Three year delta today
This exchange occurred during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 21, 2023, examining Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the origins and conduct of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
ca.news.yahoo.com
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was questioning Durham (not the reverse—the question appears to have the roles slightly reversed). The back-and-forth focused on the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting, in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. She had been presented to them as someone offering “very high-level and sensitive information” that was “incriminating of Hillary Clinton” and part of “Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump.”The exact exchange (verbatim from the hearing transcript)Schiff: Are you aware, 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,” that would be incriminating of Hillary Clinton and was part of, quote, “Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump”? Are you aware of that?Durham: Sure. People get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that.Schiff: Really? The son of a Presidential candidate gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt on their opponent? Is that what you’re saying?Durham: I don’t think this is unique in your experience.Schiff: So, you have other instances of the Russian government offering dirt on a Presidential candidate to the Presidential candidate’s son? Is that what 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 in a Presidential Campaign directed at the President’s son. Do you really stand by that, Mr. Durham?Durham: I’m saying that people make phone calls making claims all the time, that you may have experienced.Schiff continued pressing Durham on whether he was diminishing the significance of the Trump Tower meeting. Durham responded that it was “not well-advised,” “stupid, foolish, and ill-advised,” but not illegal, and noted that the meeting turned out to be largely a ruse (they mostly discussed the Magnitsky Act/adoptions rather than dirt on Clinton).
govinfo.gov
What Durham was alluding to with “I don’t think this is unique in your experience”Durham was subtly referencing a well-known 2017 prank call in which Schiff was fooled by two Russian comedians (Vovan and Lexus). They posed as Ukrainian officials (including a high-ranking one) offering compromising material (“kompromat”) on Donald Trump. Schiff took the call seriously and engaged with them about receiving the dirt. The prank was recorded and later publicized.
foxnews.com
Durham’s line was essentially a pointed retort: “Offers of foreign dirt on political opponents via phone calls aren’t that unusual—you’ve had experience with something similar yourself.”This moment went viral at the time as a sharp (and somewhat sarcastic) exchange highlighting the contrast between Schiff’s intense focus on the Trump Tower meeting and his own past interaction with a foreign offer of opposition research. The full hearing is available via C-SPAN and the official transcript on GovInfo.
Durham highlighted the insanity of Schiff