UPDATED Sunday Morning: EmptyWheel has now posted a definitive take-down of this whole stupid kerfluffle. From hers we learn that (former) GOP big boy Kash Patel, may have just been subjected to a circular firing squad — by Durham, thus:
…Kash and his colleagues have known the outlines of this for over four years.
At the time, and in his next job at NSC, Kash would have had ready access to the CIA for more details about the meeting — indeed, he came into this interview knowing about it already.
At the time, and in his next job at NSC, and in his next job as DOD Chief of Staff, Kash would have had knowledge of Rodney Joffe’s contracts with FBI and NSA.
At the time, and in his next job at NSC, and in his next job as DOD Chief of Staff, Kash would have had access to the DARPA contract, which got extended afterwards.
In his comment, the former president said that “those who knew about this” should be subject to criminal prosecution. And Kash Patel was, at all moments between December 2017 and January 2021, not only aware of the outlines and the players, but he did nothing.
Whatever else this kerfuffle has done, it has made Kash’s exposure as a witness in this case quite dicey. Because not only is Kash a witness that Sussmann was not hiding what he did, but he is someone who for years was in a position to do something about it, and he did nothing….
Well, I honestly don’t care about Patel, any longer (he’s become irrelevant). I note it solely to make the point that it certainly suggests — if nothing else — this is just a politics move; one designed to deflect from Trump’s now clearly purloined Top Secret docs down at Mar-A-Lago. End update.
Clearly, Durham’s aim in this motion was political, not legal.
But he or his handlers wanted to whip up some new (old) stink to distract from the fact that Tangerine had up to ten litigator boxes of classified documents (some marked “Top Secret“) in Mar-A-Lago that the National Archives had to fight to recover, here a year post his time in office.
So he files a motion about matters he cannot charge, since the applicable statute ran last week (and he’s free to make a bunch of non-factual insinuations with it, as he’ll never have to explain it, as it will never come in as evidence in any proceeding). He files it… to incite precisely the “patsy’s reaction” (a hue and cry, for the rubes) that John Hinderaker provides for him — and his readers.
Charming. Here is the estimable EmptyWheel making short work of it all, and the concluding bit. [Do read her, for the truth related to all these matters, daily].
…Whatever Durham hopes to use to sustain the claim of a continuing conspiracy, this filing seems to concede that the lies Durham claims Sussmann told in that meeting that took place five years and a few days ago will not be charged.
Ask not for whom the statute of limitations toll, John Durham. They toll for you….
So again, there is no there, there — other than some political grandstanding… to prevent the rubes from asking why Trump had ten boxes of records squirreled away at his Florida club — after screaming for three years about HRC’s supposedly missing emails.
Hilarious. Well done, John — you won a dunce’s cap. Wear it with pride.
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