchenko, something that might either corroborate Danchenko’s claimed belief or provide other explanations for the claimed call.

The only other proof that Durham offers in the indictment (it’s possible he will try to bring in communications involving Fusion, except the timing of Fusion’s actual obsessions about Millian are not entirely helpful on that front, and unless and until he finally charges the conspiracy he seems to want to charge, it’s not clear he’ll be able to introduce communications to which Danchenko was not a party) is that Steele had a differing understanding of what happened than Danchenko; there’s abundant evidence both men were fluffing their work for the actual content of the dossier, making it difficult to identify where a game of telephone ended and where actual knowing lies began. Significantly, Durham offers evidence that Danchenko freely admitted to not correcting Steele on whether he actually met or attempted to meet Millian; he offers no evidence that Danchenko affirmatively lied to Steele about whether he met Millian or not.

Sergei Millian was designated Source 6 in the FBI’s attempts to vet Danchenko’s contributions. And now Durham is prosecuting Danchenko based off Twitter evidence, a clear invitation for a significant Sixth Amendment challenge on Danchenko’s part.

Update: On Twitter, Millian (whose tweets are now admissible before EDVA, thanks to John Durham) is making it clear he doesn’t understand the significance of due process and the Sixth Amendment. He even seems to think that the fact that he now claims to be something something independent reporter means that his public statements (and a good deal of what the US government has in its possession) won’t be discoverable to Danchenko.

Millian repeatedly dodged my question about whether he had been interviewed, much less under oath.

Danchenko posts

The Igor Danchenko Indictment: Structure

John Durham May Have Made Igor Danchenko “Aggrieved” Under FISA

“Yes and No:” John Durham Confuses Networking with Intelligence Collection

Daisy-Chain: The FBI Appears to Have Asked Danchenko Whether Dolan Was a Source for Steele, Not Danchenko

Source 6A: John Durham’s Twitter Charges

John Durham: Destroying the Purported Victims to Save Them

John Durham’s Cut-and-Paste Failures — and Other Indices of Unreliability

Aleksej Gubarev Drops Lawsuit after DOJ Confirms Steele Dossier Report Naming Gubarev’s Company Came from His Employee

In Story Purporting to “Reckon” with Steele’s Baseless Insinuations, CNN Spreads Durham’s Unsubstantiated Insinuations

On CIPA and Sequestration: Durham’s Discovery Deadends

The Disinformation that Got Told: Michael Cohen Was, in Fact, Hiding Secret Communications with the Kremlin

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57 replies
  1. Troutwaxer says:

    Christ, what a load of bullshit. I notice the same problem with the indictment of Sussman. In both cases Durham is charging what are at best ambiguous statements,* and in neither case does what he proposes look remotely capable of belief “beyond a reasonable doubt.” How he expects a jury to convict at all is beyond me, particularly if either Sussman or Danchenko’s defense attorneys are minimally competent is beyond me.

    In the case of Durham vs. Sussman I think my response as a juror would be to laugh Durham out of court. Where Durham vs. Danchenko is concerned my response would be something like, “Let these two asses be set to grinding corn.” I hope Durham has a friend to tell him he’s setting himself up as a public laughingstock.

    * In Sussman’s case a report to the FBI which was made honorably, as far as I can tell, but didn’t pan out.

  2. Mojo Risin' says:

    The most genuinely intelligent character in Russiagate might be Millian’s wife, who dumped him years ago.

  3. subtropolis says:

    Nice catch! That’s absurd. Danchenko’s claimed phone calls are hinky but … a tweet?! Just think: one could blow this case wide open by creating a Twitter account for “Sergei’s mom”.

    Perhaps Dancheko was meeting his source at the Bronx Zoo. Seems like a spook thing to do.

