Amy Schneider’s Winning Streak Ended After Being Asked To Name The Gender That Has Two X Chromosomes

Babylon Bee🐝

BURBANK, CA—Trans woman Amy Schneider's winning streak on Jeopardy has ended. Despite holding the record for Jeopardy’s highest-earning female contestant ever, Schneider was defeated after being confounded by the clue, ‘this gender has two X chromosomes.'

“I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the category of ‘Grade School Biology’,” said Schneider. “I avoided the category until the very end, as basic biology has never been my strong suit.”

Many in the audience saw the disaster coming a mile ahead. “What was Amy thinking betting so much in Final Jeopardy under that category?” said Daniele Dacus, a fan of Amy’s. “You never bet that high on such a complicated, theoretical subject, where so little of that field is understood.”

Sources claim that the host even gave a clue that ‘this is one of 2 genders’, but Amy still did not get the question correct. Amy started to answer the question by writing, “What is different and unique to each person based upon how they identify, because gender is a complex subject with no definitive answ—.” but ran out of room. Consequently, Rhone Talsma was declared the winner by writing "What is Female?"

At publishing time, Rhone Talsma has been asked to renounce his win or else be labeled a transphobic bigot for the rest of his life.

 Article by Adam Ellwanger in The American Conservative

Health Care is a Privilege

What happens when the standard for ethical medicine is subjective?

Most people have heard of the Hippocratic Oath. For thousands of years, newly minted physicians have taken some version of the oath, which is widely regarded as the foundational text in western medical ethics. Supposedly, the oath was written by Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, but modern scholars are skeptical of this claim. Today, many believe that the oath contains the famous phrase “first, do no harm.” Early manuscripts don’t contain this phrase, although the oath does emphasize that a core obligation of medical practitioners is to avoid interventions that will worsen or complicate the health condition of patients.

Another common misconception is that American candidates for the degree of medical doctor (M.D.) are all required to take the oath. In fact, the oath has frequently been modified, paraphrased, edited, or ignored entirely. Indeed, many of the ideals expressed in the oldest versions of the oath would seem downright barbaric in an advanced society like our own. For example, the oldest manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath requires new physicians to promise not to participate in abortion procedures. Needless to say, that prohibition was aborted long ago.

Nevertheless, it has historically been true that schools of medicine have established some consensus view of medical ethics, to which they have required their graduates to pledge allegiance. But as is true so often in our era, the old traditions have been demolished in favor of a radical subjectivism. An oath to which all must swear fealty is an intolerable injustice—only the sovereign individual can make decisions about how to ethically practice the medical arts.

Thus, Harvard medical school and others have allowed recent graduating classes to craft their own oaths. This is rather shocking. It seems to ignore the need for a consensus that would ensure that the medical community can punish malpractice and enforce compliance with a shared standard for care. When the individual physician is sovereign to determine which practices are right and wrong, which interventions are good and which are bad, how does the medical establishment maintain any authority to render judgments about these matters? This relativizing of medical ethics masquerades as a form of progress as it recognizes alternate ethical orientations are also purportedly valid. Allowing each doctor to decide right and wrong for themselves is sold as an affirmation of individual autonomy (the etymology of autonomy shows that the word literally means being “a law to oneself”). But injecting a subjectivist ethics into medicine comes at a high cost–specifically, it jettisons any universal ethical grounds that can guide medical practice.

The broadened scope of individual liberty in the practice of medicine will have negative consequences for patients. Not only will they lose a general understanding of their rights as a patient and what level of care to expect, their own individual liberties will be constrained. Increasingly, doctors unilaterally impose a particular form of treatment for a given condition or withhold treatment for arbitrary reasons. For example, consider that conservative commentator (and person of color) Candace Owens was recently denied access to a Covid-19 test on the grounds that she has been “making things worse” by questioning official pandemic policies. There have been a number of reports that doctors are feeling “compassion fatigue” for unvaccinated Covid patients, and many physicians have determined they will deny treatment for the unvaccinated or will deprioritize them when time or resources are limited. When the vaccine became available, many in the medical community argued that early access to the vaccine should be given to racial and ethnic minorities who are allegedly “disproportionately affected” by the virus. The Biden administration (which promised vaccine mandates would not be implemented) unconstitutionally demanded private businesses with over 100 employees to require the vaccine—an overreach which the Supreme Court thankfully nixed.

