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Aug. 18, 2021 - Epoch Times

19:13

Evidence Presented to Grand Jury in Durham's Russia Probe, Report Shows | Facts Matter

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	Good evening.
	While most people in the country are focused on what's happening over in Afghanistan, and rightfully so, there was a fairly major development here in America which a lot of people missed.
	Two days ago, it was reported that John Durham, who is the special counsel currently investigating the FBI, he is currently presenting evidence to a grand jury, which might very well mean that more criminal referrals are on the way.
	Let's go through what we know together.
	Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
	And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about censorship.
	You know, when I think about big censorship, I think about platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and maybe sometimes Instagram.
	Those are the names that usually come to my mind.
	However, it looks like Microsoft is getting into the action as well.
	How so?
	Well, last week, one of our programs, American Thought Leaders, they interviewed a professor named Martin Kulldorff.
	He is an epidemiologist, he is a biostatistician, he's a professor over at Harvard Medical School, and he is a senior scholar of the Brownstone Institute.
	And the premise of the interview was that he was very critical of the global COVID response.
	In fact, he called it the biggest public health fiasco in history.
	Here is part of what he said in that interview.
	Those who are pushing these vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, vaccine fanatics, I would call them, to me, they have done much more damage during this one year than the anti-vaxxers has done in two decades.
	Now, that interview was very well received.
	On our website, on theepictimes.com, it had close to 12,000 shares.
	A lot of people watched it, the comments below it were great, and I mean, generally, it was a very well-received video.
	Because you don't have to agree with him, but he makes a very well-reasoned argument.
	And so this professor, what he decided to do was to post the interview on his personal LinkedIn profile.
	For reference, by the way, LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.
	And right away, he got a lot of traction.
	It received 5,000 views, 50 likes, and some positive comments as well, which is pretty good for a personal profile over on LinkedIn.
	That's a pretty high metric.
	However, LinkedIn took it down within hours.
	That's right.
	They replaced the post with an announcement that only the professor could see.
	Here's what it said.
	Now again, this was not your Uncle Andy giving his opinion on the vaccine.
	That No offense to Uncle Andy.
	This is a professor over at Harvard Medical.
	He's an epidemiologist and a biostatistician, and he's known around the world.
	And yet his views were censored.
	What does that mean?
	That means that no matter how highly credentialed an individual is, and no matter how important the information he's sharing as it relates to public health, big tech can silence him with the vague community policies that they have.
	And by the way, in case you don't know, LinkedIn is the only major American social network which is permitted over in China.
	And since March of this year, the Chinese Communist Party has been pressuring LinkedIn to better control the political content on their website.
	Here's a quote from the New York Times.
	Officials are requiring LinkedIn to perform a self-evaluation and offer a report to the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's internet regulator.
	The service was also forced to suspend new signups of users inside of China for 30 days, though that period could change depending on the administration's judgment.
	And along that line, this year, in June of 2021, right ahead of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, LinkedIn began blocking accounts of people critical to the Chinese Communist Party, including our staff members right here at the Epoch Times.
	In fact, here is the message that some of our staff members received on LinkedIn.
	We want to make you aware that due to legal requirements impacting the accessibility within China of some publishing organizations, your profile and your activity, such as items you share with your network, are not visible to those accessing LinkedIn from within China at this time.
	Now, if you actually want to watch that full interview with Professor Koldorf, you can find it over on Epic TV under the subsection American Thought Leaders.
	And Epic TV is, of course, our no-censorship video platform where we upload all of the awesome Epic Times video programs.
	The link to that episode will be right there at the very top of the description box.
	I hope you check it out.
	And all I ask in return is that you take a quick moment to smash that like button.
	And now let's move on over and talk about John Durham.
	If you remember, during the 2016 election, the FBI engaged in something that they internally dubbed Operation Crossfire Hurricane.
	That was their codename for a counterintelligence operation that they were running against the Trump campaign and some of its associates.
	Basically, it's what's colloquially known as the Trump-Russia probe or Spygate.
	However, as we've already discussed in previous episodes, that entire investigation was riddled with errors, The Mueller report found that there was no actual evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and the question remains as to whether the spying was properly predicated.
	Because to this very day, no one has actually been held accountable for what happened, and the whole operation remains clouded in mystery.
