What Durham Concealed From Horowitz

What the Australian diplomats told Durham about the embellishment in the Erika Thompson cable which predicated the Russia collusion investigation

One of the major takeaways of the Horowitz Report in December 2019 was its finding that the information from the Australian diplomats in July 2016 about what George Papadopoulos supposedly told them “if true, was sufficient to predicate the investigation”. ¹

Neither Horowitz, the FISA Court or anyone else seems to have realized at the time that Durham had interviewed the two Australian diplomats (Alexander Downer and Erika Thompson) in October 2019 and that the Australians had given evidence that contradicted the opening predicate of the Russia collusion investigation (and a key element of the Russia collusion predicate as at the opening of the Mueller investigation.)

It turned out that, during the Durham interview, Downer denied that Papadopoulos had actually stated that Russia had made an “offer to assist the Trump campaign”. The statement attributed to Papadopoulos had originally appeared in a May 16, 2016 cable sent by junior diplomat Erika Thompson (but not in Downer’s own cable on May 11, 2016) and, based on Downer’s evidence in October 2019, appears to have been a deduction or surmise on Thompson’s part and not something that Papadopoulos had actually said.

Worse, it turns out that, shortly after these interviews, Horowitz had asked Durham to “share whatever evidence they had that might be relevant to [the Horowitz] investigation” and had even sent a draft report to Durham for comment. But instead of advising Horowitz of this important information (or notifying DOJ or the FISA court), Durham sat on it for four years. When Durham did eventually disclose this disquieting information in the May 2023 Durham report, it was disclosed only in passing, buried within his report, not even mentioning it in the summary or conclusions.

If Durham had not concealed this evidence from Horowitz, the Horowitz report would almost certainly arrived at a dramatically different conclusion on the opening predicate of the Russia collusion investigation. Had Horowitz done so, subsequent events would have unfolded differently.

In this article, I will provide receipts for the above summary in the context of the overall events. This will be (too) long.

May 2016

Papadopoulos’ memoir Deep State Target contains a detailed chronology of his encounter with the Australian diplomats and events leading up to it. While Papadopoulos is not necessarily reliable, especially in regard to his theories, his dates and chronology are internally consistent and need to be considered before freezing (say) Mueller dates as firm.

According to the SSCI volume 5², on April 19, 2016, shortly after Papadopoulos’ return from a conference in Israel, Israeli diplomat Christian Cantor, then Political Counselor in London, introduced Papadopoulos by email to Erika Thompson, then Political Counselor in London for Australia. In his memoir, Papadopoulos described Thompson as Cantor’s “girl friend” in her 30s. A few years later, Cantor and Thompson were both ambassadors to Colombia at the same time - Cantor for Israel, Thompson for Australia.

Most recently, both were stationed in Australia. Papadopoulos had been introduced to Cantor by a “friend who was an economic counselor” at the Israeli embassy in the U.S.

According to the SSCI Report, Thompson replied to Cantor’s email with a suggestion that they meet following Obama’s visit to the UK (April 21-24, 2016.) Papadopoulos responded by email on April 21, suggesting a meeting on April 26, 2016. The SSCI “assesse[d]” that the introductory meeting took place on April 26, 2016.

According to Papadopoulos’ memoir, two days after Trump’s (April 27, 2016) foreign policy speech at CNI, Israeli diplomat Christian Cantor, then Political Counselor in London, called Papadopoulos to arrange an introduction to his “girl friend” , at a pub later that evening. Papadopoulos later wrote that she was virulently anti-Trump.

The next event in Papadopoulos’ memoir was a May 3, 2016 call from Francis Elliot, political editor at the Times (of London). Papadopoulos made some ill-considered comments that made him briefly front page news in Britain and was duly chastised by Trump campaign (Sam Clovis, Hope Hicks.) Next, on May 5, 2016, Papadopoulos was hosted for lunch at the Army and Navy Club in London by two US Embassy officials, Terrence Dudley and Gregory Baker. Dudley was later interviewed by Mueller.

Continuing on in his memoir, Papadopoulos said that, on May 6, 2016, he received an email from Erika Thompson saying that her boss, ambassador Alexander Downer, wanted to meet him.

