Durham Prosecutes FBI Informants, While Protecting Their Handlers

Paul SperrySeptember 29, 2022

Since being named special counsel in October 2020, John Durham has investigated or indicted several unscrupulous anti-Trump informants. But he has spared the FBI agents who handled them, raising suspicions he’s letting investigators off the hook in his waning investigation of misconduct in the Russiagate probe.

In recent court filings, Durham has portrayed the G-men as naïve recipients of bad information, tricked into opening improper investigations targeting Donald Trump and obtaining invalid warrants to spy on one of his advisers.

But as the cases against the informants have gone to trial, defense lawyers have revealed evidence that cuts against that narrative. FBI investigators look less like guileless victims and more like willing partners in the fraudulent schemes Durham has brought to light.

Notwithstanding his reputation as a tough, intrepid prosecutor, Durham has made excuses for the misconduct of FBI agents, providing them a ready-made defense against any possible future prosecution, according to legal experts.

“Durham was supposed to clean up the FBI cesspool, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing that,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington watchdog group. “He started with a bang and is ending with a whimper.”

In the latest example, critics point to a flurry of pretrial motions in Durham’s case against former FBI informant Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the false claims regarding Trump and Russia advanced by the opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign known as the Steele dossier.

Next month, Danchenko faces charges he lied to FBI investigators multiple times about the sourcing of the information in the dossier, which the bureau used to secure wiretap warrants to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser. Relying on Danchenko’s reporting, the FBI claimed that the adviser, Carter Page, was a Russian agent