So, let’s recap the whimsical biases that have motivated these examples of medical decision-making: You can deny care to someone who has been critical of public policy; you can deny or deprioritize care on the basis of a patient’s decision to forego a particular medical procedure or intervention (i.e., the vaccine); you can allocate medical care based on the race of the patient in need; and the federal government is willing to coerce private entities to require employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. What we are seeing, then, is a new concentration of power in the medical community. This power is multifaceted. Not only are doctors consolidating more power in terms of what interventions they will (or will not) provide, they now have more power to make those determinations on the basis of their own personal, non-medical opinions.

Perhaps more important, though, is the collusion between state power and medico-scientific power. Scientists and scientific data have long played an important advisory role in the application of governmental power. The pandemic has pushed us a step further. It is now evident that the medical establishment doesn’t merely advise the state. Rather, it has taken on some power of the state itself. Establishment “science” now largely dictates public health policy, with the government playing the role of the junior partner who simply ensures compliance and obeisance to medical experts who have no legitimate political authority. Experts and scientific research that challenge the official narrative is repressed and attacked.

The same people who insist that health care is a human right are now providing care only at their discretion. Didn’t get the vaccine? You aren’t a priority. Expertise becomes entitlement: Being an “ethical” physician now means prioritizing the needs of certain patients based on arbitrary characteristics of their personhood (race, class, gender) or on the palatability of the patient’s politics in the eyes of the attending physician.

Arguably, this is a byproduct of the collapse of cultural Christianity. Part of the attractiveness of Christianity in the ancient world was early Christians’ willingness to provide care to people that the elites designated as untouchable: people with the plague, slaves and serfs, foreigners. While Hippocrates represents an obvious Greek influence in western medical ethics, Christian ethics left an indelible impression upon modern western medicine. The right of physicians to deny care to particular individuals at their discretion (endorsed by the same people who insist the state must provide “free” medical care “for all”) is a result of the decline of Christianity and its universal ethic of mercy owed to all human beings, regardless of identity or politics. This change also represents a new classism, expressed through a subtle form of coercion: “if you untrained pedestrians want me to use my expertise to relieve your pain and suffering, you better adapt your worldview and behavior to my personal preferences. Otherwise: heal thyself!”

And it must be noted that this new outlook is justified as a higher ethic. The old medical ethic asked practitioners to consider their ethical obligations to others, non-experts, in medical need. The new ethic asks practitioners to consider their ethical obligation to themselves. They must remain “true to themselves,” and that means exercising a prerogative not to care for those they deem to be “problematic” or less-deserving of health for one reason or another.

Would these woke doctors refuse to treat a man or woman who illegally crossed the border into America and needed treatment for small pox, having never received a vaccination? How about to a monied Bay-Area progressive mother who refused to vaccinate her children or herself against measles and then got sick? Unlikely. What is the ethical justification for prioritizing non-citizens over citizens, or urban progressives over rural conservatives? There is no logic here: only the arbitrary whims of individual health care providers.

Although the left continues to chant their mantra of “Health Care is a Civil Right,” it is clear that medical treatment is being turned into a privilege: a gesture of elite benevolence that may be withheld if the patient is deemed to be non-compliant with the fiats of the medical community. These fiats may be dictated by state authorities, but only after the unelected scientists of the bureaucracy whisper them in their ears. There is some delicious irony here. The people who have turned health care into a privilege—the ones who exercise personal discretion over who will be treated and how—are the same ones who deny treatment to everyday Americans on the basis of their supposed “privilege.” Through these contradictions, various classes of citizens are dehumanized, a reality reflected in Biden’s hissing petulance when he scolded the unvaccinated and warned them of a “winter of death.” This sort of sentiment, whether voiced by a president or a scientist, expresses a disdain for the individual liberties exercised by a free people. And a people who value their freedoms can only repay these aspiring totalitarians with defiance.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/health-care-is-a-privilege/ 

 

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Why the Masked and the Unmasked Have Disdain for Each Other

That more than half of our country willingly obeys completely irrational orders raises the question: What irrational orders from the state would they not obey?

by Dennis Prager for American Greatness

Among the many unbridgeable divides between Americans is a completely antithetical view of mask-wearing. On one side are those who wear masks almost everywhere outside their homes and who demand that others do so, including young children in class and on outdoor playgrounds, and two-year-olds on airplanes.

