Is John Durham Working on a RICO-Style Case?

DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

[EyesOfTX]

It is interesting, if nothing else. – One interesting aspect of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s decision to bring the Chief of the violent crimes and narcotics trafficking section for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., Anthony Scarpelli, onto his investigation team is that Scarpelli has been a specialist in RICO-type investigations over the last decade. His job has been to identify domestic and international drug trafficking networks and bring the major players to justice, as he and his team did in the example described at this link.

In response to the piece on this that I posted last night, one cynical reader responded that Scarpelli is nothing more than a guy who was sitting around right now with nothing to do, so Durham brought him in to get him some work. Who knows – that could be right. On the other hand, he has been in charge of a team of 23 attorneys and 20 support staff, so what are those 43 people going to be doing in his absence?

On the other hand – which seems more likely, frankly – Durham may have identified Scarpelli as having the skillset needed to help make whatever case or cases he is planning to bring. Such cases would be brought against what we all know was a complex international conspiracy run out of the DOJ and FBI first to fix the 2016 election and then to execute a coup d’etat on American soil. This cabal wasn’t trafficking in drugs, but it was trafficking in disinformation and propaganda, and, as last December’s Horowitz Report and the recently-declassifed footnotes and margin notes clearly document, using what it knew to be false information in order to defraud the FISA court.

Prosecuting highly-complex conspiracy cases with hundreds of moving parts such as this one is a specialized area of expertise within the Department of Justice, and it is not something in which Durham himself has specialized. Just as Gestapo Chief Robert Mueller brought in rafts of attorneys who were specialists in money laundering, financial crimes, tax evasion and other areas to help execute his coup effort, we would expect a U.S. Attorney investigating the investigators to make similar moves in putting together his own team.

Which is why the selection of Scarpelli is so interesting. Take a look at his curriculum vitae as described at his Linkedin page:

Manage and supervise 23 senior attorneys and 20 support staff handling all aspects of federal violent crimes, narcotics, firearms, and money laundering investigations and prosecutions. Counsel supervisors and line prosecutors regarding investigative, charging, and trial issues. Review indictments, affidavits, forfeiture allegations, and proposed plea offers. Evaluate requests for major investigatory steps, such as wiretap authorizations and GPS data collection. Act as a liaison to law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF, HSI, and other federal and local law enforcement agencies. Supervised and managed complex litigation involving an FBI agent who tampered with evidence in dozens of criminal cases. Developed and implemented Office’s threats and escape prosecution protocol. Top Secret/SCI Clearance. [End]

Obviously, given the recent reports that Durham has spent many days holed up in a SCIF in recent months personally reviewing top secret information, that clearance is important. But all of the rest of those items listed could be directly relevant to Durham’s effort if he does indeed plan a real effort to prosecute the major players in the conspiracy.

Pay particular attention to this item: “Supervised and managed complex litigation involving an FBI agent who tampered with evidence in dozens of criminal cases.” In addition to the cabal’s efforts to defraud the FISA court, would that experience not be directly relevant to the effort by the FBI to entrap and frame General Mike Flynn and the multiple revisions of the 302 reports that FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors went to great lengths to hide?

Many observers, including journalist John Solomon, have speculated in recent weeks that Durham will likely only indict a few low-level players as sacrificial lambs and leave it at that. The move of Scarpelli onto the Durham team at least provides some hope that something bigger and more encompassing may be in the works.

That is all.

[Golden Eagle]

Here is the speculation on the twitterverse …

Where’s Mueller? Or is he still secretly working for Trump according to twitter?

[Pelham]

“Fauci was a workplace tyrant who was under investigation for swiping scientific research, covering up tainted vaccines, doling out lucrative federal grants to feckless cronies and much more.”

Are you talking about the charges by the anti-vax activist Judy Mikovits?

[MayflowerMadam]

“Are you talking about the charges by the anti-vax activist Judy Mikovits?”

I don’t think so, but there were many things. I didn’t see the Mikovits issue on the list, but it could’ve been one of the things.

[lurk]

Mr Durham and Mr Barr are reenacting the case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce from Dickens’ Bleak House.

[Pelham]

See if this might be what you are thinking of:

https://truepundit.com/fbi-investigation-targeted-dr-fauci-but-comey-pulled-the-plug/

[MayflowerMadam]

It is. I see Dr. M.’s name there. Had skimmed over it before.

[PGalt]

From anything and all the way up to TREASON, and justice cannot put a ham sandwich on someone’s head. Uh...ok...you’re out of ham. All; you got left is BALONEY. You can’t indict a BALONEY sandwich.

