Durham Prepares to Unveil JULY 26, 2022 The DO
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JULY 26, 2022
The DOJ is set to unveil a “large volume” of classified materials and documents related to the ‘Russiagate’ case involving the Steele Dossier, and the main source for that document — which was produced by former British spy Christopher Steele in an attempt to sabotage then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s candidacy, and later, his presidency.
Special Counsel John Durham made the announcement in a filing on Tuesday, March 22nd. In the same filing, Durham also asked a federal judge to extend a deadline for the production of classified discovery in compliance with the Classified Information Procedures Act, which is a statute that outlines the manner in which classified documents must be protected in criminal cases.
Durham stated that he needs more time because agency personnel are currently busy with issues related to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“To date, the government has produced over 60,000 documents in unclassified discovery. A portion of these documents were originally marked ‘classified’ and the government has worked with the appropriate declassification authorities to produce the documents in an unclassified format,” Durham said in the filing, which was submitted to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia.
“However, recent world events in Ukraine have contributed to delays in the production of classified discovery. The officials preparing and reviewing the documents at the FBI and intelligence agencies are heavily engaged in matters related to Ukraine,” he continued.
“Nevertheless, the government will produce a large volume of classified discovery this week and will continue its efforts to produce documents in classified discovery on a rolling basis, and no later than the proposed deadlines set forth below,” Durham added.
The Washington Examiner reported on the issue further, writing:
The case revolves around Igor Danchenko, a Russian researcher based in the United States, who was charged in November with five counts of making false statements to the FBI in 2017 about the information he provided to Steele for his discredited dossier during the 2016 election.
Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, signed a waiver in December agreeing to be defended by the same law firm representing members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign despite a conflict of interest concerns raised by Durham.
Steele was working for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, before, during, and after his time targeting then-candidate Donald Trump.
The former MI6 agent was hired to put his anti-Trump dossier together by an opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, which was simultaneously working for Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya of the now-infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. His research received funding from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Danchenko allegedly relied on a network of Russian contacts, undermined key Trump-Russia collusion claims when interviewed by the FBI, and had previously been investigated as a possible threat to national security due to potential Russian intelligence contacts.
According to Durham’s false statements charges, he anonymously sourced a claim about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to longtime Clinton ally Chuck Dolan, who spent many years, including 2016, doing work for Russian businesses and the Russian government.
In a report that was released in December of 2019, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the now-debunked Steele dossier had played a “central and essential” role in the FBI’s decision to launch a counterintelligence operation against the 2016 Trump campaign.
The counterintelligence operation launched by the FBI included efforts to wiretap former Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser Carter Page, efforts that were ultimately successful, but only after “serious missteps and errors” which included concealing “potentially exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” the Washington Examiner reported.
I.G. Horowitz also noted that Danchenko undermined Steele’s unfounded claims of a “well-developed conspiracy” between Trump and Russia. Despite this, as recently as this month, Steele continues to defend his now-debunked dossier.
https://patriotunitednews.com/durham-prepares...ed-docs-2/