XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism, misc.survivalism   
   XPost: alt.survival, or.politics   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
    Hope he's got his cocksucking knee pads ready!  He's committed a felony   
   and he's going to jail!   
      
    Federal law makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” give   
   “materially” false statements to Congress, even if unsworn – which is not   
   to be confused with the more general crime of perjury for lying under   
   oath.   
      
   The consequences for either crime are serious: one can face up to five   
   years in prison.   
      
   June 21, 2023   
   John Durham Just Made False Statements to Congress   
   The former special counsel denied two essential facts of the Trump-Russia   
   scandal.   
      
   John Durham—the special counsel who was appointed by then-Attorney General   
   Bill Barr to investigate the FBI’s investigation of the Trump-Russia   
   scandal and who utterly failed to produce evidence it was a hoax—testified   
   before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. In doing so, he made   
   false statements to Congress. He might even have lied.   
      
   Durham spent four years on a crusade that Donald Trump and others hoped   
   would back up Trump’s claim that the Russia investigation was cooked up by   
   his enemies within the supposed Deep State. Yet Durham came up empty on   
   this front, losing two jury trials unrelated to the origins of the FBI’s   
   inquiry and winning a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who had altered an   
   email to support a surveillance warrant for a former Trump campaign   
   adviser. He prosecuted no FBI officials or Obama administration officials   
   for the supposedly big crime of mounting a plot (or witch hunt!) against   
   Trump. Durham even concluded there was justification for the FBI to have   
   initiated a preliminary investigation, just not a full investigation, of   
   Russia’s attack on the 2016 election and contacts between the Trump   
   campaign and Russia.   
      
   When Durham came before the committee, House Republicans eagerly picked   
   over the scraps in his final report, which has been much criticized, and   
   they treated him as a hero. But under questioning from Democratic and   
   Republican members, Durham misrepresented key aspects of the Russia   
   scandal, suggesting he was either unfamiliar with basic facts or was   
   purposefully trying to mislead the committee and the American public.   
   MOTHER JONES TOP STORIES   
      
   During his turn to question Durham, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked   
   Durham about the infamous meeting held in Trump Tower on June 9, 2016,   
   when Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort—three of Trump’s   
   top campaign advisers—sat down with an emissary of the Russian government   
   whom they were told had dirt on Hillary Clinton to share. An email sent to   
   Trump Jr. from a business associate that set up this session informed the   
   candidate’s son that this meeting was part of a secret Russian scheme to   
   help Trump’s campaign. Durham dismissed the matter, remarking, “People get   
   phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information   
   like that.”   
      
   This meeting signaled to Moscow that the Trump camp was receptive to   
   Russian endeavors to intervene in the election to boost Trump’s chances,   
   and Schiff expressed surprise that Durham found it insignificant. “Are you   
   really trying to diminish the importance of what happened here?” he asked.   
      
   Durham answered: “The more complete story is that they met, and it was a   
   ruse, and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton.”   
      
   That is not true.   
      
   The report produced by special counsel Robert Mueller notes that the   
   Russian emissary, a lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, did discuss   
   Clinton: “Participants agreed that Veselnitskaya stated that the Ziff   
   brothers [an American family investment firm] had broken Russian laws and   
   had donated their profits to the DNC or the Clinton Campaign. She asserted   
   that the Ziff brothers had engaged in tax evasion and money laundering in   
   both the United States and Russia.” (There was no evidence that Ziff   
   Brothers Investments had engaged in wrongdoing.)   
   Advertise with Mother Jones   
      
   The Mueller report points out that Trump Jr. zeroed in on this: “Trump Jr.   
   asked follow-up questions about how the alleged payments could be tied   
   specifically to the Clinton Campaign, but Veselnitskaya indicated that she   
   could not trace the money once it entered the United States.” The report   
   quotes a participant in the meeting recalling “that Trump Jr. asked what   
   they [the Russians] have on Clinton.”   
      
   Durham’s characterization of the meeting—that it had nothing to do with   
   Clinton—lined up with what the Trump camp first claimed when the meeting   
   was revealed a year afterward, in 2017. At that time, Trump Jr. issued a   
   false statement dictated by his father that insisted the conversation had   
   focused “primarily” on the adoption of Russian children by Americans. That   
   was a phony cover story. Later on, when more information came out, even   
   the elder Trump conceded that the point of the meeting was to gather   
   negative information on Clinton from a foreign adversary. “This was a   
   meeting to get information on an opponent,” Trump said. Yet years later,   
   Durham was still pushing the original disinformation about the meeting   
   propagated by Trump and his allies.   
      
   In a subsequent exchange with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Durham   
   misled the committee about another key element of the Trump-Russia   
   scandal. McClintock observed that the “central charge in the Russia   
   collusion hoax was that Trump campaign operatives were in contact with   
   Russian intelligence sources.”   
      
   Replying to that remark, Durham said, “There was no such evidence.”   
      
   That’s not true.   
      
   While running Trump’s campaign in the summer of 2016, Manafort had regular   
   contact with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Manafort employee in Ukraine   
   who has been repeatedly identified by US government officials as a Russian   
   agent.   
      
      
   In a detailed, bipartisan 2020 report, the Senate Intelligence Committee,   
   then chaired by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, called Kilimnik “a Russian   
   intelligence officer.” A year earlier, the Mueller report said, “The   
   FBI…assesses that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence.” The US   
   Treasury in 2021 declared Kilimnik was a “known Russian Intelligence   
   Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.” The   
   department added, “During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign,   
   Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive   
   information on polling and campaign strategy.” In 2018, Mueller indicted   
   Kilimnik on charges of obstruction of justice.   
      
   The contacts between Manafort and Kilimnik have been well chronicled by   
   Mueller, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and media reports. Durham   
   should be well-versed in this. Manafort and Kilimnik met secretly in a   
   Manhattan cigar bar. Manafort handed Kilimnik Trump campaign polling data   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)