King Kong Bundy could’ve delivered better justice...

https://www.wwe.com/videos/king-kong-bundy-crushes-hulk-hogan-saturday-nights-main-event-march-1-1986

It’s a BIG CLUB out here, and they ARE NOT in it. How do “we the people...” proceed? 330 MILLION vs. 535+++++++

STFU, PAY OUR TAXES & DIE?

535+++++state slavemasters + top 10 in the 350 agencies + ngos + propagandists + foreign enemies vs. 330 MILLION of us. These GANGSTERS are living in OUR paradise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcsvE1zv1ek

[PGalt]

USSSSA - United States Socialist S__t Show of America. F’n CRIMINALS.

[Pelham]

Trouble both personal and professional seems to follow Judy Mikovits around.

She doesn’t appear to garner much support her fellow medical researchers. Some have accused her of fear mongering about a mouse retrovirus. A paper she co-authored about its alleged role in CFS was retracted. A research lab she worked for filed a criminal complaint against her. She apparently has problems with a lot of people in addition to Fauci.

[NFHale]

Well, in the grand scheme of things, Clapper is just another democrat dick.

Brennan is a true subversive piece of sh*t, so he needs extra special treatment...

[TalBlack]

You get together with like minded types in your area,however many or few, form a militia, link up with others in other states, however many or few, for the purpose of forming a Court Martial. Then, if upon examination of the facts a charge or charges are warrented, those concerned are advised of their alleged crimes and commanded to appear. If they refuse...you go GET them. If anyone interferes you deal with them expeditiously. Basically, about here is where the fun begins...

[enumerated]

“This whole thing went south when Trump said publicly that Hillary ought not to be prosecuted.”

That is true, but perhaps as it should be.

Putting Hillary and the other Obama co-conspirators in jail for SpyGate may seem, to many, like the only true justice - but I believe it would have been short-sighted; an immediate legal solution for a long-term political problem.

For example, if they had all gone to jail n 2017, what would stop the very next Democrat President from pardoning them, and resurrecting them as heroes and martyrs - stronger than ever before? And if Trump had gone that route - had actually thrown his political adversaries in jail (however well deserved) - would the American people have necessarily taken kindly to it?

The more permanent solution to a political problem (albeit far less satisfying) is to win politically, if not legally.

When President Trump said publicly that Hillary ought not to be prosecuted, perhaps he had come to the conclusion that the two solutions, political vs. legal, are mutually exclusive, as well they might be.

[nathanbedford]

"You would be in jail!"

Those of us who voted for Trump were inspired at least partly by this implicit promise that he would as President of the United States uphold the rule of law. Whether by misadventure or by intention, the Trump Department Of Justice has been either asleep or actually covering for the deep state in this instance and in so many others.

When the rule of law is manifestly corrupted in the service of the powerful, the consequences are not just legal but political to the point of pushing the country to revolution. With no legitimacy to the rule of law, the indictment of George III by Thomas Jefferson becomes a contemporary reality and the solution too many must be the same.

I would also note that the pardon by Pres. Ford of Richard Nixon did not turn Nixon into a martyr nor enhance Ford's ability to be elected.

In 2016 I wrote this reply which considers the issues you raise:

Unfortunately for Hillary her criminality is not about her, it is about the rule of law. I say unfortunately because we have been down this road before with Hillary when Ken Starr concluded, much for political reasons, that he would not bring indictments against Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater/Lewinsky investigation, an investigation which explored numerous acts of potential criminality by Hillary involving FBI records, law office records, lying, and obstruction of justice to name just some of the potential crimes which come the memory after nearly 20 years. Indeed, Ken Starr himself is publicly admitted that he concluded that she had committed crimes.

Not a bit chastised by her escape from justice, Hillary embarked on a career of profiteering from her office on a massive scale. When she was in Arkansas as the wife of the attorney general's soon-to-be governor she had sold those offices for $100,000 in the cattle futures bribery matter. 40 years later as Secretary of State, she was selling out her nation's security for hundreds of millions of dollars. She set up an illegal server in a premeditated scheme to conceal her venality. She did this quite heedless of the obvious risks to the national security and in obvious violation of the espionage act. She had the evil intent to clandestinely sell her office and use the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund to finance her political ambitions as well as her own luxurious lifestyle, yet another criminal intent motivating her to install the illegal server.

