The Danchenko trial: on framing Trump, on exonerating Hunter
There is a lot of reportage (on the right, anyway) about some of the revelations in the Danchenko trial. I’ve been meaning to write a post about that. But one of the problems is that the legal issues in the trial are a bit difficult to understand, and not many of the explanations offer sufficient clarification of what’s going on.
The other thing that has me dragging my heels is that I strongly suspect this trial will not matter. The half of the country on the Democrat side, and most of the MSM, will ignore the shocking parts and/or emphasize the parts that can be spun in a way more favorable to the FBI and the Democrats.
And a conviction probably won’t happen. Here’s Andrew C. McCarthy on why a conviction will be difficult:
A witness cannot properly be accused of lying if he has not been asked a question that would necessarily have elicited the information the government claims has been withheld. It is objectionable for a prosecutor to ask me, “Isn’t it a fact that you never told the FBI you robbed the bank?” if there is no evidence that the FBI ever asked me whether I robbed the bank. It is not my job to volunteer information (let alone incriminating information); it is the investigators’ job to ask.
It is entirely possible — I’d be willing to bet that it’s likely — that Danchenko was disingenuous in his some of his discussions with the FBI about the sources of information that he fed to Steele. But to prove that he intentionally made false statements, the prosecution will have to establish that he was asked sharp questions and gave clear answers that were plainly untrue.
In other words, here’s my understanding of what’s going on: with Russiagate and the Steele dossier: the FBI clearly did not want to know the truth and in fact actively avoided seeking it. They instead appear to have been intent on implicating Trump and therefore did not pursue the obvious holes in the stories being told. Therefore convicting someone like Danchenko will be difficult (as it was with Sussman). Because the FBI was guilty of essentially framing the president, being lied to or misled was accomplished with the FBI’s willing participation, and prosecuting someone under a law about lying to the FBI becomes an uphill battle.
Earlier, McCarthy wrote this:
It remains to be seen whether Durham can prove these charges…
What is not in doubt, though, is that the trial is highlighting the FBI’s shocking malfeasance in the Trump-Russia “collusion” probe, which it codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
The first witness in the case was FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, of whom Durham himself conducted the prosecution’s questioning. Auten conceded the FBI had offered Steele $1 million if he could prove his sensational allegations that Trump was in cahoots with the regime of Vladimir Putin and that the Kremlin was positioned to blackmail the then-candidate because it supposedly possessed a video recording of Trump engaging in sexual hijinks.
Ultimately, the bureau never had to pay the $1 million because neither Steele nor Danchenko could prove the dossier allegations. In fact, according to court filings, Durham’s investigation has concluded the so-called pee tape was a complete fabrication. Further, when the FBI finally got around to interviewing Danchenko, months after it first received Steele’s reporting, Danchenko debunked it as a screed of rumor and innuendo, much of it exaggerated and gussied up to look like professional intelligence analysis…
More to the point, though, that the FBI offered to pay such an exorbitant sum in hopes Steele’s anti-Trump claims could be backed up is proof positive that the bureau knew these claims were not verified.
That is key. The rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Justice Department mandate the FBI must verify information before submitting it to the court in applying for surveillance warrants. Even though it could not prove the Steele allegations and had every reason to know they were exaggerated if not out-and-out false, the FBI relied on the Steele claims in sworn applications.
It gets worse. The FBI obtained FISC surveillance warrants to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016 and mid-January 2017, representing to the court that Trump appeared to be in a corrupt conspiracy with the Kremlin. Finally, in late January, the FBI interviewed Danchenko, who debunked Steele’s reporting. Nevertheless, even after speaking with Danchenko, the bureau continued relying on Steele’s allegations when — again under oath — it persuaded the court to extend the surveillance in April and June 2017…
Indeed, not only did the FBI fail to disclose to the Justice Department and the court that Danchenko had contradicted Steele’s claims. The bureau told the court it had interviewed Danchenko to “further corroborate” Steele’s reporting (which actually had not been corroborated). In so doing, the bureau elaborated, it found Danchenko to be “truthful and cooperative.”
Of course, what the FBI didn’t mention was that what Danchenko had been “truthful and cooperative” about was the fact that Steele’s claims were sheer nonsense. Thus, FISC judges were led to believe Danchenko had verified Steele’s reporting when the truth was just the opposite.
There’s also, of course, the fact that some of the agents involved in pushing lies to implicate Trump were the same people involved in pushing lies to exonerate Hunter Biden. That, more than anything else, starkly highlights the FBI’s pro-Democrat bias. They lied to hurt Trump’s chance of re-election and they lied to prop up Biden’s chances (more on that here).
