John Ratcliffe: Durham's Investigation Is About Predication

Maria Bartiromo had Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on her show this morning for a fairly wide ranging interview. All the topics were of interest, but one that especially caught my attention was the segment dealing with the John Durham investigation. We've been hearing rumors about Durham nearing, if not the end of his whole investigation, then the end of a certain phase of it. The Clinesmith guilty plea has whet our appetites for more information, but it's been slow in coming--despite promises that we'll be hearing more before the end of the summer. Before we get into that, however, a few remarks.

As we know, as a Congressman, Ratcliffe was a key part of the investigation into the Russia Hoax--as an experienced former prosecutor he showed himself to be a skilled questioner who knew the value of careful preparation. Trump's decision to replace veteran Deep State operative and former senator Dan Coats with Ratcliffe as the head of the Intelligence Community was a shrewd pick. Coming at a time when the Barr/Durham investigation was picking up momentum, there was an obvious need for a DNI who could break through the bureaucratic logjams that Coats and others had constructed to protect the Deep State. The fact that Ratcliffe was an experienced former prosecutor who would understand what was involved in such a major investigation and, especially the legal issues involved in coordinating with a grand jury investigation was an important plus. When you add to that he years of experience in Congress investigating the Russia Hoax, his knowledge of the all the players both in Congress and the Deep State as they overlapped, it came as little surprise that the Deep State and GOP senators closed ranks against Ratcliffe. In the end, however, Trump (and probably Barr) persisted and won the day.

In the transcript of the relevant portion of the interview, note that Maria has focused on some key issues that we've been discussing in recent days. First, of course, she located the tape of then Congressman Ratcliffe clearly referring to disgraced former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith's "changing evidence." Maria astutely relates the Clinesmith guilty plea to the entire three year investigation--and Ratcliffe picks up on that.

Note that Ratcliffe relates what Clinesmith did--"changing evidence"--not just to the final FISA application but to the origination of the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation. As he puts it, what Clinesmith did had to do with continuing the entire investigation. What's left unsaid, however, is that the continued focus of Durham--and Ratcliffe!--on the predication for Crossfire Hurricane also relates directly to the predication for Team Mueller witchhunt--the two are one and the same. Further, at the heart of his is Joe Pientka, who was the supervisor for the Crossfire Hurricane team and who wrote the EC recommending its closing. Also note that Ratcliffe, without being prompted, brings up the topic of the Intelligence Community Assessment--that can't be a coincidence.

Place Pientka into this context when you read about the ongoing coordination between Ratcliffe and Durham. The willingness of Durham to allow Ratcliffe to declassify some of the Pientka related documents and to allow Pientka to talk to Senate investigators in a tightly controlled setting suggests that Durham is still very much focused on the big picture conspiracy. Things appear to be coming to a head.


Maria: I wanna take a break and I wanna come back and ask you about the John Durham criminal investigation. Director Ratcliffe, you have been on this program many times over the past three years as a Congressman, and our audience is grateful to you for having exposed the truth to what was going on for that two and a half, three year period. Here's what you told me in December of 2019. When you come back, I wanna talk about this, let's roll that tape:

Ratcliffe (on tape, next to photo of IG Horowitz testifying about his FISA report): What you have are FBI lawyers literally changing evidence to make false representations to the court to continue this counterintelligence investigation against the President. So it details, now, everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence--the Democrats never wanna give one to Donald Trump--but the Inspector General's findings really outline what is criminal activity.

Maria: And I'm back with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. And, Director Ratcliffe, that was when you were a Congressman back in December of 2019. Just a few weeks ago you declassified very important documents and, as a result of this declassification that you made, we saw our first guilty plea in the John Durham criminal investigation. What can you tell us about this declassification, and will you declassify more documents, Director?

Ratcliffe: Um, I will. What I would tell your viewers, Maria, is, I was a Congressman and in that role I felt strongly that the FBI had continued a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign without a proper predicate--in other words, illegally continued it--and obviously the Clinesmith plea and the documents that I declassified in connection with that are related to that. The question now is, Did the FBI have a proper predicate to begin a counterintelligence investigation at all! And that's the issue that John Durham's been looking at, and it's also the issue that I'm continuing to look at. If you remember, Maria, when I went through confirmation, I pledged to a bipartisan group of senators that I would look at all the underlying intelligence surrounding the Intelligence Community's Assessment of Russia, Russia's interference, and this idea of Trump - Russia collusion. So, I've spent the last three months doing that, and I've declassified certain documents, and I plan to declassify additional documents. But I'm not gonna prejudice John Durham's work in connection with that, so we've had to coordinate with his office about the timing of that. But I'm optimistic that I'll be declassifying additional documents soon.

Maria: So you've spoken to John Durham then?

Ratcliffe: I have. We've actually, for several months, been coordinating with his team of folks to make sure that he has access to all of the Intelligence Community documents that he needs. He's looking at some of the same documents that I am, and so our work is running on parallel paths. Now he has, his is a criminal investigation, he's not sharing his findings or the work that he's doing, but I'm coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work. And what I don't wanna do is declassify something that might prejudice his work. So we're gonna hafta coordinate as we go forward, the completion of his work with my ability to declassify documents, and so we've communicated along those lines.