Patel starts the episode with a very quick recap on the Russia hoax for anyone who has forgotten bits and pieces after five long, excruciating years of mainstream media hysteria. Patel of course was the lead investigator into Trump-Russia collusion under Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), which led to the release of the Nunes memo outlining FISA abuses by both the FBI and DOJ that representatives like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) promptly dismissed as just more lies to cover for Trump. Schiff even went so far as to insist that he had seen documented proof Trump colluded with the Russians—though he couldn’t share it with the public—when the whole tale began to unravel and only the likes of Rachel Maddow were still declaring that the walls were closing in on the president.
The Inspector General report followed, finding over 100 FISA application abuses and resulting in Trump appointing John Durham to investigate the investigators, which thus far has led to three arrests of individuals with dirty hands. Kevin Clinesmith is a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to doctoring an email so the FBI could obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Michael Sussmann, a former lawyer for the Clinton campaign, was charged with lying to the FBI by telling them Trump was tied to Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank, which sued Steele for defamation in 2018. Now Igor Danchenko, who was the supposed source for many of the fake narratives in the Steele Dossier, has also been arrested for lying to the FBI.
Danchenko’s arrest is the catalyst for the episode, though Patel and Jekielek touch on a range of topics surrounding the Russia hoax. It’s an important arrest because Steele claimed Danchenko was a main source for the information in his dossier; information Danchenko was supposedly compiling from other sources. It’s also important because, as Patel states a little farther in, Durham took the time to write a 39-page indictment of Danchenko outlining numerous other players both known and previously unknown. Federal indictments typically only run a few pages per Patel, who is a former federal prosecutor, and he believes Durham is using the indictment to get information out to the public he wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Federal indictments become a matter of public record, so even if someone in the government or the mainstream media wanted to cover it up, they can’t.
We therefore know more about the likes of Sergei Milian, who has long claimed he was not involved with the Trump campaign and who, based on Patel’s assessment, has now been proven right. We also know about a man named Charles Dolan, who Jekielek thinks he somehow missed until Patel declares that no, Patel himself and his team had never heard of Dolan during the investigation led by the House Intelligence Committee. This means that despite all of their many subpoenas to have all evidence related to Trump and Russia turned over to them, Rod Rosenstein’s Department of Justice actively withheld information from the investigators. Patel and company knew at the time that they weren’t getting everything the FBI and DOJ had, but he’s clearly shocked at how important some of the information the DOJ held back is turning out to be. In Danchenko’s case, the FBI interviewed him five times, though the investigation under Patel only knew about two or three interviews and he was never given the full text of those interviews, and Dolan was a non-entity.
Dolan, as Patel explains, is a long-time Clinton ally affiliated with both Danchenko and Steele, and was apparently feeding information to Danchenko. Danchenko’s other sources have already signed affidavits stating they gave no hard evidence of any Trump wrongdoing to Danchenko, and what they did tell him was really only in jest. Patel then outlines how both Dolan and Danchenko are connected to Fiona Hill, who was one of the people who started the Ukraine phone call hoax that resulted in Trump being impeached, and it really becomes quite dizzying. Danchenko was Hill’s research assistant prior to her joining the White House and she introduced him to Steele. She knew Dolan from her years at the State Department and introduced him to Danchenko. During the Ukraine impeachment trial, she testified that she had no knowledge of how Steele “developed his dossier.” Jekielek reads her testimony verbatim, which Patel finds patently unbelievable, as would anyone but the most rabid anti-Trumper. Sadly for her, she was under oath in front of Congress, and Durham is on the hunt for liars.
This gets Patel back to the indictment of Danchenko and Durham’s investigation. Durham’s very thorough indictment lists all the ways Danchenko lied to the FBI, a crime that the mainstream media considered deadly serious in the days of the Michael Flynn trial but now just shrugs their shoulders at. Rather than misremembering a detail of a phone call like Flynn was accused of, Danchenko lied about meetings he had, his involvement with the dossier, people he said gave him information, really just about everything material to the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. Patel is probably correct in his presumption that Durham has written such a lengthy indictment for both Sussmann and Danchenko in an effort to get the truth to any U.S. citizen willing to do a quick internet search to find it, as Danchenko’s arrest hasn’t really been talked about by most news outlets since it happened.
Jekielek seizes on Patel’s theory to bring up a matter of the Durham investigation that has frustrated many Americans who looked to him as their last great hope to uncover the culprits behind the Russia hoax once and for all. Unlike nearly every other investigation during the Trump era, Durham’s team has had only one leak, a feat that astounds Jekielek. Both hosts admit to feeling disheartened by the Durham investigation proceeding so quietly, but Patel reminds Jekielek and the viewer that Durham is the one who got to the bottom of the CIA torture techniques during the war on terror. Durham kept that under wraps as well until he was ready to go after the CIA, so while it may seem impossible to run an investigation without leaks in our current political climate, Durham is proving you can.
On the matter of the tiny link, Jekielek and Patel discuss how high profile individuals are often “soft walked” by the feds (unless they’re named Roger Stone), where authorities will contact a suspect’s lawyer and tell them to have their client turn themselves in unless there’s a reason to believe they’re a flight risk. Danchenko was an exception to this soft walk procedure, as Durham’s plan to arrest him was leaked to the media. Even so, Patel remains impressed that this is the only leak that’s seen the light of day in an investigation that’s been going on for two years at this point.
Jekielek and Patel then get to break down the lies Danchenko told the FBI versus what investigators knew when Patel was leading the Russiagate investigation. Patel details the steps they took to verify the claims made in the dossier that the FBI could have but didn’t, as well as exactly how thoroughly the Steele Dossier has collapsed. Basically everyone listed as a source in the dossier has disavowed it, stating they either never said what was attributed to them or they were just joking, though Sergei Millian is the main figure who has been saying for a very long time that he was in no way involved with the dossier. Millian even tweeted directly at Danchenko, urging him to come clean about who put him up to lying to the FBI and warning him that his “friends will take care” of him. The tweet reads like a reminder that the Russian mafia is a thing that exists, and while Patel doesn’t think Danchenko needs to be worried, he also asserts that he’s sure Durham will make sure nothing happens to him before trial.
Dolan, the man no one knew about, comes up again and it turns out he has a lot of dealings with the Russians. Patel brings Carter Page into the discussion as well, finding it curious that Charles Dolan just happened to be in Russia having the kinds of meetings Carter Page was accused of having so the FBI could obtain a FISA warrant to spy on him. It sounds like a classic projection of accusing your opponent of exactly what you’re doing, and Patel is confident that Durham is looking into this new discovery as well. Dolan had access to high-level Russians and is connected to Christopher Steele, Fiona Hill, and the Clintons, but Patel never heard of him before so he has to connect the dots in real-time right along with everyone else. Dolan was actively advising the Clinton campaign while dealing with both Steele and Danchenko, and Patel can only speculate on the many ways he might be mixed up in Russiagate and what might put him in Durham’s crosshairs.
With a running time of almost 40 minutes, there’s plenty more than this that Patel breaks down for the viewer, but you’re going to have to watch the rest for yourself. It’s well worth the time to watch and share, even if it is a little sickening at just how wicked the people behind the Trump-Russia hoax were. Though Durham hasn’t tracked them all down yet, Patel and Jekielek are honestly hopeful that he’ll follow the trail wherever it leads, so fire up the episode now. Once you’re done watching, share it with everyone you know; particularly anyone who might be coming to Thanksgiving who still believes the “Russia, Russia, Russia” narrative.
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