You can find more details about recent testimony in the trial in this piece, which is long but well worth reading. Here’s an excerpt (in the following, Durham asks the questions, and an FBI agent named Helson is answering):
Q. All right. Well, what about looking at what [Danchenko] had said as compared to what the records showed? Did you do that going backward?
A. Not going backwards, no.
Q. Did they make a specific recommendation to you that the Bureau behavioral assessment group conduct an examination to determine what Mr. Danchenko’s actual motives, allegiances and vulnerabilities were?
A. Yes.
Q. And did you do that?
A. No…
Q. Were you — was it recommended that you do an assessment or to look at the financial nature of Mr. Danchenko’s employment because of the concern that he may be prone to shopping around his information in search of work and pre-composing reporting containing unsolicited material, which may indicate the FBI is not the primary audience for his information?
A. Yeah, I saw that in the report.
Q. Did you do that?
A. No.
Q. Was it recommended that the Washington Field Office determine whether Mr. Danchenko committed any unauthorized illegal activity for the apparent falsehoods and inaccuracies contained in his visa and immigration documents?
A. Yes, they recommended that.
Q. Did you do that?
A. No.
Then Durham asked Helson about the Washington Field Office recommendation to polygraph Danchenko, apparently concerned with Danchenko’s loyalties:
Q. Did they specifically recommend to the Washington Field Office and you that you considered administering a polygraph of Mr. Danchenko to determine if he has ever been tasked by a foreign individual, entity or government to collect information or to perform actions adverse to the U.S. interest?
A. They recommended that, yes.
Q. Did you do that?
A. No.
how many more times can McCarthy be wrong?All the news reports or witnesses that he reflexively stated that they had the goods on Trump this time only to quietly backtrack a few days later
In a just world, people responsible for things like this would be seeing the inside of Supermaxes or shallow ditches in the ground. But it is hard to find more decisive evidence we do not live in a just world.
McCarthy states, “to prove that he intentionally made false statements, the prosecution will have to establish that he was asked sharp questions and gave clear answers that were plainly untrue.”
Once a ‘justice’ system has proven to be deeply corrupted, all trust in its legitimacy is lost. So, upon what basis might we assume that the verdict hasn’t already been predetermined?
Show trials need no evidence to reach a desired verdict. Just the Jan. 6th political prisoner ‘trials’ alone, demonstrate that the rule of law has been fatally compromised.
not to beat a dead horse, but the road to the donbass, runs through this second rate wormuld act, and the coverup of hunters paymaster burisma, which lost 6 billion dollars of tax payer money,
the bureau keeps lesuo (mandarin for blackmailed) eric swalwell in the clear, same for pelosi, and there’s probably a host of others, it allowed greenberg, a slithy tove to spit out uncorroborated allegations against matt gaetz, it employed two chinese double agents in the interpreter division, it went after aipac, and lets cair skate,
I can’t look at this stuff anymore. I’ll have a stroke.
Durham: “Did you do that?
FBI agent: No.”
My next question would have been, “Why not?”
Is there such a thing as insubordination in the FBI? If not, why not?
Possible scenario aboard the USS Midway in 1965.
CO: “Were you ordered to bomb the POL supplies at Vinh?”
Pilot: “Yes.”
CO: “Did you do it?”
Pilot: “No.”
CO: “Sergeant of the guard, report to ready room 4.”
Pilot: “What’s that all about?”
CO: “Your ass is going to the brig until I convene a General Court Martial. I’m going to hang your ass from the yardarm.””
There is no honor, no ethics, and no shame among these government bureaucrats. It’s all just a big game. Only outsiders are held responsible for their actions, and they’re mostly framed when that happens. How many ways have they tried to frame Trump? How about Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and so many unknown January 6th protestors.
Vote in this election as if your life depended on it. Because it does.
JJ,
Not Durham’s job to ask, “Why not?” And it’s a dangerous question to ask on cross, especially if you do not know what they will say. You want to control a hostile witness. You do that by asking only leading questions that require only “Yes” or “No” answers. All those “No” answers will register with a jury. They can fill in the blanks. You don’t want a hostile witness filling in the blanks. You can do so yourself on closing.
Instapundit often posts a poll that says Americans think of the FBI as Biden’s personal gestapo. I disagree. That suggests Biden is running the FBI. I think it is the opposite. The FBI is running Biden.
My oldest daughter has been an FBI agent for 20 years. I think she is honest but she is a hard lefty and Trump hater. I was a bit encouraged in 2016 when she announced that she would not vote for Hillary. In the family we do not discuss politics. I used to hold the FBI in high esteem but no more.
We are a long way from Ephraim Zimbalist days.
Makes no difference if Danchenko is found guilty or not.
He was simply a messenger – a conveyor of lies and BS – that the FBI , DOJ, CIA used as an excuse to launch an illegal investigation. Illegal in that they had zero evidence to launch an investigation.
Hearsay does not constitute evidence.
The real guilty actors in this entire Trump/Russia mess, the ones that really engaged in illegal actions, are the FBI and DOJ (and probably the CIA and NSA too).
They purposefully and intentionally launched a malicious investigation – and made it very public – having no evidence at all. It was done solely to bring down Trump’s presidency.
Further, they lied to the courts about the reliability of their “evidence. ”
The actors engaged in treason.
If the key actors had done this to bring down Obama’s presidency, they would have already been swinging at the end of a rope wrapped around their neck.
More unfortunately, is IF the Republicans take Congress and the presidency, they will just hold hearings; maybe.
A total waste of time this will be.
Nobody will be indicted or go to jail or be punished. And the media will totally ignore the hearings anyway.
Those testifying before Congress and lying their ass off have nothing to fear. Congress apparently has no ability to actually punish anybody or if they do, congress does zero anyway; that is if the republicans have the majority.
The demonkrats are truly an evil, duplicitous, power hungry bunch that play hardball all the time. For them, the ends justifies the means.
The republicans are just stupid; playing by the rules when nobody else pays attention to the rules.
If you don’t fight fire with fire, you will lose.
Here’s a curious one:
“FBI handler: Danchenko didn’t know his report would end up in Steele dossier;
“Danchenko faces five federal counts of lying to the FBI in its investigation into possible Russia-Trump campaign collusion.”—-
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/fbi-agent-tells-durham-danchenko-contributed-80-steele-dossier-disputing-sub
So…Steele’s main source (or main sub-source or main sub-sub-source) had absolutely NO idea that the lies he was feeding Steele would actually end up in the dossier.
Well, I’ll admit it’s creative!
(Oh, BTW, anyone wanna buy a bridge over the East River? Any bridge.)
Slow Saturday here, eh? So, according to conservative sites (https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/10/14/herschel-walker-shocks-his-critics-at-debate-with-raphael-warnock-n643384), Herschel Walker surprised everybody with a strong debate performance. In addition to the October surprise sprung on Walker (the allegation, which he denies, of having funded a girlfriend’s abortion), there’s an October surprise for Warnock. His church, which is still paying him a generous salary and monthly housing allowance, owns a residential tower from which it served eviction notices to low-income tenants for small sums owed. Further, it now appears that the church foundation has not properly reported this property to the state agency for charitable groups.
Pingback:Links and Comments | Rockport Conservatives
When Danchenko is either acquitted or found guilty, the media will be able to spin it to protect the FBI:
Acquitted: the FBI was told what their informant believed was the truth, and acted accordingly.
Convicted: the FBI was told a lie by their informant, and acted accordingly.
The question the media should be asked is, why was there no reporting on the FBI testimony during the trial, that showed they wanted to be lied to?
McCarthy remains committed to an FBI ideal that is long gone.
“But to prove that he intentionally made false statements, the prosecution will have to establish that he was asked sharp questions and gave clear answers that were plainly untrue.”
This is also true of the FISA judges that allowed themselves to be misled – they FAILED to require written answers by the FBI/ Comey + which would, today, show clear lies.
All 4 FISA judges who approved warrants based on FBI not-quite-false assurances should be impeached. They, the supervisors of the FBI, failed to supervise effectively.
Also, the FBI never lies.
It can’t lie.
It’s a legal fiction.
Only human beings, people with names and titles, can, and do, lie. Like Danchenko or Comey or McCabe.
All belong in jail, but the latter two almost certainly won’t be going.
Don Surber articulates one of my fantasies – using the gov’t against the top Dem bureaucrats in gov’t.
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2022/10/keep-irs-turn-it-on-democrats.html
But it ain’t gonna happen.
What IS possible is to allow massive firings. Even without criminal or civil prosecutions, just get rid of most bureaucrats of most DC agencies.
It would be great if there were a 10 year term limit on all Federal gov’t jobs, including FBI/ CIA/ NSA … IRS and every other Fed agency.
1 year to learn the job – 8 years on the job – last year teaching new folks the job.
Then off to a NON-gov’t job.
There’s plenty of good people available who want gov’t to be good, and are willing to work hard for that end.
Nobody is irreplaceable.
Leland on October 15, 2022 at 7:23 am said:
Instapundit often posts a poll that says Americans think of the FBI as Biden’s personal gestapo. I disagree. That suggests Biden is running the FBI. I think it is the opposite. The FBI is running Biden.
Yes, the deep state is in charge. It required considerable effort over 4 years, but it finally was able to eject the elected POTUS and replace him with a tool.