There has been some speculation heard from a top Republican who once served in the House Judiciary Committee that Hillary Clinton may be in the clear when considering special counsel John Durham’s criminal inquiry.
During an interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson, California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa indicated that the review into the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation, which appeared politically charged, has taken much too long for full accountability to be met.
Issa told Attkisson:
“Justice delayed is justice denied is not some sort of a trite statement. It’s very true.”
Issa continued on before stopping to scoff and shake his head:
“Anything that comes out of the Durham report. It could lynch Hillary Clinton, and it wouldn’t change a thing.”
“The fact is, the time has passed. It is pretty irrelevant, except it’s a lesson to Congress that putting real-time limits and putting real meat in activities, including inspector general’s reports and so on, is more important than ever. The time it takes to complete an investigation, or the time it takes for Congress to get to the truth, impacts whether or not you’re going to get the truth and compliance in a timely fashion. If you can hold an administration accountable in real-time, they will cooperate. If they know they can run out the clock, as they often do, they won’t.”
He specifically name-dropped Clinton, given that her 2016 presidential campaign as well as lawyers aided in promoting the specter of collusion between former President Donald Trump and the Kremlin, per evidence obtained through years worth of investigations that have followed.
Conservative Brief reported:
Last week, a federal judge rejected a bid by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to “strike” a “factual background” section of Special Counsel John Durham’s early February court filing.
Last month, Sussmann’s legal team filed a motion demanding that the court remove portions of the Feb. 11 filing that included the “Factual Background” section by claiming that it would “taint” a jury.
“I’m not going to strike anything from the record,” noted U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Christopher Cooper during a status hearing. “Whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.”
And The Epoch Times reported this last month, in February:
…Sussmann was representing the Clinton campaign when in 2016 he passed along information to an FBI counsel. His lawyers say the documents “raised national security concerns” while prosecutors describe them as purportedly detailing a covert channel between a Russian bank and the business of Donald Trump, Clinton’s rival at the time.
Sussmann was charged with lying to the FBI because he falsely told the counsel he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client despite presenting the information on behalf of the Clinton campaign, prosecutors say.
In a filing in February, Sussmann’s lawyers moved to dismiss the charge, claiming their client “did not make any false statement to the FBI” but even if he had, “the false statement alleged in the indictment is immaterial as a matter of law.”
The filing stated:
“Allowing this case to go forward would risk criminalizing ordinary conduct, raise First Amendment concerns, dissuade honest citizens from coming forward with tips, and chill the advocacy of lawyers who interact with the government.”
The filing continued on to report:
“And far from being immaterial, they went on to say that ‘the defendant’s false statement was capable of influencing both the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation and its subsequent conduct of that investigation.”
In response to the filing, Durham’s team labelled the claims “absurd” and requested that the federal court in the District of Columbia to proceed with the investigation.
Durham’s team was sure to note that:
“The defendant’s false statement to the FBI General Counsel was plainly material because it misled the General Counsel about, among other things, the critical fact that the defendant was disseminating highly explosive allegations about a then-Presidential candidate on behalf of two specific clients, one of which was the opposing Presidential campaign.”
“The defendant’s efforts to mislead the FBI in this manner during the height of a Presidential election season plainly could have influenced the FBI’s decision-making in any number of ways,” Durham’s team continued.
Sources: Conservativebrief, The Epoch Times