Papadopoulos and Thompson scheduled a meeting for May 10, 2016 at a Kensington wine bar. Papadopoulos’ memoir contains a detailed account of the incident.

Next, according to Papadopoulos, Downer told him that he (Downer) was connected to Hakluyt, a British intelligence firm, and aggressively challenged Papadopoulos’ advocacy of a pipeline from Israel to Greece, arguing instead for Turkey as a hub. In a 2019 interview (link) with Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Downer criticized Papadopoulos’ memoir claiming that he had been “targeted” as delusional and fantastic. ( A totally correct criticism in my judgement, but Papadopoulos’ chronology of events in this period can be cross-checked.)

After some more narrative, Papadopoulos gets to the punch line - Russia and Trump. According to the memoir, Papadopoulos had “no memory” of saying that “Russians have a surprise or some damaging material related to Hillary Clinton”. “None. Zero. Nada.” His recollection was that Downer left “brusquely”.

Downer’s narrative (link) in the full interview is worth listening to - the discussion of the Russians is towards the end - since it is probably the most accurate rendering of events. Downer had asked Papadopoulos about Trump’s chances in the primaries and then in the election - this was at a time (May 2016) when Hillary seemed unbeatable.

Downer plausibly rejected Papadopoulos’ claim that he hadn’t talked about the Russians, observing acidly that Papadopoulos seemed to remember other details about the conversation, but not the most important one, noting that he made the same statement in Greece subsequently. Downer’s question was why Papadopoulos was “blathering his mouth off” in the first place. Why was he “telling high commissioners that that Russians had material on Hillary Clinton’s campaign that they might dump before the election to her damage”?

He knew what he can’t remember…. If he did know this, why was he telling us why was he blathering his mouth off? And how would that help Trump? To go around telling high commissioners that that Russians had material on Hillary Clinton’s campaign that they might dump before the election to her damage? Why would you go around telling people that?

As in other interviews, Downer specifically said that Papadopoulos “didn’t say anything about emails”.

Did I believe him or not believe him? … He didn’t mention it at the time. Hillary emails are different than DNC emails. He didn’t say anything about emails.

Downer concluded his interview with the surmise that “the Russians” “obviously told somebody” - but this was a surmise, not something that Papadopoulos had said. Downer also mentions Mifsud in this 2019 interview, but, to be clear, Mifsud

Why were the Russians doing this? They obviously told somebody.

The story about Papadopoulos’ meeting with Downer at the London wine bar was first reported by New York Times on December 30, 2017 (see link). The story, sourced to “four [anonymous] current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role”, was leaked (by coincidence or not) not long after the discovery that the Clinton campaign had paid for the Steele dossier.

Back to the narrative in Papadopoulos’s memoir which continues: “within forty-eight hours of our meeting, Downer sends a cable to Australian intelligence reporting my alleged remark. With that single act, he upends my life.”

Details first available in the May 2023 Durham report showed that Papadopoulos was mistaken on this point. Downer did send a cable on May 11, 2016, but his cable did not contain any reporting of the Papadopoulos statements³. This detail is not generally appreciated. It was a later cable sent by Erika Thompson on May 16, 2106 that caused the damage.

On or about May 12, 2016 link , a “few days later”, Papadopoulos once again encountered Cantor, Thompson and Downer at an Israeli Independence Day party thrown by the Israeli embassy. Papadopoulos said that Cantor and Thompson “chaperoned” him at the party, with Thompson looking at Papadopoulos “with scorn and horror as if [he] had some kind of toxic disease”:

Downer also mentioned the incident in his ABC interview, but as an inconsequential encounter. Downer’s take seems more plausible than Papadopoulos’ conspiratorial conjecture. Curiously, this third meeting between Papadopoulos and Thompson (and second meeting with Downer) wasn’t mentioned by Mueller or Durham.

On May 16, 2016 (subsequent to the party hosted by the Israeli embassy), Thompson sent a second cable to Australia. The existence of this second cable was first clearly reported by Durham in May 2023.