These crimes constitute some of the most serious corruption in American history because they have been done at the highest level. The betrayal of security potentially rivals that of the Rosenbergs in risk to the nation. There can be no question of Hillary's guilty mens rea. She is a highly educated attorney who was well briefed in the law and regulations concerning the maintenance of confidential information and the ethics required of a cabinet officer. Her violation of law was knowing, deliberate and part of the greater scheme. She knowingly participated in a felonious conspiracy with her husband to trade on their prominence and their offices.

Her prominence as former first lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and nominated presidential candidate only makes her actions more blameworthy and the need to submit her to justice the more necessary for the national good.

Others of lower political station or of no political station of any kind have been prosecuted and seriously punished for each of these crimes which in degree are trivial when compared to the transgressions of Hillary Clinton.

To pardon Hillary or to decline to prosecute Hillary Clinton under these damning circumstances would be to inflict a blow to the body politic and leave the rule of law in shatters hastening the substitution of cynicism for justice and bring our Democratic Republic even closer to disintegration.

[enumerated]

“You would be in jail!”

That line replaced Reagan’s “youth and inexperience” line as the best debate zinger ever. Unfortunately, that’s where it’s significance begins and ends. It was never an implicit promise - it was not meant to be taken literally.

As for Richard Nixon, the analogy breaks down in two regards: First, he never went to jail, so martyrdom was never an option. Second, the Democrat political mythology has the potential of creating martyrs and social justice folk heroes out of scoundrels, in a way that Republican politicians will never enjoy.

Yet, I would venture to say that had Richard Nixon been imprisoned, the Democrat party would have paid dearly. The American people see all of these XXXXGate scandals as POLITICAL crimes - to be dealt with at the ballot box, not the chopping block.

I was right there with you in 2016 - early 2017, and when nobody got locked up, I blamed the AG and other people around the President. I am convinced it was the President himself who was reluctant all the time, and I have come to believe he’s right.

[nathanbedford]

I have come to believe he’s right

Do you believe that Gen. Michael Flynn shares that belief?

News just emerged while we have been exchanging views of new evidence of more illegal behavior and cover-up by the FBI. When I say that the political ramifications for the politicization of the rule of law in the Hillary Clinton cases is leading to a breakdown of the rule of law and to extreme political consequences, we see that assertion confirmed every day in the case against Flynn.

Do you believe the George Papadopoulos shares that belief?

Here is a man who was flatly framed by the FBI and the Moeller team.

Do you believe that Page shares that belief?

Here is a man who narrowly avoided prosecution but who has found his life and reputation ruined by political machinations of law enforcement.

I ask you when it becomes necessary politically to intervene against miscarriages of law because the political consequences become perilous to the whole nation? Resorting to more likekind evil in reaction to the evil itself!

What about those who were legally guilty of some offenses but who were nevertheless the victims of political prosecutions, like Manafort (locked up in solitary confinement) lawyer Cohen and, of course, Roger Stone no doubt guilty but convicted without due process.

Do you say that these people who were convicted wrongfully for political reasons and these people who were politically prosecuted should suffer miscarriages because it's "politically expedient?" Are we to let one wrong justify a second? Where will the good began, where will evil end?

Yours is a well reasoned position but I think flawed. For example, you are quite right, there is a double standard in the media and that makes the Republicans look unjust when they pursue justice and the Democrats look magnanimous when they subvert it.

However, the president's comments in that debate which I quoted in the previous reply were in fact an implicit promise to prosecute and that is why I called the promise "implicit" and not "explicit." Likewise, candidate Trump's repeated condoning of the chant "lock her up" at his rallies was further implicit promise of real, righteous prosecutions. It seems to me that when millions of people vote in exchange for a clear promise that promise needs more than just political expediency to justify to the millions why it is broken and more than political expediency as an explanation why their vote was betrayed.

I think you are quite correct when you say that the hand of criminal prosecution against Hillary Clinton was stayed by Donald Trump, and I think he has paid a bigger price than even those individuals I listed above. The Moeller investigation fiasco, the impeachment fiasco are but examples. Yet we are all paying the price for that mistake and we will continue to pay the price so long as we continue to trade away justice for short-term political expediency.

[ZULU]

I think you are right.

The ENTIRE beaurocracy in the IRS, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, BLM, EPA, etc. needs to be fired. Obama FILLED these agencies with his plants and Bush and Clinton people were not much better.

I worked for the government all my life.
I ALWAYS felt that ULTIMATELY my REAL EMPLOYER was the taxpayer and the Ultimate Authority was the Constitution.

These people believe the Ultimate Authority is the Beaurocratic State and the Constitution is at best an inconvenience to be circumvented or ignored.

They are despicable.

[nathanbedford]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3838777/posts?page=10

[enumerated]

“Yet we are all paying the price for that mistake and we will continue to pay the price so long as we continue to trade away justice for short-term political expediency.”

Political expediency? Is that what you think President Trump is doing, and what I am defending?

The problem isn’t political expediency. The problem is that political expediency needs to be a consideration.

The problem is the American people. This isn’t the America you are imagining.

The American people of today can’t handle the President and DOJ of one party throwing the top brass of the opposition party in prison, no matter how well deserved.

Maybe two hundred years ago something like that could have happened. But back then, they had public hangings, the money was 100% backed by gold, and if a man was wronged, he could mete out swift justice on the spot, without having to ask the government’s permission.

In today’s America, we are so easily brainwashed and won’t fight for anything. We have just proved it in the last month by obediently closing down our businesses, and scuttling our very livelihoods, because some state governors ordered it.

[Susquehanna Patriot]

Excellent, thank you.

[nathanbedford]

The American people of today can’t handle the President and DOJ of one party throwing the top brass of the opposition party in prison, no matter how well deserved.

By "can't handle" I take it you mean that the reaction would be so consequential as to endanger the entire constitutional system. If you meant otherwise, that the reaction would be only to cost Trump his reelection, I would reject that rationalization of political expediency out of hand. But I credit you with the former assertion, again a well formulated opinion but one which I consider misplaced.

Our exchanges have brought us to this place, I believe that a resort to political expediency in this circumstance threatens the very existence of the rule of law and, in turn, our constitutional governance. You on the other hand believe that to fail to account for public sentiment by pursuing justice would gravely endanger our constitutional system and "our very livelihoods."

Neither one of us is a credentialed soothsayer therefore we cannot know who better sees the future. We can only balance risks against probabilities and probabilities against costs and then, like Yogi Berra, make our predictions about the future. In doing that we ought to look at what facts are available to us.

I have pointed to the ongoing miscarriages of justice that have occurred in the wake of the decision not to prosecute Hillary. I aver that the overwhelming majority of the country has lost confidence in our institutions. We on the right have lost confidence in the Department of Justice and the FBI and virtually every other department of government which we damn as "the deep state." The left has equally lost confidence in government but in different parts of it. Anything to do with Donald Trump is so anathema to the left and his government is so illegitimate that he must be impeached even on transparently bogus grounds. Anything that Donald Trump supports or advances, must be opposed.

As you quite rightly point out, this cleft in our society is exaggerated by the media who, at least that part which we label "the establishment," supports the left at every turn even to the point of fatuity. A point for your side of this argument, at least to the degree that the media can attach to an unlikely verdict a charge of malfeasance to Donald Trump after a jury trial conducted by the Department of Justice. I contend that a verdict of guilty is unlikely in the venues in which Hillary Clinton would likely have been tried. Either way, would Trump be held accountable to the point of serious political consequences?

About 25 years ago I talked to a federal attorney who told me that they were having problems obtaining guilty verdicts because of jury nullification where inner-city juries were impaneled. The trend could only have worsened in a quarter-century, indeed we have seen a notorious example in the wayward jury that convicted Roger Stone.

But let us assume a guilty verdict, let us further assume that the media incessantly contends that Donald Trump has abused his authority by sending the matter to a jury and, finally, let us further assume that that jury, against all expectations, convicts Hillary Clinton. Will the masses rise up and overturn the government? Will they impeach Donald Trump in their anger? Will Republicans lose the house, or the Senate or even the next presidential election as a result?

Before we assume these catastrophes would ensue we must ask, what in history leads us to that conclusion? The acquittal of Donald Trump in impeachment has not raised a hint of such baleful consequences. Why this?

Let us consider the effects on the country of the hearings concerning Brett Cavanaugh. By the logic that says that we dare not prosecute Hillary Clinton, we must, to be consistent, have refrained from defending Brett Cavanaugh. But we did defend him, why? Because the rule of law was at stake. If we permit the Democrats to stack the court we are conceding the end of the Constitution and the end of the Republic. We defended Cavanaugh without fear that the country would burn down if his appointment were consented to.

Of course there is a difference between prosecuting a presidential candidate even after she lost the election and defending a prospective Supreme Court Justice but I suspect Hillary had lost most of her value to the left while she remained perhaps the most hated woman in America. Despised even by many on the left.

Yes, the media would try to pin the prosecution on Donald Trump just as they impeached him and deputized Muller to investigate him but Pres. Trump has withstood it all. It is not a stretch to believe that he would withstand this.

When I weigh the risks against the costs, I still conclude that, “This whole thing went south when Trump said publicly that Hillary ought not to be prosecuted.”