Durham’s findings are likely to become political fodder for Trump, who is planning to run for re-election in 2024 despite facing criminal charges in New York and two federal investigations by Special Counsel Jack Smith that are looking both at Trump’s retention of classified records and his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump had hoped Durham would release his report ahead of the 2020 election, in what he thought would be a blow to President Joe Biden’s campaign. Trump said on social media on Monday he was pleased with the results of Durham’s report.
But Durham’s investigation has largely failed to produce meaningful impact, after two separate juries acquitted both defendants he tried to prosecute in 2022.
In one case Durham brought, a Washington, D.C. jury acquitted Hillary Clinton’s former campaign attorney Michael Sussmann on charges he lied to the FBI when he met with the bureau in September 2016 to share a tip about possible communications between Trump’s business and a Russian bank.
Durham’s investigation was dealt yet another major set-back just a few months later, when a jury in Virginia acquitted Russian researcher Igor Danchenko of charges that he lied to the FBI when he was interviewed about the sources of information he provided that became part of a document known as the “Steele dossier.”
That document, penned by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, made allegations about ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia and contained salacious details – many of which were never substantiated.
An investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general later found that the FBI improperly continued to rely on unsubstantiated allegations in the Steele dossier when it applied for court-approved warrant applications to monitor the communications of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
Durham did secure a successful guilty plea against former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who was singled out in the inspector general’s report, for altering an email that was used to justify a government wiretap application for Page.
Durham’s report on Monday echoed many of the concerns the inspector general previously raised about the rigor of the FBI’s process for applying to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for wiretap applications.
