Durham report: Five key takeaways from the bombshell findings into Trump-Russia investigation

The 306-page report, which Durham described as "sobering," cast doubt on the idea that the FBI should have ever begun its Crossfire Hurricane investigation and concluded that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign played an outsize role in pushing such collusion claims to the media and to the FBI, among numerous bombshell revelations.

1. No proper basis to launch Crossfire Hurricane

Durham reported the launch of the Trump-Russia investigation was deeply flawed and that an “objective and honest assessment” of the evidence “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,” but “unfortunately, it did not.”

The special counsel concluded “the matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information,” and the FBI launched its Trump-Russia investigation without “any significant review of its own intelligence databases” and without “collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities.” The investigation was also started without conducting any interviews of “witnesses essential to understand the raw information” the FBI had received, as well as without using “any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.”

2. Hillary Clinton connections

Durham's report reached a number of conclusions about Clinton and her 2016 campaign.

The special counsel detailed how differently the FBI handled similar Clinton-related controversies that could affect the election, but that were all treated with “caution” by the FBI.

“The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign,” Durham wrote. In one instance, according to the report, FBI headquarters and Justice Department officials “required defensive briefings to be provided to Clinton and other officials or candidates who appeared to be the targets of foreign interference.”

In another, the FBI “elected to end an investigation after one of its longtime and valuable confidential human sources went beyond what was authorized and made an improper and possibly illegal financial contribution to the Clinton campaign on behalf of a foreign entity as a precursor to a much larger donation being contemplated.” And in a third example related to investigating the Clinton Foundation, both senior FBI and DOJ officials “placed restrictions on how those matters were to be handled such that essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election.”

Durham also pointed to the “markedly different” handling of the Trump investigation and Clinton's private email server.

The special counsel also singled out Marc Elias for criticism. Elias was the Clinton campaign's general counsel in 2016 and hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which hired Steele. Elias met with Steele in 2016 and periodically briefed the campaign about the findings from Fusion and Steele. The lawyer also coordinated closely with Michael Sussmann, his former Perkins Coie law firm colleague, on anti-Trump research in 2016. Sussmann had been charged by Durham with making false statements. However, he was found not guilty in 2022.

3. The dossier and Russian disinformation

Durham said, “Within days of their receipt, the unvetted and unverified Steele Reports were used to support probable cause in the FBI's FISA applications targeting” targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

The special counsel noted: “This was done at a time when the FBI knew that the same information Steele had provided to the FBI had also been fed to the media and others."

“Our investigation determined that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the Steele reporting,” Durham wrote. “Nor was Steele able to produce corroboration for any of the reported allegations, even after being offered $1 million or more by the FBI for such corroboration.”

Durham concluded, “Russian intelligence knew of Steele's election investigation for the Clinton campaign by no later than early July 2016” and “Steele's sources may have been compromised by the Russians at a time prior to the creation of the Steele Reports and throughout the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

The report also said dossier source Igor Danchenko provided Steele with "rumor and speculation." Durham charged Russian analyst Danchenko. However, he was found not guilty last year.

4. No collusion

Durham’s report assessed “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” and the FBI then “discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.”

The special counsel noted the claims in British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier “would eventually fall apart, but not before it had been continuously adopted by the FBI as supportive of its underlying theory regarding collusion.”

Durham added that when ex-Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper spoke with the special counsel’s office, he: “Advised that he knew of no direct evidence that would meet the legal standard of conspiracy or collusion on Trump's part.”

The special counsel also said Adm. Mike Rogers, who served as the director of the National Security Agency during the relevant time period, told them “he did not recall any intelligence that supported the collusion assertions." Durham also concluded former Obama CIA Director John Brennan similarly likely “had no actual knowledge of such information.”

The special counsel also pointed out since-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok said in May 2017 he was hesitating to join the Mueller investigation "in part, because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there." Durham wrote: “Although the ‘there’ does not appear to have been explicitly identified, it may well have been a reference to the Russia-Trump collusion investigation.”

5. No further crimes charged

Durham has obtained one guilty plea during the investigation from FBI ex-lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. Clinesmith pleaded guilty to falsifying a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance against Carter Page. Durham brought charges against Sussmann and Danchenko, but was unsuccessful with both at trial.

The special counsel didn’t charge anyone else in his new report.

“The law does not always make a person's bad judgment, even horribly bad judgment, standing alone, a crime. Nor does the law criminalize all unseemly or unethical conduct that political campaigns might undertake for tactical advantage, absent a violation of a particular federal criminal statute,” Durham wrote. “If this report and the outcome of the Special Counsel's investigation leave some with the impression that injustices or misconduct have gone unaddressed, it is not because the Office concluded that no such injustices or misconduct occurred. It is, rather, because not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense, and criminal prosecutors are tasked exclusively with investigating and prosecuting violations of U.S. criminal laws.”

by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter