The House Judiciary Committee next week will hear testimony from Special Counsel John Durham on his report into the Russia-Trump collusion hoax, and two Wisconsin congressional members on the committee said they expect some startling revelations to come out.
Released last month, Durham’s scathing report found the Department of Justice and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity of the law” when they launched an investigation against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016. The probe, named Crossfire Hurricane, was ostensibly aimed at determining whether Trump and his campaign worked with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election. They did not, as the Mueller report that preceded Durham’s investigation determined.
U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI-05) said Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing will delve into some new material not contained in Durham’s 300-page report. He said names like Charles Dolan Jr, a former aide to Hillary Clinton who contributed “information” to the infamous Steele dossier, and Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the Clinton campaign opposition research report, will be front and center again.
“There are some things in there that I think will be new to the public once those questions are asked next week,” Fitzgerald told The Wisconsin Daily Star this week on the Dan O’Donnell Show.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI-07) said there’s been a “steady drip, drip, drip” of critical information about the political weaponization of the Justice Department thanks in large part to U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-KY-01), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and the work of committee Republicans. It took the threat of subpoenas and contempt of Congress to expose some potentially damning bribery allegations surrounding President Joe Biden and his family.
“One of the questions I’m going to ask [Durham] is, why did you relent and not question the major actors in” Crossfire Hurricane? Tiffany told The Daily Star. “Why didn’t you press those people that all participated in this, going after President Trump without really having the information that would justify their investigation, which they made up as they went along?”
U.S. Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have also asked Durham to explain why former FBI director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and other bureau officials refused to cooperate. And they, too, want to know why Durham allowed their lack of cooperation to stand, particularly in light of the special counsel’s assertion that “senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities.”
“This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation,” the report stated. “In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents.”
Fitzgerald said it’s become more critical than ever that House Republicans use their majority to get to the bottom of a corrupt system.
“It has really kind of changed the mood in D.C. in that I think people understand that our mission, having the majority in the House, is to continue to plow through the number of these other items related to the Biden crime family, certainly even going back to some of the loose ends related to the Clintons,” he said. “We’ve got Durham in before the Judiciary Committee next week and we’re going to probe even deeper into some of the things that came out of the Durham report.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “John Durham” by United States Attorney’s Office. Photo “Michael Sussmann” by The Federalist Society. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Carol M. Highsmith.