	Now, the only person who is still investigating this is John Durham, who was assigned to lead the investigation as a special counsel.
	However, even though he's been investigating this matter for two and a half years now, we have not heard much from him.
	In fact, over all this time, he has only brought up one criminal referral against a single FBI lawyer for altering an email.
	And it's exactly this radio silence from John Durham which caused President Trump to recently make this statement.
	Where's Durham?
	Is he a living, breathing human being?
	Will there ever be a Durham report?
	However, just two days ago there was a development in the Durham investigation.
	According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, John Durham is currently presenting evidence to a grand jury.
	Why?
	Well, according to this report, John Durham is currently, quote, examining potential criminal charges against several lower-level Federal Bureau of Investigation employees and people who aren't in government.
	And so, what appears to be happening is that right now, John Durham is presenting evidence to a grand jury which is focused on whether the FBI's tipsters knowingly provided false information in order to launch the surveillance of Trump's campaign.
	Specifically, he's examining false tips which pertain to connections between the Trump campaign and a Russian bank called Alpha Bank.
	Sorry.
	What's this?
	Well, that's a great question, Roman.
	And the answer is that it's today's sponsor, which is an awesome messaging company called Secure.
	And it's awesome if you're the type of person that actually cares about your privacy.
	Because it goes without saying that both government actors as well as big tech companies can spy on your documents, your emails, and your chat messages.
	I mean, I'm sure you've experienced it before where you're messaging someone or emailing someone about a certain product or service, and then suddenly you're seeing ads for that exact same product or service.
	I mean, it's pretty obvious what's going on behind the scenes.
	However, with Secure, they have an answer to that problem because they have their own proprietary encryption technology, which allows you to send text messages, documents, as well as emails, and keep them safe and private.
	And largely, that's because they have their servers and their data center over in Switzerland.
	Now, why is that important?
	Well, Switzerland has the strictest data privacy laws in the entire world.
	That's what they say.
	And therefore, your messages are not subject to the Intrusive Cloud Act.
	And if you're interested to know what the Cloud Act is, you can go over to their website to secure his website and have a great explanation for it.
	And in my opinion, the best thing about secure over the other messaging apps that are out there is that you can communicate securely even if the recipient of your message does not use secure.
	Basically, you send the message to them.
	Let's say you send a text and it sends them a link.
	They click on that link and it establishes a secure connection that goes through Switzerland so that you can chat with them securely and privately, even if they don't have secure themselves.
	So go on over to secure.com, which is S-E-K-U-R.com, and use promo code Roman to save 25% off.
	Their services don't cost that much.
	It's only $5 for the Messenger and $10 for the email and the Messenger package, and you can even save 25% off when you use the promo code Roman.
	Now, Secure, thank you so much for sponsoring our episode.
	Now, Roman in the studio, back to you.
	Now, to back up for a moment and set the stage for you, it's worth noting that to this very day, which is now over two years into this investigation, John Durham has only officially brought up one criminal referral.
	And if you remember, that was for an FBI lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith.
	And what was his crime?
	Well, what he did is he took an email from a CIA liaison and he altered it during the application process for getting a secret spy warrant against a former Trump campaign advisor.
	Basically, here's what happened.
	When the Mueller investigation first began, the CIA sent a memo to them saying that Carter Page, who was a Trump campaign advisor, he used to be an approved operational contact for the CIA and that he reported back to the CIA about his interactions with Russian intelligence officers.
	However, when the FBI applied for a FISA spy warrant to surveil Carter Page, they told the judge that Carter Page had contacts with Russian intelligence officers, but they did not mention that he was actually working with the CIA.
	And if that omission wasn't bad enough, it actually gets worse.
	because Carter Page, he later revealed publicly during a national TV interview that he used to work with the CIA. And because of that revelation, when the FBI was applying for their fourth renewal of the spy warrant to continue surveilling him, they asked their top lawyer to reach out to the CIA and find out whether Carter Page was indeed a source for them.
	And this is where the crime comes in, because the FBI lawyer had took an email that was sent back to him from the CIA, which indicated that Carter Page was indeed a CIA contact, and before this lawyer gave this email to the judge, he altered it.
	he changed the official email from the CIA and he added the words, quote, and not a source, thereby misleading the FISA court and ultimately being allowed to continue to surveil Carter Page.