      • Mickquinas says:

        “Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo
        I do believe it
        I do believe it’s true
        It’s a light and tumble journey
        From the East Side to the park
        Just a fine and fancy ramble
        To the zoo”

        Paul and Art knew what was going on…

  4. WilliamOckham says:

    I keep trying to figure out what Durham’s strategy is, even though that’s probably a waste of time. I guess he’s hoping someone will plead guilty to one of these lame charges so that he can charge the conspiracy that is his obvious main goal.

    • emptywheel says:

      I think that’s it.

      I will add, we wouldn’t necessarily know if he charged Steele bc of extradition issues (tho I would assume the UK would not extradite a former MI6 guy, unless perhaps they could get Anne Sacoolas in response, which isn’t going to happen).

      But in this case I think he’s hoping that Danchenko will view deportation as a risk of even more severe criminal time, at best, and so be willing to take out Steele and Simpson. But I don’t know that that would help him, even, because Danchenko doesn’t have records and has spoken at such length about what he claims happened.

      And as I’ll write, I think the problems they may have in prosecuting Danchenko may force them to drop the case.

      • Troutwaxer says:

        Agreed. I suspect an intelligent motion will be enough to get Sussman off the hook, and possibly Danchenko as well.

      • subtropolis says:

        How many Russians has the government indicted despite having no hope of extradition? I don’t think there’s any possibility of charging Steele in secret. That would leak immediately, in any case. (And certainly the Brits wouldn’t agree to extraditing him.)

      • J R in WV says:

        Is it possible that Special Prosecutor Durham is less qualified to be a prosecutor than IANAL am? From reading MTWheel’s posts it would appear that the local WV DUI lawyer would be more qualified than Durham, who not only can’t ID other good lawyers to recruit for his investigation, but can’t read his office’s product to make sure it is internally consistent.

        Is anyone accused by Durham or his office actually losing sleep over their exposure to Federal indictment? I am certainly glad not to be a mover in such circles, being a retired software geek currently employed as a hermit up a country hollow.

        • Rayne says:

          You’re assuming Durham is acting as a prosecutor. What might it look like if he wasn’t actually prosecuting but doing something else while holding a prosecutor’s job?

        • bmaz says:

          Let me add this, not sure that Durham has done any real prosecuting for a very long time. So, yeah, he could very easily just be bad at it at this point. The real skill and brains in his US Attys office was his top assistant Nora Dannehy. But she left because she wanted no part of this nonsense.

      • Alan Charbonneau says:

        That’s what Rudy wanted Ukraine to do, accuse Hunter Biden, open an investigation, and we’re home free.

        When this is laughed out of court or the prosecution is dropped, the RWNJ will see it as proof of politics interfering with justice.

        I still try to be optimistic, but some days it’s hard.

    • Mojo Risin' says:

      He’s doing two tasks, punishing enemies of Fridman and smoking out dissident/counterintelligence elements for GRU to find and punish.

  5. Gee says:

    Whew weeee…you certainly seem to have gotten under lil’ Chamber President’s skin now, haven’t you? I can’t find the word for the responses; but it reminds me of how annoyingly stupid serial fabricators would double down when caught in the 4th grade. It’s not bluster, it’s not pompousness, it’s something about the power of gaslighting, when backed up by a whole apparatus that wants to create the alternate reality. I saw it with Papadapolous too. He’s from the same source of nothingness wanting to be something. Petty grifter type, desperate to get in with the rich crowd, devoid of any sort of moral compass. If you want to see the hilarity of this type of persona, check out his official website. It’s almost a self parody.

    • Mojo Risin' says:

      Remember, George P was considered most suspicious in regards to his relationship with Israel, not Turkey, not Russia. When folks think Russiagate means hooker pee shows and phones in Prague, instead of what it really was, proxy natural gas + geopolitical war, the bad guys win.

