# The Durham indictments prosecuting fake Trump 'collusion' **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 23, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215 "2021-09-23T20:11:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/162 "2021-11-09T19:34:08Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Well, yeah, so far, all you’ve shown is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. > > You may find it convincing to reinforce what you already want to believe, but some of the rest of us need some actual facts, not just assertions. This is hilarious coming from the side that spent four years hyperventilating over the Steele Dossier, despite the fact that it was known to be bullshit since 2017, and suspected to be bullshit the day it arrived. Also the side that attacked mercilessly those of us on this board who called any of it into question. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/163 "2021-11-09T19:36:53Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Why should I give any credence to anything John Ratcliff has to say, given his connections to Trump? You don’t have to do anything but sit back and wait. We will all find out soon enough. I mentioned Ratcliff because as DNI he was responsible for providing the classified information to Durham, and he says it’s very damning. Maybe he’s a Trump stooge, maybe he’s the most honest guy in history. We’ll know soon enough. > **[Ex-DNI Ratcliffe expects ‘many indictments’ from Durham investigation](https://nypost.com/2021/11/08/john-ratcliffe-expects-many-indictments-from-durham-investigation/)** > > Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe argued Sunday that everyone involved in the notorious Steele dossier is in “jeopardy.” > [@](#): > > When I became the director of national intelligence [in May 2020], I said ‘Listen, I want to see all of the intelligence about this supposed Russian collusion,’ and what I found was — and as you’re finding out — is there was, of course, no Russian collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but what I did see in intelligence documents, some of which I’ve now declassified, that there was collusion involving the Clinton campaign and Russians to create a dossier,” Everything released by Durham so far supports that conclusion. > [@](#): > > Igor Danchenko is the third person to be criminally indicted in connection with the Steele dossier for peddling something that was known to be false to the FBI,” Ratcliffe said. “But what’s important here is [[then-CIA Director] John Brennan’s own notes](https://nypost.com/2020/09/30/the-russiagate-games-politicized-us-intelligence-too/) reflect, and the other documents that I declassified show, that our intelligence community and our FBI knew this ahead of time, that Hillary Clinton — we had specific intelligence that Hillary Clinton was creating a plan to vilify Donald Trump, to falsely accuse him of ties to Russia, and the intelligence community and FBI knew this, and President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were briefed.” That’s all on the record. And if it can be proved, it’s huge. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/164 "2021-11-09T19:40:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > We will all find out soon enough. In two weeks, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/165 "2021-11-09T19:41:46Z")
None of this is even close to “known to be bullshit”. But it doesn’t matter – the vast majority of the criticism of Trump, about Russia or any other issue, was about Trump’s own public words and actions, not the Steele report. It’s the right-wing that made out the Steele report to be a giant bugaboo, not us. Right now this is barely more than nothing. It’s not nothing, since there are actual indictments, but so far the indictments haven’t lead anywhere at all. Maybe that will change, but citing Ratcliffe provides no useful information, except that you apparently think the words of Ratcliffe actually mean anything (hint – they don’t; he’s a partisan hack with no actual intelligence experience who was chosen to be DNI because of his loyalty to Trump). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/166 "2021-11-09T20:22:41Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Everything released by Durham so far supports that conclusion. Except Trump’s own words and actions over four years, including providing classified information to Russian officials, publicly praising Russian intelligence conclusions while criticizing our own, publicly requesting Russian assistance with his political campaign, and much more. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/167 "2021-11-09T20:26:11Z")
> [@Abatis](#): > > The reckoning is going to be so, so, sweet! Just as soon as we examine the packets! In about two weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/168 "2021-11-09T20:47:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You don’t have to do anything but sit back and wait. We will all find out soon enough. I mentioned Ratcliff because as DNI he was responsible for providing the classified information to Durham, and he says it’s very damning. Maybe he’s a Trump stooge, maybe he’s the most honest guy in history. We’ll know soon enough. According to Ratcliffe, our planet is being invaded by space men and he single-handedly arrested hundreds of illegals, despite having no role in immigration nor criminal enforcement. > **[Former US Director of National Intelligence Says He's Seriously Puzzled by