Special counsel John Durham appeared to squeeze a zinger about Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) into his testimony as they sparred over the Russia investigation on Wednesday.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Schiff pressed Durham on a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer, as discussed in special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report.
Schiff asked Durham if he was “aware” that Mueller and congressional investigations revealed the meeting was predicated on a Russian official offering the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
Durham delivered a retort in which he said “People get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that.”
Schiff then asked if Durham was saying the son of a presidential candidate “gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt” on their election rival.
“I don’t think this is unique in your experience,” Durham quipped, a comment that elicited some chuckles in the room.
Schiff: The son of a presidential candidate gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt on their opponent, is that what you are saying? pic.twitter.com/1R7nH8xfmC
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 21, 2023
Durham appeared to be referencing how Schiff once spoke to Russian prank callers posing as a Ukrainian politician in 2017. At the time, Schiff was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which was conducting its own inquiry into Russian election interference.
Schiff can be heard in audio saying he would accept their alleged evidence of “compromising material” on Trump, including nude photos, and get in touch with the FBI to look into the claims.
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When word of the call got out, a spokesperson for Schiff claimed the congressman had suspected something was amiss. “Before agreeing to take the call, and immediately following it, the committee informed appropriate law-enforcement and security personnel of the conversation, and of our belief that it was probably bogus,” the spokesperson told The Atlantic.
Durham sat before the committee on Wednesday to testify about his report criticizing the FBI for how it opened and conducted its inquiry into alleged links between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. That FBI investigation was later folded into Mueller’s special counsel probe after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Under continued questioning by Schiff, Durham said he was not trying to “diminish” the Trump Tower meeting. Durham said the “more complete story is that they met and it was a ruse and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton.”
Durham characterized the meeting as “ill-advised” but not illegal. Schiff shot back, saying, “It is illegal to conspire to get incriminating opposition research from a hostile government that is of financial value to a campaign.”
Mueller, whose special counsel investigation ended in 2019, reported that his team did not find sufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Mueller declined to charge Trump Jr. in connection to the Trump Tower meeting. During that meeting, according to Mueller’s report, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and her associates did not provide damaging information on Clinton, instead making the conversation about a Russian adoption issue.