Happy Halloween to all…a day for Spooks to have a bit of fun at our expense; so how fitting a report this is today. Part I was here (Cafe version, C99% version).  I know many of you know an order of magnitude more than I do about all this,  but this issue is of prime importance to what remains of the shreds of Democracy in Amerika to me.

‘Justice Dept. investigation of Russia probe is criminal in nature, person familiar with case says’, WaPo, October 24, 2019, Matt Zapotosky

“The federal prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William P. Barr to examine the origins of the FBI’s probe of President Trump’s 2016 campaign is conducting an investigation officials consider criminal in nature, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Barr tapped Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham in May to review the FBI’s investigation, looking specifically at whether the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” in the probe of possible coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia were “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the matter said then. Durham’s appointment came amid calls from Trump and his allies to investigate the FBI personnel and those in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office involved with the probe of Trump’s campaign. At the time, the Justice Department inspector general was conducting a similar probe.

The significance of officials deeming Durham’s probe “criminal” is difficult to determine by itself. Durham’s appointment was noteworthy because he, unlike the inspector general, is a federal prosecutor with the ability to convene a grand jury that could compel witnesses to testify or charge people with crimes if Durham felt that was necessary.

It was not immediately clear whether officials’ consideration of his work as criminal represented a shift in the seriousness of his investigation or whether a grand jury had been convened. People familiar with the probe declined to say when precisely officials gave it that designation, what specific crimes or people Durham was homing in on, or what evidence he has found. They, like others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about an ongoing investigation.

Federal law enforcement generally needs some indication a crime has occurred to open a criminal investigation — though the standard for doing so is low, and the decision is not reviewed by a court.

Spokespeople for the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.

Trump’s allies noted that the designation of Durham’s probe as criminal — first reported Thursday night by the New York Times — was a possible indication the well-respected federal prosecutor has found evidence of wrongdoing.”

On Oct. 3, 2019, Tim Harris at realcearlpolitics.com had reported that ‘Brennan Is “Concerned” That He May Be Questioned By DOJ On Origins Of Russia Probe’

“Former CIA Director John Brennan said he is “concerned” that he is “supposedly” going to be interviewed by John Durham, the U.S. attorney leading the Justice Department’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation. Attorney General William Barr has ordered an “investigation into the investigators” that has now spiraled into an impeachment inquiry after it was revealed that the president asked the leader of the Ukraine to cooperate with the investigation.

“Given that Barr is now accompanying Durham on these things, it really makes me think that the hand of politics and of Trump are now being used to massage what this ongoing review quasi-investigation is. So I am concerned,” Brennan said on MSNBC’s “Deadline” with former Bush press secretary Nicole Wallace.’

Via dbdailyupdate.com on Oct. 22, 2019: ‘Durham Will Interview Brennan – Explains This Week’s Deep State Media Push’, David Blackmon

Suddenly, it all becomes clear. – News broke on Tuesday that, consistent with earlier rumors, U.S. Attorney John Durham has formally requested an interview with Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan, and plans to also interview Obama-era Director of National Intelligence James Clapper:

@BreakingNLive   ‘BREAKING: US officials say US attorney John Durham has requested an interview from John Brennan, and plans to request James Clapper also sit down with him as part of his review of the 2016 Russia collusion investigation – OANN

1:58 PM – Oct 22, 2019

“This news explains why the Usual Suspects in the fake news media have been putting on a full court fake news press in their support of their Deep State heroes. As reported previously here, Saturday was the New York Times’ day to do the toadying, Sunday was NBC’s day, and Tuesday was Politico’s day in the shilling well.”

‘DOJ Barr and Durham close in on Brennan, Clapper and Comey (Video)’, Alex Christofororu, October 27, 2019

“The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the DOJ’s Russiagate probe taking it up a notch, to now be turned into criminal investigation.

Deep State officials John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey better lawyer up.

Via Zerohedge…

What began as an administrative review by the Justice Department into the origins of Russiagate has “shifted” to a criminal inquiry, according to the New York Times, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The move will allow prosecutor John H Durham the power to subpoena documents and witnesses, to impanel a grand jury, and to file criminal charges. Durham’s progress has been closely monitored by Attorney General William Barr, who appointed the veteran investigator in May, tasking him with looking into FBI and CIA intelligence gathering operations surrounding the 2016 US election.

As the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross notes, Barr said on April 10 that he believed “spying” had taken place against the Trump campaign, and that he doesn’t buy former FBI officials’ version of how the collusion investigation began.

Just over three weeks ago, the Times also reported that President Trump asked the Australian Prime Minister to help Barr uncover the origins of “Russiagate,” a move which Justice Department officials said “would be neither illegal nor untoward for Trump to ask.”

And according to NBC News, Durham has set his sights on former CIA Director John Brennan and former national intelligence director James Clapper.

Durham’s investigation has been running parallel to a probe by Justice Department Inspector General (and registered Democrat) Michael Horowitz, who told Congress on Thursday that he expects his report to be “lengthy,” but able to be made mostly available to the public.

The Durham probe is similar to a Justice Department inspector general’s investigation into the FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, told Congress on Thursday that the report of that investigation is “lengthy” and that he anticipates most of it will be made public.

Horowitz has been investigating whether the FBI misled the foreign surveillance court in spy applications against Page. Investigators relied heavily on the Steele dossier in the applications, though information in that document was largely unverified. Unlike Durham, Horowitz has not had subpoena power, and cannot use a grand jury as part of his investigation. –Daily Caller

And of course, with Durham’s administrative review turning into a criminal probe, the Times has already given away the predictable response from the left; Barr is investigating the Obama intelligence community to help Trump win in 2020. Nothing to see here folks, right?