  6. Peterr says:

    In each instance where Durham quotes Danchenko’s actual words (he doesn’t quote much from the November 16 instance and Durham doesn’t claim that interview was recorded, as the March and May ones were), Durham eliminates a caveat Danchenko made in the interview when describing the alleged lie in the actual charge — “I don’t know,” I’m not sure if I, he called … at the time I was under the impression it was him,” “at least someone who I thought was him” — maintaining a consistent pattern, on Durham’s part, of making material omissions in indictments charging material omissions. He treats a likely inadvertent misstatement from October 24 — that Danchenko believed he spoke to Millian a couple of times — as a lie unto itself.

    IANAL, but isn’t this kind of misrepresentation of testimony known as . . . what’s the word? . . . lying to the court? And not just once, but as Marcy notes, it is a pattern of lying to the court.

    I would assume that any defense attorney worth her salt would be salivating at the chance to take this nonsense apart in front of a judge. Beyond having the case tossed with prejudice, though, I wonder if the judge would issue an additional personal sanction for such conduct on the part of Durham/DOJ.

    I pity the line prosecutor who will have to stand in front of a judge and try to present this with a straight face. OTOH, I wonder if any line prosecutor will agree to argue this case. “If I go in there with this, I am not only going to get laughed out of court but the judge may ask for my head. Thank you, no. I’ll pass. You can try the case yourself, and bask in all the glory your case so richly deserves.”

    And if Durham demands she/he takes the case or be fired, that makes the lying even worse. “Let’s go talk to OPR about that, shall we?” says the line prosecutor. I believe the phrase the prosecutor might use in describing Durham to OPR (and the relevant bar associations) is “suborning perjury”.

    • emptywheel says:

      Not a chance anyone will get sanctioned (tho one of Durham’s prosecutors was involved in a massive Brady violation in SDNY, so when that happens in one of these cases, he may be done).

      That said, the judge here is the same one that presided over Bijan Kian’s case–Mike Flynn’s partner. Judge Anthony Trenga. No idea how he’ll view this. He was obviously irked by the Kian case. But some rulings/predispositions he is evolving to in that case may highly influence how he treats this one.

      That is, he may be favorable to Durham’s project, but not some of the stunts he is about to pull.

        • GKJames says:

          And that’s the disconcerting part: Durham can do stunts knowing that he has a safety net, i.e., no judge is going to hammer him. Near as we can tell, he doesn’t care about the quality of his allegations because a conviction (or plea), while nice to have, isn’t really his primary focus. To chew up and spit out a guy who happens to be a non-citizen is just one slice of a bigger pie. And the courts will abet him.

    • Silly but True says:

      I don’t think Durham is alleging that Danchenko received a(ny) call but it wasn’t Millian, or alternately it was someone Danchenko lied about believing it to be Millian.

      Rather, I think based on the indictment, Durham is alleging Danchenko received no call at all; i.e. Danchenko was concealing from Mueller investigation how the information came to him.

  7. Hoping4Better_Times says:

    Did Durham use a Grand Jury to indict Danchenko? Durham’s evidence is so dodgy. Did Durham file the indictment without prior scrutiny from DOJ lawyers? How ironic that DOJ is taking its time looking at contempt charges against Steve Bannon and yet filed such flawed cases against Sussman and Danchenko.

    • Quake says:

      My understanding is that since Durham is a special prosecutor appointed by TFG’s administration, he’s effectively unsupervisable by the current administration. Given the political flak that stopping Durham would entail, all that the current administration‘s DOJ can do is let Durham go ahead unless and until a court demands he be sanctioned.

    • subtropolis says:

      How is it ironic? Durham has been working at this for a couple of years. And the DoJ might already have an ongoing investigation into Bannon which could keep them from rushing to indict him for contempt of Congress. There could already be much bigger things in the works, iow. There’s no comparison between the two.

  8. Matt says:

    Do you feel there’s any culpability on the DNC and their fixer firm Perkins Coie for both manufacturing the dossier and hiring Crowdstrike to manage damage control on the email leak?