Durham also reported (for the first time) that the money phrase which predicated the Russia collusion investigation was paragraph five from Thompson’s cable on May 16, 2016 - not Downer’s cable on May 11, 2016.

When and to Whom

Given the importance to the predicate of Papadopoulos’ supposed information about the “suggestion from Russia that it could assist”, one would presume that the FBI and Mueller would have determined with absolute precision when and to whom the statement was made.

In the original reporting by New York Times ( link; archive), Papadopoulos’ statement was made to Downer “during a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar” i.e. on May 10, 2016:

Comey in 2018 (link) stated that the investigation began “because of reliable information that Papadopoulos was having conversations about obtaining information from the Russians”:

However, to some contemporary surprise, the Mueller report stated that “on May 6, 2016… Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information”:

Durham noted⁴ that the May 6, 2016 date for the Papadopoulos statement was based on the FBI 302 of the August 2, 2016 interview of Downer and Thompson by Strzok and Pientka.

Mueller’s May 6, 2016 date implies:

1. that the Papadopoulos statement wasn’t made at the wine bar on May 10, 2016 with Downer, but at an earlier meeting, which necessarily was the introductory meeting with Erika Thompson and Christian Cantor;

2. that the introductory meeting was on Friday, May 6, 2016 (rather than the previous Friday, April 29, 2016 as stated in Papadopoulos’ memoir or April 26, 2016 as assessed by the SSCI); and

3. the audience for Papadopoulos’ statement was Thompson and Cantor, rather than Downer and Thompson.

In October 2019, Downer and Thompson were interviewed separately by the Durham investigation. Each Australian told Durham that the Papadopoulos statements had been made at the May 10, 2016 meeting at the wine bar with Downer and Thompson (and not the prior introductory meeting with Thompson and Israeli diplomat Christian Cantor):

In his May 2023 report, Durham observed the “inconsistency” between the when and to whom information provided by (or reported to have been provided by) the Australians in August 2016 and their statements given to Durham investigation in October 2019:

However, Durham apparently didn’t notify Horowitz of this inconsistency. Also note that the May 6 introductory wasn’t “only with Australian Diplomat-1”; Israeli diplomat Christian Cantor was also at this meeting, but surprisingly (or not) Cantor does not appear to have ever been interviewed by the FBI, Mueller investigation, Horowitz investigation, Durham investigation, Senate Intel Committee or House Intel Committee.

In any event, the when and to whom inconsistency was known to Durham by October 2019 and should have been disclosed to Horowitz, as Horowitz might well have had a different assessment of the opening predicate if he had fully understood that no one really knew when or to whom Papadopoulos made his statement about the “Russian offer to assist”.

The Thompson Embellishment

While the October 2019 evidence from the Australian diplomats raised troubling questions about the when and to whom regarding Papadopoulos’ statement (given its importance as predicate for such an important investigation), their evidence was even more troubling in regard to what can only be regarded as an untrue embellishment in paragraph five of the Erika Thompson cable⁵.

In his memoir Compromised, Strzok had observed that the explosiveness of the information in the Australian cable did NOT come from the bare assertion that Russians had “harmful information”. (Speculation about Russia being in possession of Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails was commonplace in spring 2016 e.g. Paul Gregory (a former colleague of Papadopoulos on Carson campaign) (link; archive) in Feb 2016, Andrew Napolitano on Megyn Kelly on May 8, 2016 (link; archive), Gateway Pundit earlier on May 10, 2016 (link), Sorcha Faal on May 6, 2016 (link, archive), Laura Ingraham’s Lifezette on May 11, 2016 (link), and even Alexandra Chalupa (link).

What was explosive in the Australian cable was the supposed “Russian offer to assist the Trump campaign” - something that Strzok referred to over and over in his memoir. Here’s Strzok himself on the distinction:

the intelligence in the email from the Legat wasn't simply that the Russians had the harmful information.…[but that] the Russian government had offered to assist the Trump campaign through a coordinated release of the material.

