Thread by @JewhadiTM

Durham looking at discredited Alfa Bank-Trump claim promoted by @HillaryClinton: report washingtontimes.com/news/2020/oct/… via @washtimes

Special investigator John Durham is looking at the origins of persistent anti-Donald Trump stories that the president’s land development company maintained a secret communication link with Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest, according to a magazine report.

The lore surrounding the supposed Alfa-Trump Organization secret server took root right before the Nov. 8 election with a story in Slate.

Hillary Clinton pounced on the report with a tweet accusing candidate Trump of Russian collusion, a claim she settled on as a campaign tactic on July 26, 2016, new documents show.

The Alfa story was pushed by her oppo researcher, Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. It hired Christopher Steele, with Clinton campaign and Democratic Party money. He wrote a 17-memo dossier accusing Trump and aides of being in an “extensive conspiracy” with the Kremlin.

According to congressional testimony, Mr. Simpson tried to sell The New York Times on the Alfa narrative in October 2016. The Times story fell short of his expectations. On Oct. 31, it appeared in Slate

From a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report the public learned for the first time that the FBI investigated the Alfa angle and concluded in February 2017 that no such computer server existed.

https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/793250312119263233?s=21

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233

Months after the FBI’s private conclusion, the New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins breathed new life into the Alfa theory with a story quoting cyber experts who gave it credence.

The story was promoted by Daniel Jones, a former FBI official and ex-staffer for @SenFeinstein.

He formed an anti-Trump investigative group, the Democracy Integrity Project, and raised millions of dollars from Democrat donors, he told the FBI, according to congressional docs.

Mr. Jones hired Fusion GPS.
On Wednesday, the New Yorker published a followup Filkins story that tells of a grand jury probe by Mr. Durham. The Connecticut U.S. Attorney was appointed by AG William Barr to find out the origins of the FBI’s long Russia election interference probe.

Special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in March 2019 that he did not establish that a conspiracy existed between the Trump campaign and Kremlin. Russia hacked Democratic computers and conducted social media information warfare.