	And for your reference, by the way, that lawyer pled guilty and he was given a slap on the wrist.
	However, according to this report from the Wall Street Journal, it says that John Durham is considering more criminal prosecutions of not only other FBI agents, but also people who are outside of the government.
	What he's reportedly looking at is whether the tipsters, the people who actually provided information to the FBI, which then spurred the whole Trump-Russia investigation into being in the first place, he's investigating whether these people knew that their claims were false.
	Here's specifically what the report says on this front, quote, Prosecutors working for Mr. Durham have focused on people outside the FBI who provided information that helped fuel the 2016 investigation.
	Prosecutors are examining whether those who provided the information knew it was false at the time and what the FBI subsequently did with it.
	By the way, just for your reference, in this report, the authors utilize several sources within the government who say that they are familiar with what's going on, although these sources are not actually named.
	So just keep that in mind.
	Although, in my opinion, the Wall Street Journal is typically pretty good with these sort of things.
	And so what this means is that in the very near future, we will likely see more criminal charges be filed in regards to the Russia probe.
	However, it's also worth noting, and it's mentioned in this report as well, that according to the regulations which govern the special counsel, John Durham, he was supposed to have reported on the status of the investigation, and he was supposed to have submitted a proposed budget by July 1st for the next fiscal year.
	And when he gave that update and the proposed budget, the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, he then could determine whether the investigation would continue, and if so, he could establish what the budget would be for it.
	And so you might be asking yourself, July 1st, isn't that already six weeks ago?
	Did John Durham actually present his findings and did he request a budget?
	Well, that is not publicly known.
	In fact, when they were asked, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, she declined to say what was happening.
	She declined to say whether Mayor Garland has decided to allow John Durham's probe to continue or whether he approved a budget for the next fiscal year.
	She basically said that they have a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations.
	However, withholding funding from the investigation could be one of the ways to essentially shut it down.
	In fact, when I sat down with Matt Whitaker, who is the former acting attorney general under President Trump, that's exactly what he warned me about, that the investigation could wither on the vine by having the funding from it withheld.
	Here's what he said.
	Once the Biden administration took over, that they've kind of swept it under the rug.
	That John is no longer the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut.
	He's probably been denied resources.
	But he's going to have to speak to that.
	And if you don't have the resources to conduct a massive investigation, to travel where you need to travel, to have the agents do the interviews they need to do, it just grinds everything to a halt.
	And so my fear...
	It's that it's just going to wither on the vine because, you know, Merrick Garland and the Biden administration has no interest in, you know, really actually getting to the bottom of that and holding people accountable.
	So you said that they might wither on the vine and they don't have the resources.
	But it seems like Mueller was the special counsel under a Republican administration, but he was given the resources.
	So what kind of mechanism is in place that would deny the...
	Well, I mean, ultimately, it's up to the discretion of the attorney general.
	And before I was ever in the Trump administration, I was a CNN contributor.
	I don't admit that very often.
	But one of the things that I suggested is that, you know, if, you know, the attorney general or the deputy attorney general, you know, wanted to, you know, slow down the Mueller investigation or, you know, you could obviously you could reduce the budget.
	Instead, I mean, it was given, what, 30, 40 million dollars to conduct that investigation for, you know, That turned into a 400-page report that demonstrated the president hadn't done anything wrong.
	And think about that for a moment.
	The Mueller investigation took two years and it cost approximately $40 million.
	But what if the funding was cut off?
	Would Mueller have been able to continue investigating at the same capacity?
	Well, it doesn't even matter because there was very little chance of that actually happening.
	Because if you remember, back then, about three years ago now, the corporate media outlets in this country were covering the Mueller probe every single day, seven days a week.
	And so reducing the budget for Bob Mueller would have made headline news.
	It would have been almost unthinkable.
	However, although we don't know the total budget of the Durham investigation, three months ago the Justice Department did issue a statement saying that John Durham had spent $1.5 million between October of 2020 and March of this year, which is, if you project it back, far, far less than what the Mueller investigation spent.
	Although, frankly, just to be totally transparent, that's just an estimate.