    Danchenko was tapped because of his Russian connections and affiliations with Brookings institute… obviously Dolan because he was a a Clinton PR man.

    At the end of the day, are these guys the good guys?

    • emptywheel says:

      Would you like me to start by fact checking your comment, which includes a number of grave errors?

      Or by pointing out you’ve just accused a victim for hiring competent professionals for help after being hacked by a nation-state. Why would you do that?

      • Matt says:

        I started off in earnest believing that there was Putin-Trump collusion and Hillary was a victim, as you say… and Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS, Crowdstrike were the “good guys” for exposing it all. Excuse me for holding onto the possibility that maybe it was a dirty tricks game all along. I cite one source for my wavering faith in the DNC: Loaded for Guccifer 2.0 by David J Blake. I apologize if you’ve read and debunked it…. if so, can you direct me to your blog post about it? My take is that Mr. Blake is at your caliber it terms of research, but comes to VERY different conclusions. Thank you for your work as always.

        • emptywheel says:

          I’ve addressed that ilk of conspiracy.

          At this point, though, I’m pretty much done with people who use the term “RussiaGate” and don’t realize it’s a term they themselves adopted for themselves, to describe people who believe in things like that the dossier was the totality of the Russian investigation. It’s a crowd of people who don’t realize they’re making fun of themselves.

        • Dr matt says:

          Look, you’re the expert. Not arguing that. All I’m saying is that the book I recommended was written last year and it adds an incredible forensic analysis of the DNC hack and the Crowdstrike/FBI investigation. I thought maybe you already were aware of it.

          It makes way more sense than either partisan views of the Trump/Russia saga, probably because it was written exclusively as data investigation by a Britt without the usual Dem/GOP political bias. I only recommend it because I respect you as one of the top experts of this controversy.

        • emptywheel says:

          It’s the same warmed over argument from 2017, which by not partisan you mean, Russian, even if half the players didn’t realize they were easy dupes.

          The DNC hired experts. Anyone who wants to invent conspiracy out of them trying to lock their doors really needs to rethink their mind games.

        • Dr matt says:

          My point exactly. EVERYTHING rides on the conclusions of “DNC hired experts” -Crowdstrike. The guy that hired Crowdstrike and the political operatives that manufactured the dossier was Sussman. That’s important because it ALWAYS matters who pays the bills. When Dimitri Alperovitch was called up into the big leagues do you not think he knew his paymaster, or that his biases against his homeland, Russia, were not known? As an American citizen why in the world would I trust him as an employee of the DNC’s law firm?

          As a matter of national security, it is unprecedented that a third party control both the evidence and investigation of what was alleged to be an act of state terror or war. David J Blake published in 2020… 400+ pages of referenced technical analysis that make the Crowdstrike/FBI investigation look like a clown show.

          Back to Durham. If nothing else, we know the DNC had it’s own dirty tricksters and they KNEW the dossier was bunk all along. You may say that it is unimportant, but it was the match that lit the public rage regarding Trump/Russia collusion and the ensuing Crossfire Hurricane and Mueller Probe. We’re talking 3+ years of of American History fixated on a collection of garbage paid for by the DNC.

        • Rayne says:

          Wow. If I had my doubts before I’m firmly convinced now: you’re wearing tinfoil. You’re perilously close to the “single server” conspiracy theory.

          DNC is NOT a government entity. It’s not obligated to release information to the public about its business operations. The government doesn’t have to release information to the public if an investigation is related to counterintelligence and/or there may be national security risks involved.

          And if you believe CrowdStrike is that sketchy, I sure hope your paycheck isn’t processed by ADP since they use CrowdStrike’s services as do many other large organizations.

          You really don’t know what you’re talking about in so many layers.

        • emptywheel says:

          By “everything rides on Crowdstrike,” you mean, you’re confessing to be unaware of 1) the 32 sources of corroboration for Crowdstrike and 2) the fact that Henry was asked about one report about one breach and those who keep repeating it betray they don’t understand how many reports and how many breaches, including on a third party server that itself was corroboration.

