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 National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was a senior adviser to
Clinton's 2016 campaign and, by his own admission, spread the word to reporters
back then that Democrats believed Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin to
hijack the election and had a secret computer channel to the Kremlin. Neither
proved true.
But long before that Russia collusion narrative crumbled like a
stale Starbucks muffin, Sullivan gave sworn testimony to the House Intelligence
Committee disputing that anything the Clinton campaign spread around Washington
was misinformation.
"Are you aware of any collusion, coordination, or conspiracy by yourself or by
any other members of the campaign that you were working with to procure fake
Russian information to harm Donald Trump?" Sullivan was asked in December 2017.
Sullivan responded without ambiguity. "I mean, you will forgive me if I want to
say more than just an emphatic 'No' to that answer, because I find that totally
absurd," he answered.
But Durham's court filings in two cases last fall – one against Clinton campaign
lawyer Michael Sussmann and the other against the primary source for the
discredited Christopher Steele dossier – call into question that assertion. Both
defendants are charged with lying to the FBI.
Sullivan is not accused of wrongdoing. But court filings in those cases state
that Sullivan – identified in the Sussmann indictment only as a Clinton "foreign
policy advisor" – engaged in email traffic with other Clinton campaign officials
and lawyers about a story leaked to the news media suggesting Trump had a secret
communications system with Russia via a computer server at the Moscow-based Alfa
Bank.
"On or about September 15, 2016 Campaign Lawyer-1 exchanged emails with the
Clinton campaign's campaign manager, communications director, and foreign policy
advisor concerning the Russian Bank-1 allegations that Sussmann had recently
shared with Reporter 1," the Sussmann indictment stated.
"Campaign Lawyer-1 billed his time for this correspondence to
the Clinton campaign with the billing entry 'email correspondence with [name of
foreign policy advisor], [name of campaign manager], [name of communications
director] re: Russian Bank -1 article.'"
That revelation places Sullivan squarely in the loop of conversations designed
to spread a story that the FBI, former Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller,
and Durham's team all have deemed false.
A month after those email conversations – with the Trump-Clinton presidential
race coming down to the wire – the story containing the Alfa Bank allegations
surfaced in the mainstream news media in late October 2016.
And it was Sullivan who jumped into action, issuing a statement adding
legitimacy to the article's claim. "This could be the most direct link yet
between Donald Trump and Moscow," Sullivan said in the statement. "Computer
scientists have uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a
Russian-based bank."
His statement also gave his boss, Hillary Clinton, the opportunity to retweet
it.
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump
Organization to a Russian-based bank," Clinton crowed in an effort to get the
media to cover the allegations.
By the time Sullivan issued the statement, there was already substantial reason
to doubt the article. The FBI was already telling this reporter and the New York
Times that it had ruled out the secret communications channel and that the pings
the computer researchers allegedly found could be explained by basic marketing
communications.
Durham's recent court filings reveal that some of the very
computer executives who were advising the Clinton campaign and its lawyer on the
allegation strongly doubted the conclusions themselves.
Durham refers to emails between the various players who assisted the research
that said they were looking simply for "an inference" or a "very useful
narrative" that could make it look like Trump was in bed with Russia.
But the tech company executive who led the effort himself wrote an email two
months before the stories were published casting doubt on the evidence.
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"Tech Executive-I expressed his own belief that the
'trump-email.com' domain (referring to the subject of the
allegations that SUSSMANN conveyed to the FBI) was not a secret
communications channel with Russian Bank-1, but 'a red herring,'"
Durham wrote in the Sussman indictment.
Other participants in the research expressed similar doubt. "How do
we plan to defend against the criticism that this is not spoofed
traffic," one wrote in an Aug. 22, 2016 email.
So Durham court filings not only establish the
story was proven false, they also show there was reason to doubt it
even before Sullivan lent his name and foreign policy credentials to
it.
The court filings so far provide no evidence Sullivan was told
directly about the concerns, but experts told Just the News that as
the senior national security adviser to the Clinton campaign he had
an obligation to check it out before spreading it to the media.
"If you're the national security adviser, or you're the foreign
policy advisor for presidential candidate Secretary Hillary Clinton,
you got to be able to look at the information and vet it before you
make a conclusion," said Daniel Hoffman, a respected CIA officer who
was the agency's station chief in Moscow.
"He never challenged his own assumption, and he
never challenged the information he was receiving," he added.
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
said he has concerns about the accuracy of Sullivan's testimony back
in 2017 and the fact that today he serves as Biden's national
security adviser. Nunes recently retired to become head of Trump's
new tech and social media company.
"Well, it sure doesn't look like it," Nunes said when asked about
whether Sullivan's testimony was accurate. "Because he was one of
the propagandists that was out there all through the 2016 election
that was promoting this, promoting this in great detail.
"Look, that seems like everybody who was involved in the Russia hoax
was actually promoted. So if you were in the Obama White House, and
you participated in this hoax, you got a major promotion, you got a
new job."
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), another lawmaker who played a role in
exposing falsehoods in the Russia collusion narrative, said Sullivan
should face investigation to determine what he knows.
"Just because you're getting paid by Hillary Clinton, just because
you are Hillary Clinton, or you're associated with Hillary Clinton,
you don't get some free pass from the justice system," Zeldin told
Just the News.
Brian Stekloff, the attorney who represented Sullivan at the 2017
deposition, did not immediately return a call Monday seeking
comment.
In his 2017 testimony, Sullivan argued he was justified in pushing
the Trump narrative because the Clinton campaign felt under attack
by Russia after allegations of hacked emails surfaced in the summer
of 2016.
"We feared that we were under attack, not just by
the Russians, but by a coordinated, with the Trump campaign as
well," he said at the time.
In the end, every investigation that looked at the collusion
allegations concluded there was none between Trump and Russia,
although U.S. officials believe Moscow on its own did engage in
hacking and leaking of Clinton-related emails.
Beyond the legal implications, experts said Sullivan's role in
spreading a now-disproven allegation against a campaign rival could
undercut his credibility with U.S. allies in his current role as
Biden's national security adviser, especially during the current
Russia-Ukraine crisis.
"I can't say what the leadership in Ukraine is thinking about this
White House and the various characters who populate it, as well as
the State and Defense Department. But I'm sure based on what you've
just said, they have a lot of questions about pronouncements coming
out from those very people about intelligence that relates to their
life and death," former State Department adviser Kiron Skinner told
Just the News on Monday. "I think that that would absolutely be the
case."
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