The "Russian Hoax"

[Robert]

The questions about Russian meddling in the 2016 election were right out in the open and not something that the FBI ginned up out of thin air.

According to Twitter, they found very little Russian meddling through them. Not sure where all this Russian impact on the election was. Could you provide facts to support that?

[Ken]

Durham does not say these things should not have been investigated or that there was no evidence. He and Horowitz both examined what evidence was available at what time to whom when they discuss whether it was OK to open a full investigation at the time of Crossfire Hurricane. They reach different conclusions.

Do you believe Durham when he says the underlined/bolded?

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that
at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings
indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in
contact with any Russian intelligence officials.

The FBI records he is referencing is the preliminary documents drafted by Strzok to justify opening the Crossfire investigation. In other words, the search warrant affidavit or whatever they call it.

We already know that the FBI didn't go a great job of documenting the rationale for the Crossfire investigation. That is nothing new. But the FBI is a very big organization and it doesn't mean they didn't have sufficient grounds to investigate. They don't actually need much to open an investigation. Durham is distinguishing between preliminary investigations and full investigations which seems to be a distinction without a meaningful difference. None of this is set out anywhere in law. Some of it is FBI procedure. Some of it is just Durham's assertions about how the FBI *should* operate.

I actually think the FBI should vigorously investigate all suspicions and evidence of foreign interference in our elections and see where those investigations lead. Because that is serious business. That is their actual job. This nonsense about how Russian interference should not have been investigated is absurd. There are still things we don't know about the 2016 election, but what we do know is substantial. We do know the following:

1. The Russian government intervened and meddled repeatedly in the 2016 election to assist Donald Trump. Every investigation from Mueller to the Senate Intelligence report documents this fact.

2. Trump welcomed this assistance, openly asked for more of it, and his campaign took numerous steps to profit from the assistance. He is on camera doing this.

3. The extent to which any of this affected the actual result is unknown, but given how close the election was in PA, MI, and WI it is certainly plausible that Russia provided Trump with the margin of victory to become president.

4. In any normal universe the proven facts alone would have fatally discredited Trump’s presidency and/or led to his forced resignation or removal from office.

[Ken]

The questions about Russian meddling in the 2016 election were right out in the open and not something that the FBI ginned up out of thin air.

According to Twitter, they found very little Russian meddling through them. Not sure where all this Russian impact on the election was. Could you provide facts to support that?

The Senate Intelligence Report has thousands of pages of evidence. We aren't talking about Twitter but all kinds of other forms of meddling from hacking and releasing hacked materials to Wikileaks to financial support.

[Bootstrap]

Here's what I said earlier, quoting what Durham said about Crossfire Hurricane:

!!! SNIP !!!

I thought you were responding to Grace's assertion that Durham says the Mueller investigation should never have happened.

Durham says clearly that: (1) Crossfire Hurricane was investigating things that should have been investigated. In his opinion, not as a full investigation, but as a preliminary investigation, and (2) The Mueller Report is a good place to look to see what happened.

[Josh]

Here's what I said earlier, quoting what Durham said about Crossfire Hurricane:

!!! SNIP !!!

I thought you were responding to Grace's assertion that Durham says the Mueller investigation should never have happened.

Durham says clearly that: (1) Crossfire Hurricane was investigating things that should have been investigated. In his opinion, not as a full investigation, but as a preliminary investigation, and (2) The Mueller Report is a good place to look to see what happened.

Are we reading the same report?

[Bootstrap]

Durham does not say these things should not have been investigated or that there was no evidence. He and Horowitz both examined what evidence was available at what time to whom when they discuss whether it was OK to open a full investigation at the time of Crossfire Hurricane. They reach different conclusions.

Do you believe Durham when he says the underlined/bolded?

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that
at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings
indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in
contact with any Russian intelligence officials.

Do you believe Durham when he said this?

Thus, at the time of opening Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had (i) publicly available
information concerning Papadopoulos's role in the campaign as a volunteer foreign policy
adviser, (ii) information obtained from Papadopoulos by the Australian diplomats, (iii)
information about Russia's likely election interference activities, (iv) Trump's public
statements about Russia, and (v) unvetted media reporting on possible ties between Trump
and Russian businessmen.