          By, “The DNC knew their dossier was bunk,” you mean “there’s no evidence anyone at the DNC (or the Hillary Campaign, which are different things) knew about the dossier.”

          Wow. Those are some really embarrassing errors you’ve waltzed into my comment section to confess to all of us. What other facesplat stupidity would you like to confess to next?

        • Dr matt says:

          Ouch, I’m kind of a sensitive guy. Very sorry I wasted your time. I only came here to get a take on the David Blake book I read which seemed legit.

          One request before I slither away… since I’m a reader… can you recommend a book(s) that in your view summarizes the best take on Russian Interference issue? Did I say that right?

          I came here to learn, because I respect this group as experts.

          …. please don’t forget to quickly make a book recommendation for me…

          Thank you.

    • Rayne says:

      manufacturing the dossier” versus “contracting opposition research” — you do realize it’s extremely common in politics to obtain opposition research from third parties, don’t you?

      manage damage control” versus “investigate cyber attacks” — these are really very different objectives. CrowdStrike is in the information security industry providing “cloud workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services.” Not at all the same as crisis management usually performed by PR companies.

      I really question your personal objective here, especially since you exhorted we “FORGET RUSSIA AND TRUMP!” back in October 2017.

      If we haven’t mentioned this before in your previous 480 comments approved to date, there are a number of community members who are some variant of “matt” or “Matt.” Please use a more differentiated username so that community members recognize you and get to know you.

      • Dr matt says:

        Hi Rayne,
        Hopefully no other “Matt” is using Dr matt. My personal objective has always been to learn the truth. I faithfully read EW in 2017… but I felt the actual Facebook hack and beautifully destructive ads that “influenced” the election for Trump were run by Bannon and Cambridge Analytica funded by Right wacko billionaire, Robert Mercer. It was a huge expenditure vs. the few that came out of IRA group and have never conclusively been attributed to Putin. New evidence of how deep the Mercers were into organizing Trumps ad campaign: https://campaignlegal.org/update/newly-published-cambridge-analytica-documents-show-unlawful-support-trump-2016

        To me, even if Putin placed a few bets on Trump at IRA Group it was inconsequential. But, a billionaire like Mercer that stole and weaponized American’s data and DID influence the election is much more worrisome. Putin put up a penny ante, while Mercer was at the VIP table.

        Prong 2 of the Russia Interference Theory was the DNC hack/leak. We still only can “assume” the servers were hacked. It doesn’t give much weight to Crowdstrike’s analysis when the CEO, Shawn Henry testifies in front of Congress that they can’t be sure of “Russian” attribution. Think tanks and Big Law firms are very partisan… I don’t trust Perkins Coie any more than Porter Wight Morris & Arthur… Same with think tanks… Brookings vs Heritage. All partisan. Same with Crowdstrike uncontrovertibly anti-Russian and Atlantic Council associated.

        As I mentioned in my reply to Marcy, I was curious and read the 400p book, “Loaded for Guccifer 2.0” by David J Blake. He’s a British sheep herder turned Russiagate sleuth and his analysis is quite convincing.

        Anyway, what I’m getting at, is that The Durham indictments probably won’t lead to convictions… but what they are doing is calling out liars. If Sussman hired liars (partisan democratic think tank analysist and PR firms) to manufacture and promote the Dossier… who’s to say he didn’t also hire Crowdstrike to sell the Russia hack story and use it to further damage Trump. That Perkins Coie was able to hire Crowdstrike for a national security threat level event is beyond odd in the first place, much less the FBI’s complete abnegation of leadership for both the material evidence and investigation itself.

        Again, are these the “good guys?” Do you really trust them? Before you lambast me for heresy, please let me know if you have already debunked the David J. Blake book. If not please read it:

        https://www.amazon.com/Loaded-Guccifer2-0-Following-Digital-Geopolitics/dp/B08MSZHMGP

        • P J Evans says:

          A “British sheepherder turned Russiagate sleuth”? What’s his field of expertise, other than herding sheep and spreading rumors exported from Russia?

