The Evidentiary Necklace

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2022

(Feb. 15, 2022) — Well, whatta ya know.  After what seems like an eternity of inaction, John Durham and his ever-expanding criminal deep-dive into the Black Lagoon of the “Trump-Russia Collusion” hoax seems to finally be retrieving some pearls.  Some of the pearls are small…, but others are huge.

Specifically, certain pearls in the evidentiary necklace that may some day choke those who are culpable include ones constituting credible evidence that the Hillary (“BleachBit…, What Bleachbit?”) Clinton Campaign back in 2016 was up to no good, contrary to the pitiful spiel of octogenarian Leslie Stahl at the CBS tragi-comedy labeled “60 Minutes.”

And by “no good” is meant that Durham’s investigation seems to have discovered that the Clinton Campaign “laundered” money through its legal counsel – Democrat powerhouse mouthpiece Perkins Coie – in order to pay for a computer tech company to “hack” into computers at Trump Tower and the Trump apartment building in New York during Trump’s run for the presidency.  But wait…, there’s more.

The cherry on top of this pearly mound of evidence is the assertion by Durham that the hack also extended into the White House computers and the Oval Office, the Executive Office of the President … after Trump was inaugurated President of the United States.  Seriously?

These facts come to light in two motions filed by Durham in separate indictments against one Igor Danchenko, a Russian resident of Virginia who is alleged to be the prime “source” for the now-debunked “Steele Dossier,” and against one Michael Sussman, once an attorney at the Perkins Coie law firm which represented both Hillary Clinton and the Democratic [sic] National Committee. https://www.scribd.com/document/558481943/USA-v-Sussmann-Durham-Filing-Motion-on-Potential-Conflicts-of-Interest

On the surface, the two motions bring to the attention of the two different judges in two different courts – the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Sussman) and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Danchenko) – the questions of whether there are or potentially could be disqualifying conflicts of interest between and among the various lawyers, law firms and their past, present and potentially future clients, including the current defendants.

The legal interstices of the motions are not that complex: in the interests of justice – a concept foreign to most of the defendants and players involved – Durham is asking the two judges to examine whether because of the history of intertwined legal counseling and representations, a legal conflict of interest between and among the defendants and their lawyers exists or could in the future exist. 

Quite aside from the objective of “doing justice” in the two cases, resolution of the conflicts question at the outset would remove the issue as a delaying impediment at trial or as a potential basis for an appeal later on during or after the trials.  The motions even note the availability of conflict waivers by the defendants, subject to approval by the two judges. 

Durham’s motions might thus also be seen as preliminary “shots across the bow” as a prelude to a larger “divide and conquer” strategy.  Because Durham would be subject to sanctions if his assurances to the courts in the motions that his evidence at trial “will establish” and “will prove” the matters set out in the “Factual Background” sections of the motions don’t materialize, they are thus also presumptively not only true, but already documented.

If the “divide and conquer” tactic is true and that strategy pans out, it would bring to mind the colloquial adage: “Momma didn’t raise no fool.”

Pravda on the Hudson – formerly known as The New York Times – has rushed to the defense of the Clinton cabal. After ignoring the filings altogether over the weekend, the “journalists” there now brush aside the “alarmist claims” of Durham’s motions.  The motions are characterized as legal documents which “tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time.”

Really?

The Gray Trollop writers are suggesting that a simple question of whether actual or potential conflicts of interest which could impact the cases – including witness testimony, plea agreements and similar issues – is so far beyond the mental capabilities of its oh-so- enlightened readership that it purportedly raises “the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims.”

Few excuses more transparently bogus and Clinton-centric than that one come to mind.  Here’s a suggestion for The Trollop: dumb down the clarity of the Durham motions for your intellectually challenged subscribers.

The Trollop had no problem “covering” (aka, “editorializing”) and falsely legitimizing the original “Trump-Russia” and “Steele Dossier” hoaxes.  Yet in order to spare its dwindling ranks of readers from the ordeal of actually thinking and analyzing the import of the Durham revelations, it might consider ignoring the story altogether.  Alas, it has become “par for the course” for that publication, along with all but a few true journalistic outlets…, one of which you are now reading.

Both motions reveal a lot about what Durham actually has – and may in the future obtain – in the way of empirical evidence he intends to use at the two defendants’ trials.  Even a cursory examination of the “Factual Background” sections of the two motions reveals enough for the BleachBit Bimbo, as well as a variety of unnamed lawyers at “Law Firm-1” – Perkins Coie – to begin “lawyering up,” assuming, of course, that exercise has not already begun. 

Faithful P&E readers, paying computer geeks to hack into the computers of a candidate running for President of the United States is one thing.  But paying to have that effort continue after the person is no longer a “candidate” but has been sworn in as President is quite another and could, in certain instances, constitute what is known as “espionage” under 18 U.S.C. § 798. 

Moreover, any agreement between and/or among those responsible for these activities could, again in certain instances, constitute a “conspiracy” under 18 U.S.C. § 371 or implicate crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 1030, entitled “Fraud and Related Activity in Connection With Computers.”

Let us see what the responses from current defendants Danchenko and Sussman will say. Faithful P&E readers, stay tuned…, this could get a lot more interesting. 

Soon.