A prominent member of the Biden administration, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, has concerning connections to special counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the Russia investigation, according to RealClearInvestigations on Thursday.
Sources told investigative reporter Paul Sperry that Sullivan is a prominent figure in what they say is unfolding as a bigger picture conspiracy investigation that alleges the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign conspired to use the FBI and CIA to smear then-candidate Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia.
Durham said in a statement his investigation “is ongoing,” and Sperry noted the length of the 27-page Durham indictment of Democratic National Committee-tied lawyer Michael Sussmann was indicative of building a larger conspiracy case, because single-count process crimes like a false statement are usually “a page or two.”
“That is what we call a ‘speaking indictment,’ meaning it is far more detailed than is required for a simple indictment under [federal statute] 1001,” former assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker told RealClearInvestigations.
“It is damning, and I see it as a placeholder for additional indictments, such as government grant and contract fraud, computer intrusion, the Privacy Act and other laws against dissemination of personally identifiable information, and mail fraud and wire fraud – not to mention conspiracy to commit those offenses.
“I definitely see more [indictments] to come,” Swecker, who has worked with Durham on past investigations and knows him personally, added to Sperry.
Sullivan might even be subject to a criminal investigation for potentially false statements made to Congress about his ties to the alleged scheme, according to the Sperry sources.
Sullivan was a senior foreign policy adviser to then-candidate Clinton and led the “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the FBI and CIA, the sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Sperry.
The news comes on the heels of a Perkins Coie attorney Sussmann being indicted for making false statements to the FBI. Sussmann is accused of not being truthful about his clients and their motives for planting the rumor with the FBI, according to the indictment.
“The FBI’s investigation revealed that the email server at issue was not owned or operated by the Trump Organization but, rather, had been administrated by a mass-marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients,” Durham wrote in his indictment about the dubious email server allegation continually pushed by Sullivan and the operatives seeking to tar Trump.
Sullivan appears in that lengthy indictment by his campaign title but not by name, according to Sperry’s investigative report.
That indictment alleged Washington-area computer contractors and university researchers with security clearance that often collaborate with the FBI and intelligence community were working to mine nonpublic Internet data of a “Trump Associates List” that included Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page, sources told Sperry.
The Sussmann indictment stated the lawyer and cyber experts “coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.”
One of the emails obtained by Durham’s special counsel reveal Sullivan was one of those campaign agents, noting Sussmann law partner Marc Elias “exchanged emails with the Clinton campaign’s foreign policy adviser concerning the Russian bank allegations.”
Sources confirmed to Sperry that Sullivan is the “foreign policy adviser” referred to in the emails, and added Sullivan also personally met with Elias, which briefed him on Fusion GPS’s opposition research targeting Trump and paid for by the Clinton campaign.
In Congressional testimony in December 2017, Sullivan claimed he did not know of Fusion’s opposition research, and in closed-door House Intelligence Committee testimony, Sullivan denied knowing about Fusion GPS in 2016 or who was conducting the opposition research, according to the report.
“Marc [Elias],” Sullivan said under oath, Sperry reported, “would occasionally give us updates on the opposition research they were conducting, but I didn’t know what the nature of that effort was – inside effort, outside effort, who was funding it, who was doing it, anything like that.”
Sullivan also testified he didn’t know Perkins Coie was working for the Clinton campaign until October 2017 or that Elias worked for Perkins Coie, despite the widespread media stories noting just that in 2016, Sperry reported.
Elias was reportedly involved in the distribution of the Christopher Steele dossier that was used as a predicate to the Russian investigation.
“To be honest with you, Marc wears a tremendous number of hats, so I wasn’t sure who he was representing,” Sullivan testified, according to the report. “I sort of thought he was, you know, just talking to us as, you know, a fellow traveler in this — in this campaign effort.”
Lying to Congress is a felony, albeit rarely prosecuted, save for the special counsel Robert Mueller convictions won against two Trump associates.
Sullivan’s attorney and a spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment to Sperry about his investigative report.
Sullivan was a prominent Clinton campaign insider who pitched the Russia collusion narrative to the media, with Sperry noting, the foreign policy adviser tipped the media during the Democratic National Convention.
Also, Sperry reported, Sullivan pitched the “secret hotline” tale on the eve of the election, writing in a statement “federal authorities” were investigating a “direct connection between Trump and Russia.”