Oh, I get it, at that particular time they did not YET have evidence that any of the Russians involved in campaign interference were INTELLIGENCE officials. That came later. So yes, TECHNICALLY, I believe what Durham said in the paragraph you quoted, but you can't read that in isolation.

And the executive summary is written in a way that uses technicalities to imply things that he isn't actually saying. There was, in fact, evidence that even Durham says needed to be investigated. When it was investigated, they sure came up with a lot. When he says that a full investigation was not justified, he does not emphasize that he believes that a preliminary investigation was justified, though he admits it. And he does not mention that when the OIG investigated this same thing, they concluded that a full investigation was justified.

[Bootstrap]

Durham says clearly that: (1) Crossfire Hurricane was investigating things that should have been investigated. In his opinion, not as a full investigation, but as a preliminary investigation, and (2) The Mueller Report is a good place to look to see what happened.

Are we reading the same report?

I quoted parts of the report that pretty much say these things. In the post you are responding to. Could you respond to those specific quotes?

Yes, Durham probably didn't like admitting these things.

[GaryK]

Durham does not say these things should not have been investigated or that there was no evidence. He and Horowitz both examined what evidence was available at what time to whom when they discuss whether it was OK to open a full investigation at the time of Crossfire Hurricane. They reach different conclusions.

Do you believe Durham when he says the underlined/bolded?

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that
at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings
indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in
contact with any Russian intelligence officials.

The FBI records he is referencing is the preliminary documents drafted by Strzok to justify opening the Crossfire investigation. In other words, the search warrant affidavit or whatever they call it.

But the point he's making is not about those records. Note the underlined/bolded. The point he's making is part of the larger theme found throughout the executive summary, which is that the FBI departed from its standard procedures in opening Crossfire.

[Ken]

Do you believe Durham when he says the underlined/bolded?

The FBI records he is referencing is the preliminary documents drafted by Strzok to justify opening the Crossfire investigation. In other words, the search warrant affidavit or whatever they call it.

But the point he's making is not about those records. Note the underlined/bolded. The point he's making is part of the larger theme found throughout the executive summary, which is that the FBI departed from its standard procedures in opening Crossfire.

Even so, so what?

Standard procedure? Every organization I have ever worked for had various written and unwritten procedures for various things. Sometimes we ignored them for the sake of expediency. Sometimes they made sense, sometimes they didn't. You can't write a procedure for every possible circumstance. It sounds like the FBI has already tightened up some of the things that have already been highlighted in the previous inspector general report prior to Durham. None of it amounts to any actual wrongdoing on the part of the FBI because had that been the case we would see indictments moving forward. Which we don't. If there are procedures that are important enough to set out in statute or regulation then Congress or the DOJ can certainly do so.

And clearly given all that has come out subsequently, the FBI was obviously correct to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In this case where there was smoke there was fire. Mueller secured indictments against at least 20 Russian nationals for interfering in the election. That should be concerning to every American.

[GaryK]

Durham does not say these things should not have been investigated or that there was no evidence. He and Horowitz both examined what evidence was available at what time to whom when they discuss whether it was OK to open a full investigation at the time of Crossfire Hurricane. They reach different conclusions.

Do you believe Durham when he says the underlined/bolded?

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that
at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings
indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in
contact with any Russian intelligence officials.

Do you believe Durham when he said this?

Thus, at the time of opening Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had (i) publicly available
information concerning Papadopoulos's role in the campaign as a volunteer foreign policy
adviser, (ii) information obtained from Papadopoulos by the Australian diplomats, (iii)
information about Russia's likely election interference activities, (iv) Trump's public
statements about Russia, and (v) unvetted media reporting on possible ties between Trump
and Russian businessmen.

Sure, I believe that there was publicly available information concerning Papadopoulos. But that is quite different than the FBI having any evidence that the publicly available information was true.

Oh, I get it, at that particular time they did not YET have evidence that any of the Russians involved in campaign interference were INTELLIGENCE officials. That came later. So yes, TECHNICALLY, I believe what Durham said in the paragraph you quoted, but you can't read that in isolation.

The quote I referenced is quite clearly not about whether or not any of the Russians involved in campaign interference were intelligence officials and I think you know that. It's about the FACT that at the time of the opening of Crossfire the FBI had no evidence whatsoever that DURING THE CAMPAIGN anyone within the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials.

Do you disagree with what I just said?