Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz confronted Department of Justice Special Counsel John Durham on his handling of the investigation into the now-discredited allegations of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Durham testified before the House Weaponization Committee on Wednesday to address the FBI’s investigation into whether then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia, also known as the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. Gaetz accused Durham of allowing certain figures, such as the FBI’s former chief of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, to avoid questioning about Crossfire Hurricane.
Priestap admitted in April 2020 to withholding information he’d learned about the now-discredited Steele dossier.
Gaetz accused Durham of being “accommodating” about information Priestap did not want to give, and criticized him for his lack of success in locating Joseph Mifsud after issuing a subpoena.
“It’s kinda laughable. It seems like more than disappointment. It seems like you weren’t really trying to expose the true core of the corruption. That you were trying to go at it another way,” Gaetz told Durham.
“As we said in the report, and I said in my opening remarks, we pursued the facts as best we could,” Durham said.
Gaetz then questioned Durham on reports regarding the more-than 25 government-issued cellphones belonging to members of former FBI director Robert Mueller’s team that were “wiped” clean of data on the Trump investigation before the Justice Department’s inspector general could review them.
“How about this fact, Mr. Durham: The entire Mueller team does a hard reset on their Apple phone, in synchronization, to wipe away evidence. Did you investigate that?” Gaetz pressed.
“I regret that,” Durham said.
“Why didn’t you investigate it? Who gave the order on the Mueller team to wipe the phones?” the representative said.
“That was not something that we were asked to look at,” he said.
“No, that’s not true, Mr. Durham, that is not true,” Gaetz hit back.
Gaetz cited evidence from a document he said includes Mueller’s consent to investigate the phones. He accused Durham of being “part of the coverup.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever investigated a crime—” Durham began.
“I don’t know that you have,” Gaetz interjected. “You didn’t investigate these, Mr. Durham. How about Andy McCabe? Did you charge him? Did you investigate him?”
“I don’t know, sir, whether or not you’ve ever had the occasion to try to investigate crimes under the rules and regulations and under the Constitution that we are bound by. … We can’t charge people because we might think something—” Durham said.
“It’s not that you didn’t charge, you didn’t investigate. You didn’t investigate the Mueller team wiping their phones, and you won’t tell us who gave the orders because you’re protecting these people,” Gaetz said.