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<\/picture>\nSpecial Counsel John Durham\u2019s \u201cReport on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns<\/a>\u201d trickled out yesterday afternoon, hitting journalist inboxes just after 3:00 p.m. A quick read revealed the following key takeaways:<\/p>\n From the report:<\/p>\n It is the Office’s assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators \u201crepeatedly ignore[d] or explain[ed] away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign… had conspired with Russia… It appeared… there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent.\u201d An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The entirety of the evidence the FBI used to launch its investigation of the Trump campaign is contained in what came to be known as \u201cParagraph Five,\u201d because it ended up in that spot in a FISA warrant application on Trump volunteer Carter Page. The information in Paragraph Five came from Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, and was derived from an interaction he had at a London wine bar with young Trump foreign policy volunteer George Papadopoulos, ostensibly concerning Russia.<\/p>\n Australian diplomats told Durham that the impetus for passing the Paragraph Five info to the U.S. government in late July 2016 was the release of hacked DNC emails by Wikileaks. The entire case came down to an abstract of a diplomatic cable, quoted here in full:<\/p>\n Mr. Papadopoulos was, unsurprisingly, confident that Mr. Trump could win the election. He commented that the Clintons had \u201ca lot of baggage\u201d and suggested the Trump team had plenty of material to use in its campaign. He also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton and President Obama. It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of sic through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n On the strength of that tiny bit of information, the FBI opened full investigations into four Trump presidential campaign aides, seeking to determine whether they were \u201cwitting or and\/or coordinating activities with the government of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n As soon as the FBI received Paragraph Five, Counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok and a supervisory agent rushed to London, where they met with an FBI legal attach\u00e9 (UKALAT) and interviewed diplomats at the Australian High Commission. In a taxi on the way to the interviews, Strzok reportedly said, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to this, but we have to run it to ground,\u201d as the attach\u00e9 later told the FBI\u2019s inspection division.<\/p>\n One of the Australian diplomats told the FBI team that \u201cthe Paragraph Five information was written in an intentionally vague way because of what Papadopoulos did and did not say,\u201d and, because of their uncertainty about what to make of it. The report says Downer told the FBI that Papadopoulos \u201csimply stated, \u2018The Russians have information\u2026\u2019 He made no mention of Clinton emails, dirt or any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n British intelligence officials, the FBI attach\u00e9 said, \u201ccould not believe the Papadopoulos bar conversation was all there was.\u201d<\/p>\n A message exchange on August 11, 2016 between the attach\u00e9 and the supervisory agent shows the Americans were as skeptical as the British.<\/p>\n UKALAT-1: Dude, are we telling them [British Intelligence Service-I] everything we know, or is there more to this?<\/p>\n Supervisory Special Agent-1:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s all we have.<\/em><\/p>\n Supervisory Special Agent-I:<\/strong>\u00a0not holding anything back<\/em><\/p>\n UKALAT-1:<\/strong>\u00a0Damn that\u2019s thin<\/em><\/p>\n Supervisory Special Agent-I:<\/strong>\u00a0I know<\/em><\/p>\n Supervisory Special Agent-I:<\/strong>\u00a0it sucks<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to Durham, the senior FBI officials who ordered the probe did not look at the Bureau\u2019s intelligence databases, or consult its experienced Russia analysts, who could have told them they had seen no information about Donald Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials.<\/p>\n Nor did they seek such information about Trump and Russia from the CIA, the NSA or the State Department.<\/p>\n \u201cNeither US law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion\u201d when the investigation began, the report said.<\/p>\n Further, the FBI opened a full-scale investigation \u201cwithout ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information.\u201d<\/p>\n Declassified FBI documents from the period surrounding publication of two influential\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>articles<\/a>\u00a0include Strzok\u2019s annotated refutations of the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0stories, which cited as sources \u201cfour unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials.\u201d Strzok wrote that there was no information \u201cindicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials.\u201d<\/p>\n Durham\u2019s report disputed the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0accounts that saying US law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted communications of Trump associates and campaign officials showing repeated contacts with \u201csenior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election\u201d; that the intercepted communications had been captured by the NSA; and that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had been heard on intercepted calls. The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0has repeatedly said it stands by those stories, including as recently as February of this year when former\u00a0Times\u00a0<\/em>reporter Jeff Gerth\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0about Strzok\u2019s rebuttal of that reporting in the\u00a0Columbia Journalism Review.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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