	I mean, maybe John Durham spent a lot during the first two years and slowed it down in October.
	Who knows?
	Regardless, according to these sources from the Wall Street Journal report...
	They say that the Durham report should be completed within the next few months.
	Here's specifically what they said on that front.
	Now, it's worth noting that John Durham's is actually the third investigation into the FBI's actions.
	There was also an investigation that was conducted by Congress...
	As well as an internal investigation led by Michael Horowitz, who is the DOJ's inspector general.
	Basically, he's the internal watchdog.
	The second investigation produced the Horowitz report.
	And what it found, after reviewing more than a million documents and interviewing more than 100 witnesses, was that the FBI made 17 significant errors and omissions, and they misled the FISA judge when they were applying for these spy warrants.
	And just to give you an idea of the kinds of emissions that were found in that Horowitz report, when the FBI was applying for spy warrants, their application used the so-called Steele dossier as their key source for parts of the application.
	But the FBI officials never revealed to the judge in the case that the Clinton campaign Hillary Clinton's campaign actually financed the creation of that dossier, making it essentially opposition party research.
	Secondly, the FBI officials gave the judge a Yahoo News article in order to corroborate the Steele dossier, but they never told the judge that the article actually had Christopher Steele as a source for the Steele dossier.
	So basically, the article had Christopher Steele corroborate Christopher Steele.
	And lastly, the FBI never told the judge that Christopher Steele was, quote, desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. president, which was a quote from the report.
	And all of that was just one out of the 17 major errors that Michael Horowitz found with this whole Trump-Russia investigation.
	Now, you might be asking yourself, in terms of what will happen next, will there be any accountability?
	Whether we'll ever get to the bottom of how this all actually started in the first place?
	Well, we'll just have to wait and see once the criminal referrals get released to the public and when John Durham releases his report, which will likely be in the next few months.
	And while some people have lost hope after two and a half years, others are saying that the long duration might actually be a good thing.
	For instance, Congressman Devin Nunes, who actually spearheaded 14 criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to the Russia probe, he said that even though he has never spoken to John Durham himself, he still believes in the investigation, saying that the fact that there has been no leaks is a good sign.
	I think the longer that it takes, I think the more thorough a job of investigating that he's doing.
	And at the end of the day, what I want to see is, you know, people say I want to see a report.
	I don't really want to see a report.
	I want to see people locked up.
	Now, if you would like to go deeper into this most recent update about the grand jury, I'll throw that into the description box below this video so you can check it out at your own leisure.
	And all I ask in return, once again, is that you smash that like button, which forces the algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
	And now lastly, as we've already mentioned in several previous episodes, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube coincidentally decided to demonetize our program.
	who can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our episodes.
	What a coincidence that was.
	However, we here at the Epoch Times did not take it lying down, and instead we launched something very cool.
	It's called Epic TV, our brand new no-censorship video platform where we put all of the Epoch Times video programs, like The Larry Elder Show, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Life and Times, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, as well as our show Facts Matter, and on there we'll publish exclusive episodes that, frankly, due to the censorship here on YouTube, and on there we'll publish exclusive episodes that, frankly, due to the censorship here on YouTube, In fact, over the weekend, we posted an excellent episode Here's a trailer for it.
	According to a new study which was conducted by researchers at the Mayo Clinic, they found that the effectiveness of two vaccines, specifically the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, have decreased significantly over the past month.
	And in fact, this was just the latest in a string of studies which came to similar conclusions.
	Even the FDA has acknowledged this reality.
	In fact, just yesterday they approved a third booster shot for these two vaccines, which can not only help public health, but also the bottom lines of these vaccine manufacturers, which are now poised to rake in billions of dollars in booster shot sales.
	Let's go through all these stories together in an exclusive episode of Facts Matter found only on Epic TV. If you want to check out that episode, you can do so over on EpicTV.
	The link to it will be right there at the very top of the description box.
	I hope you check it out.
	Now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed.
	While YouTube still allows it.
	Also, if you're already subscribed, hit that notification bell so you can be notified of any new videos as we publish them.
	And then, oh, actually, if you have an Instagram account, follow me at EpochTimesRoman.
	I publish behind-the-scenes research as well as spicy memes regularly.
	And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.

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