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"The latest pleading from Special Counsel Robert [sic] Durham provides indisputable evidence that my 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. … In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death." 
— Former President Donald Trump, <a href="https://twitter.com/realLizUSA/status/1492646490346598404" target="_blank">in a statement</a>, Feb. 12 
It’s not every day that a former president suggests that his political opponents should be executed. But ever since Trump in early 2017 falsely accused former President Barack Obama of spying on him, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/03/05/trumps-evidence-for-obama-wiretap-claims-relies-on-sketchy-anonymously-sourced-reports/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" target="_blank">based on sketchy, anonymously sourced reports</a>, he and his allies have sought to somehow make the claim come true. (Never mind that now the claim is against the Clinton campaign.) 
The latest "evidence" comes via a court filing by special counsel John Durham, who was tasked by former Attorney General William P. Barr to investigate the roots of the FBI counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. Since <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1370931/download" target="_blank">being appointed special counsel 16 months ago</a>, after a preliminary investigation lasting 17 months, Durham has filed <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco-durham">two indictments</a>. Every subsequent court filing is scrutinized carefully by right-leaning media, sometimes in misleading ways. 
For instance, Fox News has <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dni-ratcliffe-durham-intelligence-indictments-fbi-trump-russia-probe" target="_blank">reported</a> that Durham alleged that Clinton’s "presidential campaign in 2016 had paid to ‘infiltrate’ servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House." But the word "infiltrate," even though it is in quotes, appears nowhere in Durham’s filing. Instead that word comes <a href="https://twitter.com/amrenewctr/status/1492602219505586180" target="_blank">via Kash Patel</a>, a former Trump administration official who offered his own spin on the document. 
The Durham filing says much less than what Trump claims. Thus far, Durham has not charged anyone with spying on Trump. In fact, the statute of limitations has already expired for a key meeting cited in the filing. 
Here’s a guide for the perplexed. 
<h2>What’s this about?</h2> 
In September, Durham charged Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor with expertise in computer cases, with lying to the FBI during a meeting in 2016. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/u-s-v-michael-sussman-indictment/ae5ef5ba-6576-4190-a340-9cc854d08f23/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_18" target="_blank">indictment</a> alleged that he told the FBI he was not acting on behalf of clients when in fact, the indictment said, he was secretly acting on behalf of Clinton’s political team. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have denied he ever said he had no clients. 
<h2>Why did Sussmann meet with the FBI?</h2> 
On Sept. 19, 2016, Sussmann told James Baker, general counsel at the FBI, that cybersecurity researchers had found possible evidence of a secret communications channel between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and with Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked financial institution. The researchers allegedly had been enlisted by someone identified in the indictment as Tech Executive-1 and was later revealed to be <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodneyjoffe/" target="_blank">Rodney Joffe</a>, an internet entrepreneur who founded the world’s first commercial internet hosting company. Joffe, who has not been charged, had hired Sussmann in February 2015 "in connection with a matter involving an agency of the U.S. government," <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco/press-release/file/1433511/download#page=5" target="_blank">according to the indictment</a>. 
The FBI investigated Sussmann’s tip but concluded that it was not suspicious at all. The indictment said agents found that the computer in question "was not owned or operated by the Trump Organization, but, rather, had been administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients." 
<h2>What is the connection to the Clinton campaign?</h2> 
Sussmann worked for Perkins Coie, which was employed by the Clinton presidential campaign. The indictment claims that in Perkins Coie internal paperwork, Sussmann billed his time with Baker to the Clinton campaign. He also billed much of his time on the Alfa Bank matter to the Clinton campaign, according to the indictment. But Sussmann’s lawyers have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/politics/durham-michael-sussmann-trump-russia.html" target="_blank">said</a> the billing records are misleading because the Clinton campaign received a flat retainer so the hours did not result in additional charges. 
In <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21089372/211020-sussmann-govt-opposition-bill-of-particulars.pdf" target="_blank">a later filing in October</a>, Durham <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/10/21/john-durham-admits-he-overstated-evidence-in-his-michael-sussmann-materiality-statement/" target="_blank">appeared to acknowledge</a> that he did not have evidence that Sussmann ever spoke directly to the Clinton campaign about Alfa Bank. Instead, he suggests that such communications took place via another Perkins Coie lawyer who was general counsel for the Clinton campaign. A Durham spokesman declined to comment. 
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2> 
Trump and his allies have charged that the Clinton campaign ginned up allegations of connections between Trump and Russia in the months before the election, leading to negative news stories and improper federal investigations. 
Multiple investigations have found clear evidence of the Russian government’s efforts to intervene in the 2016 election on the side of Donald Trump. But special counsel Robert S. Mueller III could not find evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin; he merely concluded that the campaign was opportunistic about apparent assistance from Russia. 
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has been connected to negative media reports during the campaign about Trump and Russia. A former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, working <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/09/trump-russia-and-the-opposition-research-firm-run-by-ex-journalists/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_34" target="_blank">under contract for a private investigation firm</a> at the behest of Clinton’s campaign, actively pitched his findings to news reporters, even though his reports later <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/17/steele-dossier-guide-latest-allegations/?itid=lk_inline_manual_34" target="_blank">turned out to be poorly sourced</a>. 
So far, there is no evidence that the Clinton campaign directly managed the Steele reporting or leaks about it to the media. 
<h2>Where does the ‘spying’ claim come from?</h2> 
Durham on Feb. 11 asked the court to examine what he called potential conflicts of interest regarding Sussmann’s counsel, Latham &amp; Watkins. As part of that document, he took the opportunity to raise new allegations, though no new crimes were claimed. 
One claim — the source of the "spying" allegation — is that Durham has evidence that Joffe and his associates "exploited" domain name system (DNS) internet traffic at an unnamed health care provider, Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and "the Executive Office of the President of the United States." 
DNS information shows what a person has been doing on the internet, such as browsing activity. Companies and government offices use special-purpose DNS providers that might monitor for suspicious traffic or filter out potentially dangerous web addresses that include typos. 
The indictment added that Joffe’s employer "had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP. Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump." 
The indictment does not make clear the circumstances of the White House contract, but Durham appears to be claiming the company kept track of the web addresses that internet users at the White House were visiting. It is unclear whether such monitoring might have been part of the original contract. 
Moreover, contrary to much of the reporting in right-wing media, Durham does not specifically say the alleged monitoring of EOP took place while Trump was president — and the circumstances suggest it took place in 2016. 
"The Special Counsel has again made a filing in this case that unnecessarily includes prejudicial — and false — allegations that are irrelevant to his Motion and to the charged offense, and are plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool," Sussmann’s lawyers charged in <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/558992174/Response-By-Sussmann-legal-team-2-14-22" target="_blank">a response</a> filed with the court Monday night. 
A spokesperson for Joffe also denied any nefarious intent in a statement to the Fact Checker.