By the time of the Horowitz Report, “our corner” of Twitter was already questioning (link) whether the “Russian offer to assist” was something that Papadopoulos had actually said, or whether it had been an embellishment at some stage in the chain of reporting:

By March 2021, Walkafyre (link) had correctly surmised that the speculated embellishment derived from Erika Thompson's cable in May 2016

Downer’s statements to Durham in October 2019 confirmed the surmise about the “Russian offer to assist” being an embellishment by Erika Thompson⁶.

Durham reported that Downer said that “Papadopoulos made no mention of …. any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance”.

No mention of a Russian offer to assist by Papadopoulos.

Downer’s statement in October 2016 was literally the opposite of the opening predicate of the Russia collusion investigation. If Papadopoulos hadn’t said anything about a “Russian offer to assist”, then the language in Erika Thompson’s cable to that effect was necessarily an embellishment- or even fabrication.

Downer said “that he would have characterized the statements made by Papadopoulos differently than Australian Diplomat-I did in Paragraph 5”. Indeed, Downer’s public statements, not just in the July 2019 interview, but as early as April 2018 (see link), similarly made no mention of a supposed Russian “offer to assist” - only that Russia might use potentially “damaging” information on Hillary Clinton (i.e. the commonplace speculation that was not what troubled Strzok):

For that matter, it’s notable that Downer’s May 11, 2016 cable (still not published) evidently did not mention anything about a “Russian offer to assist”. Or else we’d have heard about it (rather than just the Erika Thompson cable.) So in that sense, one can say that Downer’s cable did “characterize the statements made by Papadopoulos differently than [Thompson] did in Paragraph 5”.

Furthermore, Durham’s report was surprisingly (or not) uninformative about Erika Thompson’s evidence on the incident. Durham referred back to the 302 from the August 2, 2016 interview with the two Australian diplomats, according to which, Thompson had told the FBI that Paragraph Five was “written in a ‘purposely vague’ way” because Papadopoulos “left a number of things unexplained” and which had stated that Papadopoulos “did not say he had direct contact with the Russians”.

Given the longstanding interest in the validity of the opening predicate of the Russia collusion investigation, one would have thought that Durham would have highlighted the impact of this remarkable walkback on the opening predicate, but Durham merely mentioned this incident in passing on page 58.

Sandbagging Horowitz

There is a very disturbing and totally ignored thus far interaction between the revelations regarding the statements of the Australian diplomats in October 2019 and the Horowitz Report published two months later.

The Horowitz report contained approximately two dozen references to the Russian “offer” of “assistance” to the Trump campaign supposedly reported by Papadopoulos to the Australians, but not a single caveat that Downer had told the Durham investigation that “Papadopoulos had made no mention … of any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance”.

According to his testimony at a Senate committee⁷,⁸ , Horowitz had specifically asked Durham to “share whatever evidence they had that might be relevant to [his] investigation”.

FEINSTEIN: Did your office ask Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney - U.S. Attorney John Durham to share whatever evidence they had that might be relevant to your investigation?

HOROWITZ: We asked Mr. Durham to do that.

Further, Horowitz had provided a copy of the draft report to Durham soliciting comments, then met with Durham and even discussed the opening of the Russia collusion investigation. Here’s the relevant answer in the Horowitz Transcript:

We did meet with Mr. Durham, as I mentioned, we provided him with a copy of the report, as we did others, to - through our factual accuracy review process. We met with him in November. With regard to that, we did discuss the opening issue. He said he did not necessarily agree with our conclusion about the opening of a full counterintelligence investigation, which is what this was, but there are also investigative means by which the FBI can move forward with an investigation, it's called a preliminary investigation. So there are two types of investigations, full and preliminary. They opened a full here. He - he said during the meeting that the information from the friendly foreign government was, in his view, sufficient to support the preliminary investigation.

Re-examining the events, the only plausible conclusion is that Durham did not disclose the highly exculpatory information from the Australian diplomats to Horowitz. Or even that Durham had interviewed the two Australian diplomats.

Given that much of the focus of the Horowitz Report was the litany of failures of the FBI to disclose exculpatory information (“material omissions”) to the DOJ/FISA Court, it is disquieting, to say the least, that Durham failed to provide Horowitz with the important and highly exculpatory information from the Australian diplomats - information that was far more damaging than any of the material omissions identified in the Horowitz report other than the revelations from Steele’s Primary Sub-Source.

