by Roger Simon
A bit more information has emerged from the John Durham investigation into Russiagate (or “Spygate,” as it is known hereabouts).
This is due to what is likely a leak from one or more of the targets to their loyal propagandists at CNN. (In the article, the reporters do their best to downgrade the scandal they fanned for years as no more than a trivial “dirty trick” that all campaigns do. There’s a well-known word for that adapted into the English language.)
The import of these leaks is usually to soften the impact on the target(s), but it also gives us another indication Durham is still active.
In this instance, more subpoenas have been issued, including some to Perkins Coie. That’s the Democratic National Committee’s and Hillary Clinton’s law firm that only a few weeks ago defenestrated—for reasons unspecified, but we can guess—one of Hillary’s principal lawyers, Mark Elias.
The other Clinton campaign lawyer, Michael Sussman, has already been charged with lying to the FBI on the matter of alleged Trump links to the Russian Alpha Bank, ties that turned out to be nonexistent.
This time, however, we learned that “Tech Executive-1” in the Sussman indictment is Rodney Joffe, a rather distinguished cybersecurity expert, but not in this case because he was apparently involved with the same attempted deception.
Joffe was evidently no fan of Donald Trump. How far he took his enmity we shall see as this plays out.
Or we won’t. Therein lies the problem. Many are worried that Durham will only take the investigation so far and then peter out.
A real Russiagate investigation has myriad possible targets with very famous names, some of the most famous, in fact. Yet negativism about the results is everywhere in conservative circles with some justification.
When then-Attorney General William Barr gave Durham his brief, he was quoted in The Hill (March 2020) as follows:
“Attorney General William Barr said Monday that he does not expect a criminal investigation of former President Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden to result from the probe undertaken by U.S. Attorney John Durham.
“Based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Barr told reporters at the Justice Department. ‘Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.’”
Sounds pretty weak, doesn’t it, with some people, too big to be investigated, surrounded by a cordon sanitaire.
Yet rumor has it already that Jake Sullivan is under suspicion in the Alpha Bank matter, at the least. That’s remarkably close to Biden as Sullivan is his national security adviser, one of the most powerful positions in the country (cf. Henry Kissinger), as we have seen, to our national misfortune, during the Afghanistan debacle.
How justified is that suspicion of Sullivan? Paul Sperry wrote in Real Clear Investigations: “The indictment states that Sussmann, as well as the cyber experts recruited for the operation, ‘coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.’ One of those campaign agents was Sullivan, according to emails Durham obtained.”
Biden himself was said to have recommended the ancient and hardly used Logan Act—how he would even have known about it is worth finding out, but anyway—in an attempt to punish retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn during an oft-discussed, but never fully revealed, Oval Office meeting at the tail end (Jan. 5, 2017) of the Obama administration.
That meeting itself, emailed about by Susan Rice weeks after it took place seemingly to provide Obama presidential deniability, is even more worthy of exploration—or is it off limits as per Barr? We don’t know.
Yes, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical. The Sullivan matter has barely been discussed in the mainstream media, even though the possible miscreant is the national security adviser.
Is everything being sent down the memory hole? Who exactly is to blame in all of this? We don’t know that either, though we have guesses about that, too.
But it is imperative we must ultimately know. Durham must carry his investigation through to the end, because Russiagate quite clearly marked the beginning of the end of our democratic republic as we knew it.
All the malfeasances that have occurred since from the endless COVID-19 lockdowns to Afghanistan to the open border to the violence in our streets and the relentless propaganda and bizarre arrests surrounding Jan. 6, not to mention the 2020 election itself, point back to it, relate to it, in one way or another.
None of these events would have happened the way they did without it. Some would not have happened at all.
Russiagate was a crime whose extent and import dwarfed Watergate and made that supposed scandal, subject of a Hollywood movie though it is, barely as important, by comparison, as shoplifting at a 7-Eleven.
Yet Nixon and the others paid, badly. Hardly anyone has been punished here so far beyond what has amounted to slaps on the wrists.
So what do we do? Do we sit back passively, maybe adding a few snipes here and there, and let Durham do his job, hoping for the best?
I say no. We all have a role to play. Durham is a man like the rest of us. Consciously or unconsciously, if he knows we’re watching, he’s going to behave in a different manner than if he thinks we’re lulled to sleep.
Be as active as possible in talking and lobbying about this. You don’t have to be a so-called elite to do this or be an anchorman on ABC. You just have to be a concerned citizen, an honest man or woman. Keep talking about it to friend and foe. Show up with a sign at an inconvenient (for them) place. Put it on the internet, text to everyone you know or can think of. Discuss it on Signal and Telegraph. Never let Russiagate be forgotten. Put it out there in the zeitgeist and keep it there.
The mainstream/legacy media isn’t going to do it. They will obfuscate as much as possible. We have to do it. It’s up to us. If we don’t, we have no grounds for complaint when it goes down the memory hole—and with it our country.
Two things are of paramount importance to us going forward if we want to save our republic, this full explication of what happened during the Trump–Russia affair, including everyone responsible being properly punished, so we are sure as we can be it will never happen again, and genuine integrity for our broken elections.
Work on that, too. Many already are. The two go hand in hand.
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Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT” (fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). He can be found on GETTR and Parler @rogerlsimon.
RealClearWire partnered with Epoch Times to make this article available.
