February 15, 2022
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Monday that he expects to see “quite a few more indictments” come out of special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI probe of claims that former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
Ratcliffe also revealed that he’d seen intelligence that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign “was creating a plan to vilify Donald Trump [and] to falsely accuse him of ties to Russia,” and further alleged that the intelligence community, the FBI — as well as then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden — were all briefed on the matter.
“[Then-Attorney General] Bill Barr, John Durham, and I, all looking at this intelligence, agreed there was not a proper predicate to open a criminal investigation into the Trump campaign, yet that happened,” Ratcliffe said.
“So, those are the issues that John Durham is looking at, and I think there’ll be many more — I would expect there to be quite a few more indictments because of that. There was not a proper predicate to begin that investigation. John Durham has said that publicly already.”
Also Monday, Fox News reported that Durham’s investigation has “accelerated,” with more people “cooperating” and testifying before a grand jury than previously revealed.
A source familiar with the probe told Fox there’s been “much more activity” behind the scenes “than has been visible to the public,” adding: “Durham does this right and keeps it a secret.”
Ratcliffe’s comments came during an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” in the wake of Durham’s blockbuster Friday court filing.
That document alleged Clinton’s campaign paid an Internet company to extract data from servers at Trump Tower and the White House to try to tie Trump president to a Russian bank.
Ratcliffe declined to say who he expected to wind up in the dock but recounted a discussion he had with Durham in the fall of 2020, around the time Ratcliffe ordered the declassification of documents related to the FBI probe in the fall of 2020.
“We talked about [then-CIA Director] John Brennan’s notes, talked about, you know, Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisers,” Ratcliffe recalled. “Obviously the pleadings talk about Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyers, now you’re talking about consultants.”
Among the documents Ratcliffe released were handwritten notes by then-CIA Director John Brennan, who briefed President Barack Obama of “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”
“He [Brennan] briefed President Obama and Vice President Biden and other members of the national security team about this specific intelligence, that John Durham now has, about a Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse and vilify Donald Trump with a scandal, and the discussion around that and whether or not it was good intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “So everything that happened after that … is one of the reasons that John Durham is investigating.
Earlier in the interview, Ratcliffe added that he believed Durham had found evidence of “a conspiracy, meaning two or more people in furtherance of a crime; and anyone that was aware that this campaign plan was going to be falsely pitched to the FBI or the CIA or law enforcement or intelligence authorities would be subject to criminal prosecution for any number of criminal crimes — mail fraud, wire fraud, lying under oath, congressional testimony, false testimony to prosecutors, all of those things.
“So it could go broadly and deeply. I think it does, based on intelligence that I have seen and that I discussed with John Durham.”
Ratcliffe’s comments echoed similar remarks he made in November following the indictment of Igor Danchenko, a key contributor to the discredited Steele dossier, who was arrested on charges that he lied to the FBI regarding his sources.
At the time, the former DNI chief warned that everyone involved in creating the dossier was in “jeopardy.”
The Friday motion by Durham alleged that a Clinton campaign lawyer, Michael Sussmann, “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including … the Clinton campaign.”
“Based on the allegations, a tech executive [Rodney Joffe] and tech company used what was originally lawful access into government servers, but to gain information and to use it for an unlawful purpose,” Ratcliffe explained. “So what John Durham’s pleading talks about is that Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, Michael Sussmann, took this information from the tech executives and pitched it to the FBI as evidence of Trump-Russia connections that simply weren’t true, and that the lawyer, Michael Sussmann, and the tech executive knew not to be true.”
Sussmann has also been charged with lying to a federal agent, and pleaded not guilty in September.
He allegedly falsely told the FBI he was not working on behalf of the Clinton campaign when he presented the agency with documents that supposedly linked the Trump Organization to a Kremlin-tied bank two months before the election.
However, Durham claims “records reflect” that Sussmann “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the … allegations.”
SOURCE: NY Post