Making matters much worse: if Horowitz had known that the “Russian offer to assist the Trump campaign” was an embellishment by Erika Thompson, and not something that Papadopoulos actually said, it seems entirely possible that Horowitz could have drawn a different conclusion on the validity of the opening predicate than the conclusion of his report (shown below) and subsequent events would have unfolded quite differently:

Additionally, given the low threshold for predication in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, we concluded that the FFG information, provided by a government the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) deems trustworthy, and describing a first-hand account from an FFG employee of a conversation with Papadopoulos, was sufficient to predicate the investigation. This information provided the FBI with an articulable factual basis that, if t rue, reasonably indicated activity const ituting either a federal crime or a threat to national security, or both, may have occurred or may be occurring.

Mueller and the FBI August 2, 2016 302

The Australians’ evidence to Durham also raises questions about the original FBI interview with the Australians on August 2, 2016 and the reliance of the Mueller investigation on that 302 without additional due diligence.

On August 2, 2016, only two days after the opening of the Russia collusion investigation on July 31, 2016, Peter Strzok and SSA Joe Pientka interviewed the two Australian diplomats in London. While the 302 remains withheld, the Durham report observed that it had been prepared by Pientka and that the 302 attributed the Papadopoulos statements to the “introductory meeting” at which Downer was not in attendance. (But Durham incorrectly stated that Papadopoulos “met only with [Erika Thompson]”. Israeli diplomat Christian Cantor was also at this introductory meeting , but does not appear to have ever been interviewed either by FBI or Mueller.)

The narrative in Downer’s ABC interview in 2019 (link) strongly indicates that Downer was present for the Papadopoulos statements about Russia which Strzok and Pientka attributed to the introductory meeting at which Downer wasn’t present. So why did Strzok and Pientka attribute the Papadopoulos statements to the earlier meeting? Was it an attempt to rationalize the embellishment in the Thompson cable? An embellishment which contained the critical “Russian offer to assist” which Downer had denied being stated?

We separately know that Strzok’s memoir Compromised contained a false “recollection” of what prompted Downer to go to the US embassy on July 26, 2016. Strzok falsely stated that Downer had been triggered by Trump’s “Russia, are you listening” quip (which took place on July 27, 2016.) So it was impossible for Trump’s quip to have triggered Downer. When confronted with the falsehood (first brought to light by Hans Mahncke), Strzok blamed the “mistake” on unavailability of his records. However, the same “mistake” also occurs in notes on a February 2017 FBI briefing so the “mistake” was present very early on. So the possibility of outset errors cannot be precluded.

It is also more than disquieting that Mueller doesn’t appear to have interviewed either of the two Australian diplomats. We now know that they agreed to interview with Durham in October 2019. Did they refuse a request from Mueller? Or did Mueller simply fail to make any request?

Conclusion

In late 2016 and through to Mueller’s appointment in May 2017, there were two legs to the Crossfire Hurricane collusion investigation:

1. the Steele dossier allegations of collusion between Trump campaign and Russia, especially Reports 80 and 95;

2. the Erika Thompson cable allegation that Papadopoulos had stated that there had been a Russian offer to assist the Trump campaign.

No predication other than these two “legs” can be seen in notes reporting FBI briefings in 2017 (especially the March 8, 2017 Talking Points memorandum.) The predicate for the Mueller investigation was recursively defined: it was the predicate for the Russia collusion investigation described by Comey in his March 20, 2017 testimony to House Intelligence Committee. In others, the predicate described in the March 8 Talking Points memorandum i.e. about 80% Steele dossier and 20% Erika Thompson cable.

The collusion allegations in the Steele dossier were fatally contradicted by Steele Primary Sub-source Igor Danchenko in his late January 2017 interview. The Mueller investigation appears to have recognized the invalidity of Steele dossier allegations with Mueller even testifying (falsely) that the Steele dossier was not within the “purview” of the Mueller investigation (even though it constituted the primary predicate for the FBI investigations as of late March 2017).