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What's behind the controversy over the Durham investigation?

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WASHINGTON — Days before stepping down as vice president in January 2017, Joe Biden addressed Ukrainian lawmakers during a sixth and final visit to Kyiv under the Obama administration, promising that if the fledgling democracy worked to root out corruption and remain a democratic society, their efforts would "keep the international community united behind you." 
In the second year of Biden’s presidency, Ukraine is again at the forefront of his international agenda, as Russia’s massive buildup of troops along the Ukrainian border poses the latest foreign policy test for the president. 
Biden, who faced criticism both at home and abroad for the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, is pushing for a diplomatic solution to keep Russian President Vladmir Putin from invading Ukraine, but has also started to deploy nearly 3,000 troops to the region to deter Putin. 
Foreign policy analysts contend that Biden, as well as European allies, are trying to balance de-escalating tensions with Putin, while still asserting the power of the long-standing NATO security alliance that was formed by the United States and other European nations in 1949 to counter the rising power of the Soviet Union. 
Biden "recognizes that Putin needs a way out, that we've gone far enough in this crisis," said Jeremi Suri, a global affairs professor at the University of Texas-Austin. "Biden recognizes that there's no reality where Putin just takes his soldiers and goes home and does nothing because then it's a huge loss for him … Biden is trying to give Putin an out and he's trying to understand the circumstances Putin is in with his own domestic issues. Biden does not want to give Putin anything, but he is happy for Putin to be able to pretend he got something." 
Last week the first of 3,000 U.S. troops deployed by Biden to the region arrived in Poland and Germany, and the Pentagon has said American forces already stationed in Europe could eventually be repositioned to other NATO allies in Eastern Europe, all in a show of force aimed at getting Putin to abandon any plans to invade Ukraine. Putin has moved 100,000 Russian forces along the Ukraine border and deployed a host of equipment to the area. 
"Biden took a more pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian position during the Obama administration, and Putin certainly knows that," said Yoshiko Herrera, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in Russian politics. 
Former President Barack Obama tapped Biden to serve as the administration’s point person on Ukraine following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Biden in his 2017 memoir described advocating to European allies that "we need to remain resolute and united in our support of Ukraine," because if the sovereign nation were to fall to Russia, the loss would "resonate well beyond Ukraine." 
"Biden's previous work complicates Putin's calculations because he cannot be sure that Biden would take all military options off the table, and I don't think Biden has," said Herrera. "I think that lessens the likelihood of invasion because Putin, for all his flaws, is actually a careful and calculating dictator. He doesn’t act erratically." 
Putin has "backed himself into a corner," Herrera said, noting that a war in Ukraine would be deeply unpopular among Russians already grappling with a shaky economy and reluctant to enter a conflict with mass casualties on both sides. 
"I just think there's no way Putin actually wants an invasion of Ukraine … it wouldn’t be successful," Herrera said. "It might be successful in terms of rolling tanks in, but in terms of holding Ukraine, he would immediately face a serious insurgency." 
Suri said negotiating a successful diplomatic solution to the crisis in Ukraine is not only important for Biden back home in the United States, but also abroad, noting that several European allies were critical of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, arguing that they weren’t included in the exit plans. 
"It's really important that he appears to be ordered, competent, coherent in what he's doing and working closely with allies," Suri said. "Afghanistan for many allies looked like the United States was picking up and leaving and not even working with our allies as we were moving out. So it's important for him to show that he's actually acting as a leader here." 
With Democrats bracing for a rough midterm election season, Suri said Biden is looking for a diplomatic success to tout on the campaign trail. 
"I think that what he's hoping is that this will be peacefully resolved and he will be able to take credit for that," Suri said. 
Christopher Fettweis, a political-science professor at Tulane University who focuses on U.S. foreign relations, said Biden is ultimately looking to convey to Putin "that if his goal is to keep Ukraine out of the Western sphere of influence, and to have the United States and Western Europe not necessarily give [Russia] a united front, then defusing this crisis would help [Putin] attain that goal more than attacking Ukraine."

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Tensions in Ukraine pose major foreign test for President Biden

Tensions in Ukraine pose major policy test for Biden

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