On the other side are those who only wear a mask where they are punished for not doing so (most obviously, airplanes). They regard masks as essentially pacifiers for adults.

Generally speaking, these two groups have disdain for each other.

Why the pro-mask half of America holds the anti-mask half in contempt needs little explanation. They believe anti-mask Americans are putting others in grave danger. Pro-maskers believe that even children who do not wear masks put their own lives and the lives of other children and teachers at risk.

Consequently, pro-mask Americans regard those who do not wear masks, let alone those who actively oppose mask-wearing, as selfish, anti-science potential killers.

What may be less obvious is why anti-maskers hold pro-maskers in equal contempt. So, this needs explaining in greater detail. After all, anti-maskers don’t believe that maskers are putting people in hospitals.

First, anti-maskers regard the charges made against them by pro-maskers as baseless. Therefore, as odd as it sounds, anti-maskers have contempt for the pro-maskers’ contempt. To wrongly charge people with causing mass death is, to understate the case, immoral. And if this charge is demonstrably wrong, the people who level it are the ones who are anti-science.

Since each side regards the other as anti-science, what is the science?

Nearly all public health authorities claim that masks are absolutely necessary to save lives. But they have virtually no science to back up the claim.

There is, however, abundant scientific evidence that masks are worthless vis-a-vis viruses and do great harm to society.

Here is a fraction of the examples I could give:

• In February 2020, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted: “Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”
• In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program executive director, Mike Ryan, wrote: “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.”
• A 2010 study in France led by Laetitia Canini (Ph.D. in epidemiology and biostatistics) concluded: “We did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.”
• A 2009 study of Japanese health workers led by epidemiologist Dr. Joshua L. Jacobs, of the University of Hawaii Medical School, concluded: “Face mask use in health care workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.”

As far as I could determine, the only randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the effectiveness of masks against COVID-19 was a 2020 study led by Henning Bundgaard of the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. Published in the March 2021 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, it found that 1.8 percent of those in the masked group and 2.1 percent of those in the control group became infected with COVID-19 within a month. The 0.3-point difference is statistically insignificant.

Epidemiologist Vinay Prasad of the University of California at San Francisco buried the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s child masking recommendation in one sentence: “The CDC cannot ‘follow the science’ because there is no relevant science.”

And what about surgical masks? They are not designed to prevent the spread of viruses, but to prevent medical personnel from accidentally infecting the open wounds of patients on the operating table, and to prevent body fluids from patients spraying up into the mouths and noses of the surgical team. Dr. Colin Axon, a COVID-19 advisor to the British government, made this point clear: Medics were “unable to comprehend” the minuscule elements involved: “A COVID viral particle is around 100 nanometers, material gaps in blue surgical masks are up to 1,000 times that size, cloth mask gaps can be 5,000 times the size.”

While most studies conclude that masks are essentially useless against COVID-19, not all do. Probably the most widely cited study on behalf of mask efficacy was published in the British Medical Journal in October. But it’s hardly a ringing endorsement. As the authors note, “The quality of current evidence would be graded as low or very low, as it consists of observational studies with poor methods.”

If the only problem with the pro-mask position were that it negates science, it would only be harmless nonsense.

But while it is nonsense, it is not harmless.

Take children, for example. Only time will tell how affected children have been by not seeing other children’s faces and seeing few adult faces for two years. In July, an article published under the auspices of the USC Center for Health Policy and Economics addressed this issue:

Masking is a psychological stressor for children and disrupts learning. Covering the lower half of the face of both teacher and pupil reduces the ability to communicate. In particular, children lose the experience of mimicking expressions, an essential tool of nonverbal communication. Positive emotions such as laughing and smiling become less recognizable, and negative emotions get amplified. Bonding between teachers and students takes a hit. Overall, it is likely that masking exacerbates the chances that a child will experience anxiety and depression, which are already at pandemic levels themselves.