        • Dr matt says:

          Exactly. He’s not devoted to any government or narrative… Besides herding sheep he’s also a self described wine connoisseur. All kidding aside, a sample of his work can be seen at the link below. Though he assembles his facts differently than Marcy, he seems to have the same level of absolute thoroughness. He really is a nobody, because the political Right hasn’t even discovered his work yet. Anyway, check out the sampler of his investigation on his website and decide for yourself if he’s a capable foil to go head to head with the EW crowd.

          https://loadedforguccifer.wordpress.com/

        • emptywheel says:

          Omigoodness.

          You came here calling yourself a RussiaGate, not understanding how much of a self-own is, and then you admitting you think there is one server and don’t understand how many reports Crowdstrike did or how many targets Russia targeted.

          Any other hilarity you want to display?

        • Dr matt says:

          Yes, I have embarrassed myself. It’s not about me, because I don’t claim to be an expert at all. I was really asking you and the EW community if they had been exposed to the work of David J Blake. I posted a link to his website on the reply to PJ Evans comment. That way you can vet a few pages without having to obtain the book. I guess I’m actually asking your opinion about it.

  9. Savage Librarian says:

    In the news: Belarus. Let’s see. That’s the birthplace of Sarhei Kukuts, aka Sergei Millian.

    Interestingly, Evan Neumann, an insurrectionist from Mill Valley, CA, recently fled to Belarus seeking “asylum.”

    And this week, Putin had some words for Alexander Lukashenko, his mini-me in Belarus.

    But wait…that’s not all. Lukashenko also finds his name strangely connected to Florida.

    The story excerpted and cited below may possibly have its red herrings and/or MacGuffins, as well as its grifters and propagandists.

    And it has several interesting photos, too.

    “Investigators Scrutinize Joel Greenberg Ally with Eastern European Ties” – 7/6/21

    “Keith Ingersoll entered into a cryptocurrency project in 2018 with a far-right Russian religious scholar that claimed to be backed by the government of Belarus.”
    …..
    “Just one week later, Organic Fresh Coin’s (OFC) website was created, an alleged partnership of Ingersoll, a Russian-born Miami-based entrepreneur named Yulia Konstantinova, and Soviet-born theologian Mikhail Morgulis, who holds the title of Honorary Consul of Belarus in Florida.”
    …..
    “The ThinkProgress profile followed a Washington Post report on Morgulis’s efforts to collaborate with alleged Russian intelligence operative Sergei Millian to rally Russian voters for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.”

    https://forensicnews.net/greenberg-prosecutors-scrutinize-ally-keith-ingersoll-with-eastern-european-ties/

  10. Jenny says:

    Thank you Dr. Marcy.
    The layers upon layers for years continues. This “investigate the investigators” started May 2019. How much longer will Durham have to investigate? Is there an expiration date?

  11. Savage Librarian says:

    Marcy, thanks so much for reminding me of some things through your tweet feed at the bottom of your post. I had almost mentioned in my previous comment that the first thing that popped in my head after reading this particular post was that photo of Millian and Deripaska at the 2016 SPIEF.

    I wish I had been aware of your blog sooner. It would have been helpful to have read your 1/11/17 post about your concerns about the provenance of the dossier then. That specific date is very memorable to me for reasons I think you might find amusing. I suspect it will flash through my mind during my final lights out moments. It only has very tangential significance to the matters at hand, though, and some irony. I digress.

    Since Deripaska’s name has come up, do you think the search warrant for his DC property is related to anything in your post (or this series of posts)?

    • emptywheel says:

      Only indirectly. They seem to be onto him for violating sanctions, but the sanctions were imposed, in part, for his role in the election tampering.

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