Durham's investigation of the investigation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ed-false-claim-clinton-spied-president-trump/

...in a filing that appeared in electronic federal court records shortly before midnight, Durham made new claims about the case that exploded across right-leaning media during the weekend.

Hans Mahncke, an Epoch Times reporter and host on Epoch TV, at 9:25 a.m. tweeted: “Holy moly! New Durham filing. Rodney Joffe and his buddies at Georgia Tech monitored Trump’s Internet traffic *while* he was President of the United States.” His tweet included a screenshot from paragraph five of the filing that highlighted in red the phrase “Executive Office of the President of the United States.”

Joffe, who has not been charged, is an Internet entrepreneur who founded the world’s first commercial Internet hosting company. Statements by a Joffe spokesperson and Sussmann’s legal team insisted that the data, which Sussmann provided to the CIA at the 2017 meeting, pertained to the time before Trump became president — when Barack Obama was still president.

 

Yes the claim is false. But that doesn’t change the validity and necessity to investigate what took place. Sussman served two masters and created this problem.

 

nothing.
burger.

 

Now do John Kerry....

 

Can we please keep discussions about whether or not the Logan Act is a enforceable or even a real thing on a separate thread?

 

Personally, I think focusing on the Logan Act is unnecessary without considering the Wolverine Act.

 

Kimberly Strassel had a good piece in the WSJ today about Joffe's actions:

The researchers claim that by July 2016 they were alarmed by the security implications of their data, mined from government information. Yet they didn’t go to the government. Mr. Joffe instead went to Democrats—namely Mr. Sussmann, the Perkins Coie lawyer who in the summer of 2016 was regularly identified in the press as an attorney for the Democratic National Committee. The Sussmann indictment notes a meeting Mr. Joffe had with Marc Elias, the Perkins Coie attorney for the Clinton campaign. And a deposition by a Fusion GPS staffer as part of continuing Alfa Bank litigation says Mr. Joffe attended a meeting with Peter Fritsch, a co-founder of Fusion GPS. Was he still confused about the partisan nature of this project?

He certainly couldn’t have been two years later. By that point, the roles Perkins Coie and Fusion played in funneling information to the FBI for Clinton were well known, while Fusion had gone on to team up with former Democratic staffer Dan Jones to keep advancing the claims. Mr. Joffe sat for that October 2018 New Yorker piece that pushed the Alfa claims, anonymously calling himself “Max” and admitting in the piece that he’d continued to help that effort long after the election, providing Mr. Jones’s team with 37 million internet records to examine. (A deposition in the Alfa litigation identified Mr. Joffe as Max.)

Here’s the most revealing bit: “Max” also explained to the New Yorker how vitally important it was in 2016 to make sure the threat his team discovered was “known before the election.” Which was why he and his lawyer first went with their information to the press. The Sussmann indictment says Mr. Sussmann tried peddling the data to the New York Times in late August 2016. He didn’t approach the FBI until the middle of September. Mr. Joffe’s spokesperson declined to comment.

Opinion | Who Are Those ‘Techies’ Who Spied on Trump?

Mods: I believe I'm adhering to the three paragraph rule but if I need to shorten up the quoted section, let me know.

 

We know you guys like to point out hypocrisy...

 

This is somewhat inaccurate. Perkins Coie represented the Clinton campaign. Sussman and Elias were both its attorneys even if Sussman did not do work for the campaign.

 

What makes you say Sussmannn did not do work for the Clinton Campaign?

 

I said the opposite. It doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t. His firm represented the campaign, which makes the campaign his client and the client of every lawyer in the firm. The article you posted identified a different democratic organization as “his client.” In any event, those huge firms have lengthy and detailed conflict waivers. But, the lawyer still needs to render conflict free advice or advise the client that it can’t render advice on a subject and to seek independent advice on a subject where the advice is contrary to the interests of another client. Let’s look at a hypothetical which might apply. If Joffe discovers this data, it may be in the interests of the campaign to disclose it. But, it is in Joffe’s interest to handle it properly. Joffe needs to be advised to keep it private and if suspicious to provide it to the FBI. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that he needs to be advised that he can’t disclose it to a third party that would make use of it. Meanwhile, the campaign wants the data public. So, if proper advice is given, the campaign never knows about it and there is no conflict. Once the information is known the the campaign (if it was so advised), there is an actual conflict that is unwaivable because Joffe has to be advised the cant give it to the campaign or disclose it. If the lawyers disclose it to a third party today for campaign, then they have acted contrary to Joffe’s interests. If Joffe discloses, then he may have acted contrary to advice. I am interested in seeing what the facts show.

 

I'm sorry, I have not had my caffeine yet this morning so was your prior post more a hypothetical to discuss the finer points of legal representation? Or is this a question about who ere clients of Perkins Coie? I believe the Clinton Campaign and the DNC were both clients of Perkins Coie.

 

Yes they were. And apparently so was Joffe. This addresses the legal conflicts inherent in this situation.

 

OK, got it. Thanks.

 

Kind of curious why this "bigger than Watergate" story has faded out on right wing media.

Probably because AOC changed her lipstick shade or other breaking news, no doubt.

 

Special counsel John Durham may have uncovered a smoking gun in the government's case against Michael Sussmann when he published documents Monday night that show that Sussmann texted the FBI general counsel's personal cellphone, saying he was not working "on behalf of a client or company."

Hillary Investigator Durham Uncovers Sussmann Lie in Text to FBI Official

 

And now it is over. As stated by many on here, what a complete waste of time.

Durham Inquiry Appears to Wind Down as Grand Jury Expires

 

The grand jury in our hearts will never expire though

 

Isn't the real grand jury the friends we made along the way?

 

Wasn't the only charge brought here against Sussman, and resulted in a quick acquittal?