This leaves the alleged Papadopoulos statements as the sole remaining predicate for the Mueller investigation as originally defined. But Downer’s October 2019 statements flatly contradicted this remaining predicate of the Russia collusion investigation. Durham was aware of this contradiction in October 2019 but withheld the information for four more years until May 2023., and even then, this information - perhaps the most important single information in the entire Durham report - was not included in the executive summary or conclusions, merely a passing mention on page 53. By then, everyone had lost track of Russiagate details and the information, which would have been explosive in October 2019, was more or less totally ignored both in mainstream media and even in the small skeptical community.

Postscript: over the years, there has been considerable speculation about the supposed role of Joseph Mifsud with speculation, fueled by Papadopoulos’ fantasies that he had been “set up”. Hans Mahncke and I have researched this topic at length and have concluded that Mifsud was a “nothing” - neither a Russian agent nor a Western provocateur. Mifsud’s interest in Papadopoulos arose from ordinary motives. London Academy of Diplomacy, where Mifsud was employed, was losing money and about to go insolvent. Mifsud was cultivating a possible new gig. Mifsud had no knowledge of Russian intelligence operations and was not a conduit from Russia to Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos appears to have mentioned Mifsud to FBI in January 2017 to distract from his contacts with Timofeev - in which Timofeev was trying to politely fend off out-of-protocol inquiries from Papadopoulos without offending anyone. But in fevered atmosphere of January 2017 (from Steele dossier), Papadopolous unwisely didn’t volunteer his contacts with Timofeev from FBI and FBI never asked Papadopoulos the right question that would have elicited that information. It’s a long story that’s more like the movie Burn After Reading than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

1. Although the Steele dossier allegations subsequently became a much more important component of the overall predication of the continuing Russia collusion investigation, the supposed Papadopoulos remained an important component through to the predication of the Mueller investigation itself.

2. SSCI V,487

3. A more or less totally redacted version of Downer’s May 11, 2016 cable was published by Buzzfeed (link) on April 19, 2019 (one day after publication of Mueller Report.)

4. Durham Report, p 53.

5. The EC stated that [Mr Downer] “recalled” [reporting] “of the meetings between Mr Papadopoulos and [the Australian diplomats] concerning statements Mr Papadopoulos made about suggestions from the Russians that they (the Russians) could assist the Trump campaign with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton”.

As is now well known, the opening Electronic Communication for the Russia collusion investigation was issued on July 31, 2016 by Peter Strzok, as directed by McCabe and Priestap. Five days earlier (Tuesday, July 26, 2016), Australian ambassador Alexander Downer had met with US Deputy Chief of Mission Elizabeth Dibble in London to inform her of statements made by George Papadopoulos in May 2016. Downer gave Dibble a copy of a May 2016 cable sent by an Australian diplomat, the fifth paragraph of which was quoted in the Opening Electronic Communication (as shown below). DCM Dibble, in turn, passed a copy of the cable to the FBI Assistant Legat in London [Brian Boetig] who drafted a covering email which quickly went up the chain to the most senior FBI officials and was later quoted in the Opening Electronic Communication.

6. For another example of embellishment by an FBI source in Russia collusion hoax: when challenged about the basis of a statement in the Steele dossier, Steele’s Primary Sub-source Igor Danchenko said “the end of paragraph 4 regarding the ability to blackmail Trump was ‘logical conclusion’ rather than reporting”. FBI intelligence analyst Auten observed that the distinction between “logical conclusion” and “reporting” was fundamental to careful analysis. But, unfortunately, ignored the distinction when it came to Erika Thompson and the predication of the Russia collusion investigation.

7. December 11, 2019, at Horowitz’ Senate interview

8. On the day of publication of the Horowitz Report (December 9, 2019), Durham issued an unusual statement (link) purporting to disagree with Horowitz’ conclusions as to predication:

Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

It turned out that Durham’s disagreement was merely on whether the investigation should have been opened as a “preliminary investigation” rather then a “full investigation” - a spat that was seemingly a distinction without a practical difference, a spat that immediately subsided and is now long forgotten.