Adam Schiff Grills John Durham on Trump Russia Coordination: ‘You Really Don’t Know Those Very Basic Facts?!’

Though the year is 2023, viewers of a House Judiciary hearing featuring Special Counsel John Durham may have felt they traveled back in time to 2018.

For five straight and stunning minutes, Rep. Adam Schiff — one of the most vocal critics of the former president — relitigated the Mueller report findings in a manner that clearly indicated that the Trump campaign did coordinate with Russian election interference efforts directed by Vladimir Putin.

The hearing was established by House Republicans as a public airing of the much-cited Durham Report as a means to illustrate the “two tiers of justice” so often claimed by surrogates and allies of former President Donald Trump, who has been criminally charged in to separate investigations, with a few more pending.

As is typically the case in these sorts of hearings, Schiff appeared more interested in the questions he asked instead of the answers he elicited, but that doesn’t mean that the California Democrat was ineffective in his interrogation.

Quite the contrary: Durham was forced to admit that he greatly respected Robert Mueller and found nothing that diminished his investigation. Durham also seemed to squirm uncomfortably when forced to adjudge whether Donald Trump, Jr.’s reception to Russia offering dirt on Hillary Clinton interference violated campaign laws.

Below is a transcript of the back and forth.

Schiff: Mr. Durham. Just so people remember what this is all about. Let me ask you. The Mueller investigation revealed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a sweeping and systemic fashion, correct?

Durham: That’s correct.

Schiff: And Russia did so through a social media campaign that favored Donald Trump and disparaged Hillary Clinton. Correct?

Durham: The report says yes.

Schiff: And Mueller found that a Russian intelligence service hacked computers associated with the Clinton campaign and then released the stolen documents publicly. Is that right?

Durham: That report speaks for itself as well.

Schiff: Mueller also reported that though he could not establish the crime of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, he also
said, quote, a statement that the investigation did not establish certain facts does not mean there was no evidence of those
facts and also appears in the report, doesn’t it?

Durham: Is the language of that, in fact. Yes.

Schiff: In fact, you cited that very statement in your own report, did you not, as a way of distinguishing between proof beyond a reasonable doubt and evidence that falls short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

Durham: Correct.

Schiff: As an illustration of this, both Mueller and congressional investigations found that Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was secretly meeting with an operative linked to Russian intelligence named Konstantin Kilimnik. Correct?
Durham: That’s my understanding, yes.

Schiff: And that Manafort, well, chairman of the Trump campaign, gave that Russian intelligence operative the campaign’s internal polling data. Correct?

Durham: That’s what I’ve read in the news. Yes.

Schiff: And that Manafort provided this information to Russian intelligence while Russian intelligence was engaged in that social media campaign and the release of stolen documents to help the Trump campaign. Correct.

Durham: You may be getting beyond her, to my knowledge, but.

Schiff: Well, let me let me say very simply. While Manafort, the campaign chairman for Donald Trump, was giving this Russian intelligence officer internal campaign polling data, Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign, weren’t they?

Durham: I don’t know that.

Schiff: You really don’t know those very basic facts of the investigation.

Durham: I know the general facts. Yes. Do I know that particular fact myself? No. I mean, I know that I’ve read that in the media anywhere.

Schiff: Mr. Durham, that Mueller and congressional investigations also revealed that Don Jr. Was informed that a Russian official was offering the Trump campaign, quote, very high level and sensitive information, unquote, that would be incriminating of Hillary Clinton was part of, quote, Russia and its government support of Mr. trump were that.

Durham: Sure, people get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that. Really?

Schiff: This son of a presidential candidate gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt on their important opponent. Is that what you’re saying?

Durham: I don’t think that’s such a unique in your experience.

Schiff: So you you have other instances of the Russian government offering dirt on a presidential candidate to the presidential candidate’s son. So you’re saying.

Durham: Would you repeat the question?

Schiff: You said that it’s not uncommon to get offers of help from a hostile foreign government, a presidential campaign directed at the president’s son. You really stand by that, Mr. Durham.

Durham: Saying that it that people can make phone calls, making claims all the time, that you may have been.

Schiff: Really trying to diminish the significance of what happened here and the secret meeting that the president said son set up in Trump Tower to receive that incriminating information and trying to diminish the significant significance of that.

Durham: They’re not trying to diminish at all, but I think the more complete story is that they met and it was a ruse and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton.

Schiff: And you think it’s insignificant that he had a secret meeting with the Russian delegation for the purpose of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton? And the only disappointment expressed in the meeting was that the dirt they got wasn’t better. You don’t think that’s significant?

Durham: I don’t think that that was well-advised thing to do.

Schiff: Oh, not well advised. All right. Well, that’s that’s the understatement of the year. So you think it’s perfectly appropriate or or maybe just ill advised for a presidential campaign to secretly meet with a Russian delegation to get dirt on their opponent? You would merely say that’s inadvisable.

Durham: If you’re asking me what I do and I hope I wouldn’t do it, but it was not illegal, was it? Was stupid, foolish, ill advised.

Schiff: Well, it is illegal to conspire to get incriminating opposition research from a hostile government that is of financial value to a campaign. Wouldn’t that violate campaign laws?

Durham: I don’t know. I don’t know all those facts to be true.

Schiff: Well, your report. Mr. Durham doesn’t dispute anything Mueller found. Did it?

Durham: No. Our object. Our aim was not to dispute Director Mahler. I have the greatest regard. High regard for Director Mueller. He’s a patriot. Schiff: We only distinguish between his investigation and yours is he refused to bring charges where he couldn’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And you did? I yield back.

Watch above via Fox News.