UFOs](https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-us-director-national-intelligence-ufos)** > > Former US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe made some intriguing claims about the federal government's tracking of UFOs. > **[Trump’s pick to lead U.S. intelligence claims he arrested 300 undocumented...](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/02/texas-rep-john-ratcliffe-said-he-arrested-300-immigrants/)** > > John Ratcliffe claimed that as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas in 2008, he led an immigration raid on poultry plants. Others involved in the case say he inflated his role and the raid’s scale. It’s pretty safe to say that he’s neither knowledgeable nor honest, from a wide variety of clear signals to date, let alone our needing to wait for future events to unfold. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/169 "2021-11-09T21:00:59Z")
You know, if this was some huge Hillary Clinton plot to take out Trump, don’t you think they might have used this information to, you know, take out Trump - by releasing it BEFORE the election? It’s kind of like Joe Biden’s clever evil plot to steal the 2020 election, where he got all the election officials, voting machine companies, and Secretaries of State, Republican and Democrat, to steal the Presidency from Trump - yet they somehow couldn’t manage to steal a couple of extra Senate seats so he could actually get stuff done. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/170 "2021-11-09T21:18:57Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > But what’s important here is [[then-CIA Director] John Brennan’s own notes](https://nypost.com/2020/09/30/the-russiagate-games-politicized-us-intelligence-too/) reflect, and the other documents that I declassified show, that our intelligence community and our FBI knew this ahead of time, that Hillary Clinton — we had specific intelligence that Hillary Clinton was creating a plan to vilify Donald Trump, to falsely accuse him of ties to Russia, and the intelligence community and FBI knew this, and President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were briefed.” > > That’s all on the record. And if it can be proved, it’s huge. Selective, context-free quoting also turns FBI agent Lisa Page into a left-wing conspirator, bent on destroying Donald Trump, despite that she’s a Republican. I’ve read the Horowitz report and all of Durham’s indictments. At this moment, the story being told is that a group of people with a history of performing acts that gained them FBI attention all collected together to run a political campaign, one of them confessed to conspiring with Russia to an Australian, Trump publicly called for Russian intervention into American campaigns on public TV, and the FBI started to investigate. When the Steele Report and other Clinton information came in, it was researched and later ruled out. For the most part, Clinton wasted their time. Nevertheless, Clinton had essentially nothing to gain by sending what she gathered to the FBI versus using it to campaign on. The best explanation for why she did it, is because she held plausible information on criminal activity and that’s just what you do - especially if you don’t much like the guy who’s maybe acting criminally. As it is, despite what that article says, there was quite a lot of stuff that attached Trump to Russia and the brunt of decisively pinning that down as a conspiracy rested on what Paul Manafort might say if he decided to flip. As it is, he didn’t, and he got a pardon. We don’t know what he would have said if he’d gone the other direction. And, despite what a lot of people say, Carter Page wasn’t a CIA operative, wasn’t an FBI operative, nor anything else. He wasn’t bringing in information to the US government of his own will. Likewise, Steele wasn’t known to be a useless has-been with marginal sources. Universally, he was regarded as the real deal, up and down the line, until most of a year had passed and they’d failed to verify his stuff. There’s a lot of partisan reads of these documents that rely on selective quotes and spin which don’t bear scrutiny when you examine the originals. Durham is somewhat successfully making the case that Clinton was actively trying to get Trump into criminal culpability. If he is a criminal, though, then that’s not really a negative. If the accusations were based on the dirt all passing basic fact checking and seeming to come from some real sources then not reporting that would be the bad. It’s very certain that Trump is a fundamentally corrupt individual. By his own admission - which you can watch on video - he would be perfectly okay with foreign interference and aid in his campaigns. If a guy says on live TV that he would gladly go to a preschool and start feeling up all the kiddies, you really just don’t need that much push to start an investigation on his activities. It’s really that simple. Trying to bog this down in minutiae and act like it’s something other than it’s straightforward that investigations resulted is ridiculous. If you don’t want to get investigated, don’t advocate criminal activity on TV. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/171 "2021-11-09T21:19:41Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > You know, if this was some huge Hillary Clinton plot to take out Trump, don’t you think they might have used this information to, you know, take out Trump by releasing it BEFORE the election? ??? They did. The Steele Dossier was repeatedly leaked to various media sources in the summer of 2016. David Corn at _Mother Jones_ wrote an article about it in October a week before the election - a classic ‘late hit’. Yahoo, Buzzfeed and others were writing about it in September. You don’t remember? It was big news before the election. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/172 "2021-11-09T22:42:35Z")
