Trump: Durham Filing About Clinton Campaign Discloses 'Treason at the Highest Level'

Former US President Donald Trump has commented on John Durham's latest court filing about the latter's investigation into the FBI's "Russiagate" probe, claiming that the special counsel's inquiry exposes "the crime of the century".

Durham claimed in the 11 February filing that former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign paid a tech company to "infiltrate" Trump Tower and later the White House servers in order to forge a "narrative" that would link then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia.

In an interview with Fox News, the 45th president said that "it looks like this is just the beginning, because, if you read the filing and have any understanding of what took place, and I called this a long time ago, you're going to see a lot of other things happening, having to do with what, really, just is a continuation of the crime of the century".

According to Trump, "this is such a big event, nobody's seen anything like this". He also told Fox News that he "didn't have any" insight into the allegations included in the 11 February filing until it was made public.

"Who would think a thing like this is even possible? Durham is also coming up with things far bigger than anybody thought possible — nobody ever thought a thing like this would be even discussed, let alone an act like this committed", the ex-US president said, describing "the act" as "treason at the highest level".

He argued that "based on what everyone is seeing, Durham may go down as a great hero in this country that will be talked about for years".

Separately, Trump hit out at the press coverage of Durham's filing, claiming that "another crime is being committed — and that's the crime of the media".

"The media […] refuse to talk about it and yet it is 10 times bigger than Watergate. The press is corrupt and they don't like to cover it. They're sort of being forced. It is such a big story, I don't know that they can play the game much longer", he said.

The remarks followed Trump's first reaction to the Durham filing last week, when the ex-POTUS said in a statement "those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution".

The 45th president added that the latest pleading from Durham "provides indisputable evidence" that the Trump "campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia". He then went further by saying that "in a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death".

The 11 February filing looks at a potential conflict of interest regarding former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who was accused of making false statements to a federal agent, a charge Sussman pleaded not guilty to.

Durham's motion argued that Sussman "had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a US-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign".

Durham Investigation

In 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr told Durham to lead a review into the "Russiagate" investigation launched by the FBI in July 2016 to determine if the bureau's probe into the allegations of Trump's "collusion" with Moscow were legal.

This came after the US Justice Department released a redacted version of then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, which summarised the outcome of his probe into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and Moscow's alleged interference in the 2016 US election. According to the document, the investigation did not find any evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Russia has repeatedly rejected allegations of its interference in the US political system, stressing that the claims were made to explain the election loss of Trump's opponent and distract public attention away from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.