Yet, just this past week, the enemies of children known as teachers unions—in this case, the one that controls the Los Angeles Unified School District—issued a directive that all children must wear N95-type masks all day, including during outdoor recess, with a wire over their noses to keep the masks at maximum tightness.

The social damage of masks is not confined to children. All human interaction has suffered as a result of two years of masking. For example, people are less kind when they are anonymous.

All of that harm is more than sufficient to justify contempt for mask advocacy.

Now let’s add to that the irrationality of the pro-mask position.

Health authorities demand that people wear masks when entering restaurants, when seated on an airplane, and when walking through airports. However, an exception is made for eating and drinking. So, then, one regularly sees people on airplanes seated less than 12 inches from one another eating without masks on; people seated at airport cafes and restaurants with no masks on; and people spending about an hour eating in restaurants with no masks on.

And while on the subject of airplanes: Do pro-mask advocates think that pilots keep their masks on while flying? Do they even want them to? Does any rational person want their pilots to breathe their own carbon dioxide for six hours while flying across the country?

The utter irrationality of mask advocacy is the single greatest reason the anti-mask people hold mask advocates in contempt. How else should one regard adults who believe that two-year-olds on airplanes and five-year-olds in schools should be masked?

Watching half of our fellow Americans accept and engage in such irrational behavior (not to mention sometimes hysterically enforce it, as myriad social media videos attest) not only depresses the rest of us; it frightens us. That more than half of our country willingly obeys completely irrational orders raises the question: What irrational orders from the state would they not obey?

Why Putin Has Not Been Deterred ~ VDH

Exasperated Americans fear Vladimir Putin is deterred neither by sanctions nor by arms sales but follows only his own sense of cost-to-benefit self-interest.

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hope the West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strangulation of both Ukraine and NATO. 

Yet Americans do not want their troops to venture across the world to Europe’s backyard to fight nuclear Russia to ensure that Ukraine stays independent. 

Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simply dictate the future of Ukraine. 

Yet Americans also grudgingly accept that Ukraine was often historically part of Russia. During World War II, it was the bloody scene of joint Russian-Ukrainian sacrifices—over 5 million killed—to defeat the Nazi German invasion. 

Americans publicly support NATO. 

Yet most Americas privately worry that NATO has become diplomatically impotent and a military mirage—a modern League of Nations. 

NATO members have a collective GDP seven times larger than Russia’s. Their aggregate population is 1 billion. Yet the majority will not spend enough on defense to deter their weaker enemies. 

The second largest NATO member, Turkey, is closer to Russia than to the United States. Its people poll anti-American. 

Germany is NATO’s richest European member and the power behind the European Union. Yet Germany will soon be dependent on imported Russian natural gas for much of its energy needs. 

In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of Germans voiced a desire for more cooperation with Russia. Most Americans poll the exact opposite. 

Worse, 60 percent of Germans oppose going to the aid of any NATO country in time of war. Over 70 percent of Germans term their relationship with the United States as “bad.” 

We can translate all these disturbing results in the following manner: The German and Turkish people like or trust Russia more than they do their own NATO patron, America. 

They would not support participating in any NATO joint military effort against even an invading Russia—even, or especially, if spearheaded by an unpopular United States. 

So, assume that NATO’s key two members are either indifferent to the fate of nearby Ukraine, or sympathetic to Russia’s professed grievances—or both. 

Indeed, most Americans fear that if Ukraine ever became a NATO member, Putin might be even more eager to test its sovereignty. 

Putin assumes that not all NATO members would intervene to help an attacked Ukraine, as required by their mutual defense obligations under Article 5. 

If they did not, Putin could then both absorb Ukraine and unravel the NATO alliance all at once. 

There are more complications in the Ukrainian mess. 

Joe Biden, in wacky statements, has confirmed Putin’s bet that the United States is currently divided, confused, weakened, and poorly led. 

Putin knows that the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appear more worried about “white privilege” and climate change than enhancing military readiness to deter enemies such as himself. 

Putin sees polls that only 45 percent of Americans have confidence in their new politicized military. 

The flight from Afghanistan, Putin further conjectures, has made the United States both less feared by enemies and less trusted by allies. 