Maybe there were rumors of its existence, but it wasn’t publicly published…that is, released until Buzzfeed published it in January 2017. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/173 "2021-11-10T00:00:56Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > We will all find out soon enough. Classic Sam Stone right here. You gotta love it. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/174 "2021-11-10T00:10:11Z")
Sam, you still haven’t addressed how Hillary Clinton convinced Christopher Steele, after she hired him personally, to time travel back to March of 2016 to convince Joseph Mifsud to tip off George Papadopoulos about the Russian government’s illegally obtained emails that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. I mean it’s obvious that Clinton was behind this, but some of the details could use a little fleshing out. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/175 "2021-11-10T01:12:24Z")
I never saidmanything about Hillary personally choosing anyone. Sorry, your atraw man won’t ignite. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/176 "2021-11-10T01:16:25Z")
Your failure to address the many other things that make your anti-Clinton fantasy impossible is noted. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/177 "2021-11-10T16:44:03Z")
You forgot a paragraph or two, there, Smiley: > **The case does not undercut investigators’ findings that the Kremlin aided the Trump campaign — conclusions that were not based on the dossier, which was barely mentioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.** But the indictment does endorse a longstanding concern about the Russia probe: that opposition research the FBI relied on as it surveilled a Trump campaign adviser was marred by unsupported, uncorroborated claims. So this guy fed some info to the FBI which turned out to be bogus. Doesn’t mean that in the course of investigation they didn’t find actual dirt. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > ??? They did. The Steele Dossier was repeatedly leaked to various media sources in the summer of 2016. David Corn at _Mother Jones_ wrote an article about it in October a week before the election - a classic ‘late hit’. Yahoo, Buzzfeed and others were writing about it in September. > > You don’t remember? It was big news before the election. Why don’tcha post a few cites and refresh our memory? _Mother Jones??_ Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/178 "2021-11-10T17:18:37Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Why don’tcha post a few cites and refresh our memory? > > _Mother Jones??_ Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle. Mother Jones is capable of competent journalism on occasion, to be fair. Since Sam can’t be bothered, [it took me no time at all to find the article in question](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/). Mind you, as a “classic ‘late hit’” there’s nothing in the article that was intrinsically inaccurate at the time. Of course, one wonders if Sam is just as outraged about the actual “late hit” by the FBI against Hillary Clinton, which did turn out to be utter bullshit and yet may have cost her the election. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/179 "2021-11-10T18:14:45Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > yet may have cost her the election. And democracy in the US. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/180 "2021-11-10T18:35:27Z")
Apologies for my lack of clarity. I wasn’t hitting at _Mother Jones’_ journalistic accuracy, but at Sam’s implication that they are a major media outlet, or at least that All Good Democrats ™ read MJ as the modern equivalent of Mao’s Little Red Book. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215/181 "2021-12-07T18:24:34Z")
[Defendant in Case Brought by Durham Says New Evidence Undercuts Charge](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/us/politics/michael-sussmann-john-durham.html) That new evidence is a report made by Durham’s team summarizing an interview, that they conducted, with James A. Baker, who is the, now former, FBI official that Michael Sussmann supposedly lied. The supposed lie that Sussmann told was that he was not telling Baker about the Alfa Bank/Trump Tower server activity on behalf any client. Here are some things from the Durham team summary of the interview: > Baker said that Sussmann did not specify that he was representing a client regarding the matter, nor did Baker ask him if he was representing a client. > Baker said that he could not recall telling Priestap at that time that Sussmann represented the DNC and the Clinton Foundation, but he (Baker) may have known it at the time. There’s no way in the world that Sussmann will be convicted. This is just more of Durham picking and choosing things to fit his narrative while ignoring other things, that he is well aware of, that show that the story he is trying to tell can not possibly be true. At this point it’s far more likely that Durham will be found guilty of something than Sussmann. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-durham-indictments-prosecuting-fake-trump-collusion/951215.md?page=10)