A partial transcript…as it turned out, very partial…)

C: Yes, i’ve been waiting for this as there was a very big clue that Clapper, Comey, and Brennan were busy appointing lawyers, which strongly suggests that they’ve been receiving letters form the Justice Dept. informing them that they’re suspects in a criminal investigation.  Note that very properly there’s been no public declaration to this effect…one of the most outrageous things about the Comey investigation of russia-gate was  claiming to Congress that it was just a counter-espionage operation.

Remember our video a couples weeks ago, C, that Wm. Barr and John Durham had traveled to Rome, met various people there, and had apparently listened to a taped deposition by Joseph Mifsud, this mysterious so-called Maltese professor, who’d played perhaps the central role in russia-gate, getting this young trump aid Papadopoulos set up that supposedly triggers the start of the whole investigation.  Rather than sending any number of other investigators to Rome as they could have, it seems to me that something big and serious is going on.

All the crimes that were committed during the course of russia-gate…were rather crimes by the investigators who were investigating (their targets, essentially).  russia-gate was not only a hoax, but worse than a hoax, persecutions, etc., even those like Paul Manafort, who IMO committed serious crimes, were not prosecuted for those crimes in reality, but were prosecuted as they were caught up in a political investigation.

C: so now we have a criminal investigation, crimes were committed.  Who committed those crimes?  Brennan, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obomba, Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice.  Respond at will.

M: Sure i can add all sorts of people; how about Chistopeher Steele and Glenn Simpson?  (they both chuckle heartily…)   i’ll be very careful not to discuss the level of their criminality as inappropriate, but firstly, we have to get to the bottom of what seems to have been very serious FISA abuse.  we know about the warrants that allowed the surveillance of carter page, lowel-level volunteer to the trump campaign.  improper disclosure of all the information to the FISA court, including concerns about the reliability of the steele’s dossier on trump, nor was the court told of glen simpson’s role, nor that the steele dossier was paid for by the Clinton campaign.

C: who signed those documents?

M: some of those you’ve named: Rosenstein, McCabe, & Comey.  bear in mind that misleading the court is a serious criminal offense.  this explains why FBI IG horowitz’s report is being held back as overlapping Durham’s investigtion.  evidence of others under surveillance…popadopolous?  as well as and the selective use of leaks to undermine the DT campaign and transition team.

The Intelligence community signed off on an extraordinary memo/statement in Oct. 2016 which clearly pointed to election interference, and we know those authors were John Brennan and James Clapper.  We also know that there were leaks of classified information that were useful in the prosecution of Michael Flynn….leakiing of classified info to engineer the removal of an official of the government is even a more srious offense.  Who was involved in that?  US attorney general Sally Yates, John Brennan possibly, the FBI, including Peter Strzock and J. Comey, the greater conspiracy to entrap is at 14:45…At 15:54: then the single most explosive issue: the so-called hack of the DNC server, all the mysterious info of the leaking of the emails…the Big Story around russia-gate.

I’ll leave this rush transcript at 16:14 at the point the DT/Zelesnskiy phone call has Trump asking about the (DNC?) server in Ukraine, suggesting that Barr and Durham may be investigating that as well; I’m way too tired to do any more.

Now as far as Mercouris having said this: “ Wm. Barr and John Durham had traveled to Rome, met various people there, and had apparently listened to a taped deposition by Joseph Mifsud…

One of the hundred internal links to the CIA Times piece at the WaPo link had it this way:

“Mr. Barr is closely managing the Durham investigation, even traveling to Italy to seek help from officials there to run down an unfounded conspiracy that is at the heart of conservatives’ attacks on the Russia investigation — that the Italian government helped set up the Trump campaign adviser who was told in 2016 that the Russians had damaging information that could hurt Clinton’s campaign.

But Italy’s intelligence services told Mr. Barr that they played no such role in the events leading to the Russia investigation, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said in a news conference on Wednesday. Mr. Barr has also contacted government officials in Britain and Australia about their roles in the early stages of the Russia investigation.”

From the above link to NYT, Oct.23:

“Mr. Conte publicly acknowledged for the first time that Mr. Barr had twice met with the leaders of Italy’s intelligence agencies after asking them to clarify their role in a 2016 meeting between a Maltese professor and a Trump campaign adviser on a small college campus in Rome, Link Campus University.”

“During a subsequent meeting, the professor, Joseph Mifsud, told the adviser, George Papadopolous, that Russia had obtained damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” according to the special counsel’s report into Russian meddling in the 2016 American election. Mr. Papadopolous later shared that information with foreign diplomats, which eventually set off alarms among American intelligence officials about Russian interference.

Mr. Trump and his associates have asserted, without evidence, that Mr. Mifsud is not a professor with links to Russia, as the special counsel’s report states, but a Western intelligence asset working as part of an Obama administration plot to spy on the Trump campaign. That theory, once relegated to the far-right margins, has become a frequent talking point of Mr. Trump’s as he seeks to undermine the special counsel’s report.”

Quite a denial by Conte via the Italian Intelligence agencies, no?  As well as “according to the SpecialProsecutor‘?  Of course, it’s all been an information war, and we can only hope John Durham helps Bob Mueller grow a spine.

I did grab a hella lot of text from the CIA Slimes piece in the WaPo link, but I started gettin’ seriously in the weeds trying to decide what might be important, what was just background agitprop blather.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)