The prior failed American policy of Russian “reset,” the appeasement of Putin’s aggressions during the Obama years, together with the concocted hoax of “Russian collusion,” have all variously emboldened—and angered—Putin. 

He knows a twice-impeached Trump left office unpopular. So, he assumes with Trump gone, American deterrence against Russia also vanished.

Trump’s now rejected agenda was to increase American and NATO defenses, and pump oil and gas to crash the global price of Russia’s chief source of foreign exchange. 

Putin was once furious that Trump unilaterally left an asymmetrical U.S.-Russia missile accord. Trump ordered lethal force to be used against 200 Russian mercenaries who attacked a U.S. installation in Syria. He sold offensive weapons to Ukraine. He acted forcibly in taking out terrorist enemies such as Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani, the Islamicist Abu al-Baghdadi, and ISIS itself. 

With Putin’s nemesis, Trump, gone, Russia assumes the appeasement years of the Obama-Biden Administration are back again. As in 2014, once more Putin is moving against his neighbors.

Finally, there is the unfortunate role of recent Ukrainian governments. Some were deeply involved in greenlighting the Biden family grifting and profiteering to ensure massive American foreign aid. 

Some Ukrainian expatriates and current government members worked with the American Left to ensure the first impeachment of Donald Trump. 

Now Ukrainians are exasperated that their prior intrusions into domestic American politics have backfired with the disastrous Biden presidency—and his apparent de facto acceptance of an inevitable Russian annexation. 

Where does this entire mess leave America? 

In trouble. 

Putin is undermining a sovereign nation, fissuring NATO, and, if successful, might continue the Ukraine slow squeeze model in the Baltic states and elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, China smiles, hoping the Ukraine blueprint can be used against Taiwan. 

Exasperated Americans fear that Putin is deterred neither by sanctions nor by arms sales but follows only his own sense of cost-to-benefit self-interest.

Dear J6 Committee: I Will Not Be Intimidated

For too long, Washington has been a shadowy place of deceit and corruption. Perhaps this can be a moment where we say enough is enough, and leave the wilderness towards being a great country again.

by Alex Bruesewitz for American Greatness

It has come to my attention that the unconstitutional January 6th House UnSelect Committee seeks an audience with me. My attorney, Joseph D. McBride, Esq., informed the committee Wednesday afternoon that I am declining to give an audience at this time.

I am publishing my response to those inquiries because, while the committee likes to secretly and privately harass honest, law-abiding Americans, I choose to publicly embarrass their membership and bring to light the truly vulgar, deceitful, and unconstitutional process that is taking place in the seat of our nation’s government. It should shock the conscience. I hope to keep the public informed about what is happening as I am being singled out for speaking my mind and for helping others speak theirs.

The aim is of the committee is clear: to attack supporters of President Trump and ultimately those conservatives who don’t think and behave as the Washington elite believe they should. I am being targeted for standing financially with those who can’t afford their legal bills as well as for working, consulting, and befriending pro-Trump, America First members of Congress.

Specifically, the committee wants to see confidential conversations I had with members of Congress who I either work with or happen to know.

Sorry, but I will not be turning over to them voluntarily what they request.

I don’t have anything to hide and did nothing wrong, but like many Americans who fight for liberty, I balk at the mere notion that a committee composed almost entirely of one political party would think it appropriate to demand strategic political communications on their political opponents. It’s truly shocking.

And as I wrote in my first letter to the committee, this committee is improperly constituted and repeatedly behaves in a lawless fashion.

As someone who has respect for our founding documents, such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I cannot, in good conscience, recognize the committee or its actions as legitimate. I fully anticipate that just as King George III rejected calls from Thomas Jefferson for British tyranny to end, the committee will also remain “deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.”

Before they pursue this path further, I would implore committee members to reread (or read for the first time) the Declaration and our Constitution. It’s wordy but I am sure even a member of the Democratic caucus can appreciate its meaning and merits.

They won’t have to read too perceptively to ascertain the meaning behind the First Amendment, which gives me the right to speak my mind and petition my government. All of my post-2020 election discussions and consultations are protected by the First Amendment. Petitioning your government, seeking the freedom to peaceably assemble, and engaging in freedom of speech are all God-given, constitutionally protected rights.

And I won’t stay silent as this illegitimate committee tries to spin a narrative that there was some grand “conspiracy to overthrow the election results.” There was not.

The January 6 Committee Democrats want me to apologize for exercising my First Amendment rights. I will not.

I spoke my mind. Members of Congress spoke theirs. Congress and the American public are firmly in a national discussion of election integrity.

I know their tactics. They will attempt to dehumanize, de-person, and “cancel me,” as they have done to so many before me. They isolate people from their allies and friends by trying to make them “radioactive” by mere innuendo and insinuation. They try to destroy reputations by trial by media. And when that doesn’t work, they bleed people dry through lawyer’s fees and endless inquiry.

But I won’t be deterred. I don’t fear them.

I stand by my actions and stand by my words following the 2020 election.

The American people are waking up to what this farcical “committee” is doing. Before I am done, they will know the full extent of the attacks on their political opponents: how this group targets and destroys opponents, not for “democracy” or protecting our country, but to settle political scores and silence opponents. No one is safe from their creepy and unconstitutional attacks—including everyone from members of Congress and members of President Trump’s administration to consultants and low-level staffers.

The MAGA movement that President Trump set into motion will not be stopped. It is only getting stronger. I am proudly working to elect dozens of America First-aligned members of Congress who will not only do everything they can to stop Joe Biden from destroying our country but will also help advance the interests of the American people.

The truth will come to light but it won’t come to light in the two Adams’—Schiff’s and Kinzinger’s—basement conference rooms. Perhaps it should come to light in court. I am considering my options there.

God commands us not to be afraid for we can find strength from above. The Lord instructed his people to walk into furnaces, hang out among lions, retreat into the desert for days without water. By seeking truth and fighting for their convictions, they would attain an even more beautiful understanding of God and lead others out of the darkness towards the light. For too long, Washington has been a shadowy place of deceit and corruption. Perhaps this can be a moment where we seize on liberty, say enough is enough, and leave the wilderness towards being a great country once again.

6 New Revelations From The John Durham Spygate Probe

With Michael Sussmann’s lawyers soon to receive a cache of complaints against John Durham’s team, watch for the corrupt media to be quoting those false charges by this weekend

Margot Cleveland reporting for The Federalist

On Jan. 25, Special Counsel John Durham filed a “discovery update” and a request for an extension of time to provide Michael Sussmann documents related to the government’s pending criminal case against the former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer.

The 19-page court filing reveals some fascinating details about the Sussmann case, the broader special counsel investigation, and most intriguingly an apparent rift between Durham’s team and the Office of Inspector General. Here’s a quick refresher of the case, followed by five takeaways.

What’s Happened So Far

On September 16, 2021, the special counsel’s office filed a one-count indictment against Sussmann, who served as a lawyer for the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. The indictment charged that Sussmann had lied to FBI General Counsel James Baker when he provided him information that purported to show the Trump organization had established a secret channel to communicate with a Russian bank, Alfa Bank.

Specifically, according to the indictment, “Sussmann lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI,” with Sussmann falsely stating “he was not doing his work on the aforementioned allegations ‘for any client.’” In fact, though, the indictment charged, Sussmann was acting on behalf of “a U.S. technology industry executive at a U.S. Internet company”—later identified as Rodney Joffe—and “the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign.”

Before the 2016 election, the Clinton team also pushed claims to the press of a Trump-Alfa Bank covert communication channel, with Slate publishing a detailed story on this conspiracy theory the week before the election. The FBI later concluded there was nothing to the story and then turned its attention to claims of a broader Trump-Russia collusion for the next three years.

But by May 2019, the investigators had become the investigated, with then-Attorney General William Barr directing Durham “to investigate certain intelligence and law-enforcement activities surrounding the 2016 presidential election.” Prior to the 2020 election, Barr appointed Durham as a special counsel, and for the last year-and-a-half he has continued in that role, albeit with little fanfare.

1. There’s Much More to Come

In fact, Sussmann represents only the third individual charged as a result of Durham’s probe. In August 2020, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email to push forward the FISA surveillance application against Carter Page. On November 4, 2021, Durham charged Igor Danchenko, Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source, with five counts of lying to the FBI.

Now, with Monday’s filing in the Sussmann case, there is reason to believe more is to come—much more. And that’s the first take-away.

2. Criminal Investigation of Sussmann Afoot

There is an “active, ongoing criminal investigation” of Sussmann’s conduct.

After news broke of the indictment against Sussmann, the left quickly spun the charge as a big nothing-burger. “Is that all John Durham Has?,” more than one commentary asked.

Of course the indictment of Danchenko a little over a month later proved that wasn’t the case, but even before Durham charged Danchenko, the media should have known more was to come. After all, when the special counsel’s office charged Sussmann, it should have been clear from Durham’s timing that he was trying to outrun the clock on the five-year statute of limitations: With Sussmann’s alleged lie to Baker occurring on September 19, 2016, the special counsel team had to file the indictment when it did to prevent the charge from being time-barred.

That Durham was not done seemed clear from the 27-page speaking indictment that, among other details, revealed that in crafting the Trump-Alfa Bank narrative, computer researchers working with Joffee “accessed ‘data of an Executive Branch office of the U.S. government,’ which ‘Internet Company-I had come to possess as a sub-contractor in a sensitive relationship between the U.S. government and another company.’”

And while Danchenko’s indictment makes clear the special counsel’s office was not done in general, yesterday’s filing by the special counsel suggests he isn’t even done with Sussmann.

“The Government also maintains an active, ongoing criminal investigation of the defendant’s conduct and other matters,” Monday’s court filing explained on its opening page. Special Counsel Durham’s office repeated that point two more times, adding more texture in the third instance: “In addition, the Special Counsel’s office maintains an active, ongoing criminal investigation of these and other matters that is not limited to the offense charged in the Indictment.”

So, no, this offense is not all Durham has, either in general, or potentially related to Sussmann.

3. Marc Elias Called Before the Grand Jury

Another significant revelation from yesterday’s court filing concerned Sussmann’s Perkins Coie colleague, Marc Elias, the top lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Elias, identified in the Sussmann indictment and the government’s discovery update as “Campaign Lawyer-1,” provided sworn grand jury testimony, according to the special counsel’s office. That revelation proves significant given that Elias served as an attorney for the Clinton campaign and thus attorney-client privilege would generally protect communications related to the legal work performed.

However, as the attorney known by the moniker Techno Fog noted, “the fact that Marc Elias, the DNC/Clinton lawyer, was before a grand jury. . . indicates Durham has used the ‘crime-fraud exception’ to compel disclosure of information and to elicit testimony.”

The crime-fraud exception provides that communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege if a client seeks advice from an attorney to plan or commit a crime. If Durham did successfully use the crime-fraud exception to question Elias or force the production of documents, that would be a huge development, especially given Elias’s role in hiring Fusion GPS, which hired Steele.

But there’s much more than Marc.

4. Many Others Called Before Grand Jury

Elias was not the only one called before the grand jury, as Durham’s team laid out in Monday’s filing in an effort to obtain an extension to the discovery deadline.

In addition to Elias, the grand jury heard sworn testimony from James Baker; Bill Priestap; the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division; a former FBI deputy assistant director for counterintelligence; an FBI special agent; an FBI headquarters supervisory special agent; two CIA employees; two employees of Georgia Tech; and a former employee of one of the internet companies identified in the indictment.

Also significant was the list of individuals or companies served with grand jury subpoenas for documents, which included the Clinton campaign; “a political organization,” likely the Democratic National Committee; Perkins Coie; three internet companies connected to Joffe; Georgia Tech; Fusion GPS; and “a public relations firm that advised [Perkins Coie] concerning public statements issued in 2018 about the [Sussmann’s] meeting with the former FBI General Counsel.”

The full list of materials provided to Sussmann’s legal team added additional insights into the breadth of the special counsel’s investigation, including the fact that Durham’s team conducted at least 94 interviews. In addition to Baker and Priestap, Durham’s team interviewed more than 24 other current or former FBI employees, numerous CIA employees, a dozen employees at various internet companies connected to Joffe, as well as an employee of Joffe’s, the former chairman of Perkins Coie, a former employee of the Clinton campaign, and four current and former employees of Georgia Tech.

Likewise interesting is that the special counsel’s office turned over to Sussmann 12 transcripts of interviews conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General in connection with the OIG’s investigation of Crossfire Hurricane. That Durham had these documents suggests the special counsel’s office is reviewing what the OIG compiled as part of its own investigation.

A final tidbit of note: The special counsel’s office provided Sussmann nearly 400 emails its team had retrieved from the FBI’s holdings that were sent to, received from, or copied to Sussmann’s Perkins Coie email address from January of 2016 through June of 2017. That’s a lot of email messages: To whom at the FBI was Sussmann communicating during that time period, and about what?

5. The Court of Public Opinion

In addition to detailing all of the information the special counsel’s office had already provided Sussmann or would shortly, in requesting an extension to finish discovery, Durham’s team stressed the breadth of Sussmann’s discovery demands and the transparency with which those demands were met.

For instance, Sussmann’s attorneys requested “all of the prosecution team’s communications with counsel for witnesses or subjects in this investigation, including, ‘any records reflecting any consideration, concern, or threats from your office relating to those individuals’ or their counsels’ conduct…and all formal or informal complaints received by you or others’ about the conduct of the Special Counsel’s office.”

After noting that “communications with other counsel are rarely discoverable,” the government said it expects to produce responsive documents later this week. But the special counsel office added, “it is doing so despite the fact that certain counsel persistently have targeted prosecutors and investigators on the Special Counsel’s team with baseless and polemical attacks that unfairly malign and mischaracterize the conduct of this investigation.”

For instance, “certain counsel have falsely accused the Special Counsel’s Office of leaking information to the media and have mischaracterized efforts to warn witnesses of the consequences of false testimony or false statements as ‘threats’ or ‘intimidation,’” Durham explained to the court.

In other words, with Sussmann’s lawyers soon to receive this cache of complaints against Durham’s team, watch for the corrupt media to be quoting those false charges by this weekend, spinning a narrative of a corrupt special counsel’s office.

6. Wait! WHAT?

Near the end of the special counsel’s 19-page discovery update and extension request came the fifth takeaway: something strange is going on in the Office of Inspector General.

According to yesterday’s filing, on December 17, 2021, the OIG provided the special counsel’s office a written forensic report concerning a “cyber-related matter” that Sussmann had told an OIG special agent in charge about. Specifically, in early 2017, Sussmann told the OIG agent that one of his “clients had observed that a specific OIG employee’s computer was ‘seen publicly’ in ‘Internet traffic’ and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.”

When the OIG office provided Durham’s team the “forensic report,” it represented “that it had ‘no other file[] or other documentation’ relating to this cyber matter.”

However, one week ago, Sussmann’s attorneys informed Durham’s team that Sussmann had, in fact, personally met with the DOJ’s inspector general in March 2017, when he passed on the tip about the OIG employee’s connection to a foreign VPN. While Sussmann had not told the OIG his client’s name at the time, last week his lawyers informed Durham’s team that it was Tech Executive-1, i.e., Joffe, who had discovered the OIG employee’s computer connecting to a VPN in a foreign country.

Upon learning this news, Durham’s team promptly contacted the OIG again and learned, for the first time, that Sussmann had met with both the inspector general and his then-general counsel in March 2017 about the above-described cyber matter. Since then, including over this last weekend, the OIG has been providing further documentation related to that meeting to the special counsel’s office.

So many questions! First, why did the OIG not inform the special counsel’s office that Sussmann had met with both the inspector general and his then-general counsel? And why did the OIG falsely represent that there was no “further documentation”? Sure, it could have been accidental, but given that Durham’s attorneys publicly exposed this “mistake,” it suggests something more is afoot.

Then there is the question of the veracity of the claim and what happens to the investigation. Was there really an OIG employee connecting on a foreign VPN? Who was it? Why? Did the OIG ever find out?

What about Joffe: How in the world did he discover the OIG employee’s computer connecting to a VPN in a foreign country? Was Joffe monitoring other government computers? How? Why? Was anyone else involved? Who knew?

These questions seem significant given that Sussmann’s meeting with the OIG occurred in March 2017, putting the “discovery” during the Trump administration and ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation. With questions like these just arising now, no wonder Durham isn’t done yet with his investigation.