All posts tagged "John Durham"

Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted both former special counsel John Durham and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee for twisting the actual findings of the report for Donald Trump.

"When I read the report, when it came out, I think my reaction was much like others. I was very — it was underwhelming," said Brennan. "The Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz did a good job pointing out some of the misteps, and the tactical missteps the FBI made. And also the Senate Intelligence Committee did a review of this."

He explained that the investigation in 2016 was right to search for what the Russians were doing and what the Trump administration was doing in support of the Russians. ...

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace highlighted testimony from former special counsel John Durham in Congress Wednesday and accused him of playing politics to dodge answering questions that were unflattering to him and his probe.

Speaking to NBC News reporter Garrett Haake, Wallace pointed out that Durham did not know the answer to basic facts about things he was supposed to be investigating.

"Durham's mandate is to investigate not just any investigators, not just investigators who happen to investigate while [Donald] Trump was president, not investigators who may have had one of the pieces of paper that cross their desk that pertains Russia, Durham's mandate was to investigate the investigators who investigated interference by Russia in the 2016 election," Wallace said. "And what a lot of people talk about when they revisit the Mueller report is the Trump figures that were charged that like Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos. Mueller also indicted a whole lot of Russians. Durham was the man in charge of the investigation, and he doesn't know basic facts? He either misstates or erroneously recounts the conclusions of the Mueller report. What was that?"
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Former special counsel John Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration to investigate the origins of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, made false statements when testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, journalist David Corn wrote for Mother Jones.

"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," wrote Corn. "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."

At times, Durham couched his claims in cautious language like, "I'm not aware," when asked by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) about efforts by Russian officials to hack into Hillary Clinton's email server....

Former special counsel John Durham on Wednesday slammed Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) amid a tense exchange during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Durham grew angry with Gaetz after the far-right congressman accused the prosecutor of being involved in a “cover up” to protect those his office was supposed to be investigating.

Gaetz and Durham sparred over the scope of the special counsel’s investigation into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump administration over allegations the former president’s campaign coordinated with Russia in 2016 to damage his political opponent, Hillary Clinton....