Thread by @EpochTimes

THREAD🧵#DurhamReport: It will take weeks, months, and perhaps even years to fully take in every aspect of the #FBI’s scheme against President Trump.

The most crucial finding concerns the tip that led the FBI to open its investigation. theepochtimes.com/analysis-the-b…

Until last week, the official story was that a Trump campaign adviser, @GeorgePapa19, got drunk in a London bar and told an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, about a secret plot between #Russia and the Trump campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race by… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

While Papadopoulos has always denied the story, the first official hint that something was amiss came when @JusticeOIG Michael Horowitz released his December 2019 report into the FBI’s handling of its investigation of the Trump campaign.

At the time, Attorney General Barr and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

@JusticeOIG Horowitz determined that the #FBI had properly opened the investigation, claiming that “we concluded that the FFG information [Australian diplomat’s tip] … describing a first-hand account from an FFG employee of a conversation with Papadopoulos, was sufficient to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

But now, after a 3½-year wait, the #DurhamReport finally sheds light on the details of the dispute.

In what is arguably the most important sentence of the entire 308-page report, Durham states:

“According to [Alexander] Downer, Papadopoulos made no mention of Clinton emails,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

In one sentence, Durham crushed the #FBI’s justification for the bureau’s #CrossfireHurricane investigation.

There was no mention of Clinton’s emails, no mention of any dirt, and neither was there any mention of an offer from Russia.

The official narrative, which the FBI not… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Notably, the #FBI also pushed its false story about @GeorgePapa19 spilling the beans on #Russia collusion during a drunken encounter at a London bar to the media.

According to Durham, Papadopoulos had met an Australian career diplomat in London on May 6, 2016. According to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The day before Papadopoulos met Thompson, Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano reported that it was a near-certainty that #Russia had @HillaryClinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state.

At the time, these emails were the subject of much speculation that Clinton had used… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Then, on the day before @GeorgePapa19 met Downer, Napolitano reported that the Kremlin had possession of Clinton’s emails and was debating whether to release them.

https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1205930771346862083

The fact that @GeorgePapa19 repeated a story that was being aired on @FoxNews, on a topic that many people were talking about at the time, was hardly newsworthy.

Downer later told #Durham that the only thing of significance that Papadopoulos said was that “the Russians have… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Tip Reaches FBI Office

According to #Durham, the reason why Papadopoulos’s insignificant comment about #Russia having information on Clinton suddenly prompted Downer to take the information to the US Embassy in London was the July 22, 2016, release by @wikileaks of allegedly… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Downer’s tip reached #FBI headquarters on July 28, 2016, and lead investigator #PeterStrzok rushed to open a full investigation into the Trump campaign on July 31, before having even talked to Downer.

According to #Durham, Strzok then interviewed Downer and Thompson in London on… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The inconsistency appears to have been an after-the-fact effort on Strzok’s part to address the deficiencies in opening the case against @realDonaldTrump by tying @GeorgePapa19 to Clinton’s emails, emails which we now know were never mentioned by Papadopoulos.

Strzok refused to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

While some may argue that #Durham’s conclusions related to Downer’s tip are made with the benefit of hindsight, the evidence presented by Durham proves otherwise.

Strzok had all the information he needed to conclude that Downer’s tip was completely insignificant and yet went… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Downer also told Strzok that he “did not get the sense Papadopoulos was the middle-man to coordinate with the Russians.”

The contemporaneous meeting record prepared by the Australians in May 2016, which they shared with Strzok, didn’t mention the hacking of the @DNC, the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Text Messages Reveal Bias

Durham also notes that prior to receiving Downer’s tip, Strzok and his #FBI colleague Lisa Page were frantically texting each other about their loathing of Trump and shared desire to derail his campaign.

- On March 3, 2016, Page texted Strzok, “God… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

On the same day, Page sent Strzok an article that seeded the idea of Trump–Russia collusion, a narrative that the Clinton campaign had begun to promote in the media.

None of these things had anything to do with Downer.

Perhaps even more significantly, the #FBI’s legal attache in London, who accompanied Strzok to his Aug. 2, 2016, interview with Downer, told Durham that while they were being driven to the interview, Strzok told the attache, “There’s nothing to this, but we have to run it to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The legal attache also told #Durham that when he ran Downer’s tip past British intelligence, he was told that whatever @GeorgePapa19 had said wasn’t “particularly valuable intelligence.”

The British side further insisted that there had to be something other than Downer’s tip for… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

On a final note, while we may never know why @JusticeOIG Horowitz determined that the #FBI’s investigation was properly predicated when there was no basis for making that determination, the delay in disclosing how the FBI’s investigation really started means that most, if not… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…