Durham Report: Is Reckoning Coming for Clintons and Bidens?
19:10 GMT 20.05.2023 (Updated: 17:07 GMT 20.09.2023)
© AP Photo / Evan Vucci
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Special Counsel John Durham's report on the Trump-Russia probe has had an unexpected side effect: House GOP lawmakers are now calling on the FBI to reopen probes into the Clinton Foundation. Sputnik has discussed the development with Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.
"One hopes that John Durham is sharing more than enough to prompt more rigorous understanding of the vast dimensions of the Clinton Foundation scandals first reported on by investigative journalists including John Solomon and Peter Schweizer, who actually deserve Pulitzer prizes," said Charles Ortel, who has been carrying out a private investigation into the Clintons' charity network for several years. "Mainstream media 'investigators' exhibit little interest in trying to understand why so many in the Obama administration engaged in outrageous behavior that then was covered up by top level government officials and their co-conspirators in many bureaucracies."
Even though John Durham was assigned to investigate the origins of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane probe, aimed at digging into the Donald Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia, the special counsel also shed light on powerful Democratic players, including former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and her entourage. Durham's lengthy court motions exposed the Clinton campaign role in peddling anti-Trump hoaxes linking him to Russia's Alfa Bank and the Kremlin. Back in 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the Trump-Russia yarn had no evidentiary basis.
In addition, Durham has drawn attention to the fact that while rushing to investigate Trump on questionable pretexts, the FBI swept under the rug at least four probes into Donald's presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Three of the aforementioned Clinton probes were kicked off in early 2016 by FBI field offices in Arkansas, New York, and DC into "possible criminal activity" by the Clinton Foundation. Another investigation was opened as early as in 2014 into claims that foreign governments were trying to make illegal donations to the Clintons' charity to curry favor with Hillary during her tenure as secretary of state. Inexplicably, all four of the bureau's investigations were shut down ahead of the 2016 elections.
US Federal Agencies Failed to Investigate Clinton Charities Many Times Before
Ortel highlighted that the Clinton Foundation came into the US federal authorities' crosshairs much earlier. Still, every time investigators failed to complete their inquiries and bust obvious inconsistencies and apparent fraud, according to him.
"Publicly available records show that the original Clinton Foundation was first investigated by James Comey, Robert Mueller, the IRS, and others from February 2001 through early 2005 and that the investigators 'missed' obvious frauds. This is surprising, at first, in that investigators should have been able to see that the Clinton Foundation never produced required audits of financial statements in the crucial period from 2001 through 2004, when the Little Rock, Arkansas Presidential Center was financed and constructed," said the Wall Street analyst.
"Public records also show that the Clinton Foundation never filed a required IRS report for the crucial 'short period' from October 23, 1997 through December 31, 1997, when leftover sums supposedly raised for the Second Clinton Inauguration Committee were donated to form the Clinton Foundation. After April 25, 2005, my assessment is that the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation ceased to be a viable form of tax-exempt entity known as a 'public charity' because it failed to amend its articles of incorporation and bylaws completely and consistently. In addition, under Bill Clinton's direct supervision, the original Clinton Foundation started to raise money for and engage in activities that never were validly authorized by the IRS as being tax-exempt by the summer of 2001, when it used offices in New York City without complying with strict state and city charity laws," Ortel continued.
26 November 2019, 17:02 GMT
According to the Wall Street analyst, the Clinton Foundation procured "manifestly defective audits" of financial statements for periods commencing December 31, 2003 and ultimately raised billions of dollars on "false pretenses" inside and outside the US.
"Many foreign governments and many rich contributors have sent, all together, billions of dollars in contributions towards the Clinton Foundation and its supposed affiliates without, seemingly, noticing that these entities did not formally exist or properly report concerning their activities," he continued. "There is no good reason for this known public record and every reason to believe that donors sought and likely received benefits from the Clinton family and their allies worth many times the value of their contributions to the Clinton Foundation."
He suspects that the Obama administration was well aware of the Clintons' apparent violations, but covered them up to propel Hillary Clinton to the position of US secretary of state. Accordingly, the IRS, Department of Justice and others turned blind eyes towards the Clinton Foundation's "transgressions," as per Ortel.
Why didn't Special Counsel John Durham dig deeper into the federal authorities' handling of the Clinton Foundation case? "Most likely, John Durham did not have authority to probe back to October 23, 1997," the Wall Street analyst presumed.
11 May 2023, 01:38 GMT
Clintons and Bidens Treated With Kid Gloves Alike
The FBI's decision to shut down probes into the powerful dynastic Clinton family appears to be strikingly similar to the US intelligence community's suppression of the Hunter Biden "laptop from hell" story in 2020, as revealed by Elon Musk's Twitter Files. Moreover, as House lawmakers recently revealed, a whopping 51 ex-top intelligence officials were quick to falsely brand the laptop bombshell dropped by the New York Post as "Russian disinformation" at the request of then-Joe Biden campaign operative Antony Blinken.
Earlier this month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer stated that the FBI had refused a House panel's request for a document that allegedly details President Joe Biden's involvement in an illegal scheme with a foreign national. "It’s clear from the FBI’s response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the Committee. We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. The FBI has failed to do both," Comer announced on May 10.
"The FBI controls the process of issuing security clearances and through this process likely learns much about many officials in the federal government," said Ortel. "This function must be kept wholly separate from other investigative activities and I suspect it has not been kept separate for many years. How else do we explain the nerve exhibited by James Comey in bragging about confronting President-elect Trump before the January 20, 2017 Inauguration and his behavior from then to the present day? If the FBI slow-walks security reviews, it can then hobble the incoming administration, as it did in the case of the Trump administration."
7 February 2023, 15:13 GMT
Time Has Come to Investigate Deep State Corruption
Following the release of the Durham report, present and former American lawmakers called for re-opening probes into the Clinton Foundation.
"The Clintons had a team of people at the FBI running interference for them to avoid criminal culpability. These matters absolutely warrant additional exposure and review," Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee's Weaponization of the Federal Government subcommittee told the Daily Mail.
"Absolutely these investigations should be revisited. There's no reason why Congress can't have a series of hearings with the field agents who were pursuing the Clinton Foundation, and public interviews with them as well. These matters absolutely warrant additional exposure and review," echoed former Republican congressman and ex-House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz.
Charles Ortel expressed hope that the Durham report will trigger "a deep dive into the activities of tax-exempt organizations, particularly when these operate abroad and/or involve political families."
"Real investigations of illegal activities and of corrupt oversight of supposed tax-exempt organizations should be an urgent, bi-partisan priority particularly in the present moment when America is struggling to pay its bills, reduce our annual government deficits and manage our towering debts," the Wall Street analyst concluded.
