康涅狄格州的美国律师约翰·亨利·达勒姆是一位谦逊、谦逊、笃信宗教、勤奋工作的检察官。与全国各地相当多的美国律师不同，他也毫不留情地避开聚光灯，尽管在他传奇的职业生涯中有几次聚光灯还是找到了他。
但不是这样。不像现在。
杜伦于2017年被唐纳德·特朗普任命为康涅狄格美国检察官办公室主任，今年5月，司法部长威廉·巴尔利用杜伦调查了对候选人和随后的总统唐纳德·特朗普的调查来源——以及他涉嫌与俄罗斯的关系。根据你属于红蓝光谱的哪一部分，这让他要么成为一个复仇天使，来纠正一个邪恶的深州给唐纳德·特朗普带来的错误——要么成为一个极不值得信任的党派黑客，受命做一个据称非法的总统和他的司法部长助手的肮脏工作。
他是谁？也许现在两者都有一点。
直到最近，达勒姆还是奇迹般地避免了成为党派大棒的一部分。这都是因为他的记录——以及他不愿谈论这件事。现年69岁的达勒姆是一名注册的共和党人，他因成功起诉前共和党州长约翰·罗兰贪污腐败而赢得了康涅狄格州民主党人的赞誉。
后来——司法部长埃里克·霍尔德信任达勒姆，任命达勒姆参与奥巴马时代最敏感的调查之一。霍尔德的前任迈克尔·穆卡西已经任命达勒姆领导一项调查，调查为什么中情局销毁了被抓获的被拘留者的水刑视频。2009年，霍尔德命令达勒姆扩大他的调查范围:他现在正在调查是否有任何中情局官员因对囚犯使用“强化审讯技术”而被起诉。当时，在酷刑指控之后，美国的政治左派正在大声疾呼要流血。经过漫长的达勒姆调查，司法部决定不起诉。霍尔德公开称赞了他的工作。
这可能是大多数人最后一次听说达勒姆，直到巴尔决定利用他来“调查调查人员”，因为对特朗普-俄罗斯调查起源的调查是众所周知的。这使得他成为华盛顿最激烈的党派之争的潜在引爆点。巴尔在第二次担任司法部长期间(第一次是在乔治·布什的领导下)，明确表示他对俄罗斯的调查有疑问:具体来说，这是否“充分预测”也就是说:政府对特朗普竞选和俄罗斯有足够的信息来证明展开调查是合理的吗？毕竟，他有句名言——或者是出了名的——说，“在美国监视[的政治活动]是件大事。”
该声明在民主党人中间引起了轩然大波。他们已经深深地相信特朗普竞选团队所谓的与俄罗斯的牵连会让白宫垮台。巴尔同意担任特朗普的司法部长，现在只是一只政治斗牛犬，决心在总统的命令下追捕特朗普的敌人。在这种观点下，他的声明玷污了对俄罗斯的完全合法的反情报调查以及它可能与特朗普的任何联系，这简直是可耻的。
12月9日，司法部监察长迈克尔·霍罗威兹发布了一份拖延已久、备受期待的报告，调查联邦调查局对特朗普竞选助手卡特·佩吉的监控令。从前局长詹姆斯·科米到现在，联邦调查局一直坚称该局向《外国情报监视法》(FISA)法院提出的申请没有错。联邦调查局四次出庭寻求原始搜查令和三次延期。美国联邦调查局的坚持得到了国会山民主党人的响应——由现在的众议院情报委员会主席亚当·希夫领导——这一立场在很大程度上得到主流媒体的响应。委员会中的几名共和党人坚称事实正好相反:FISA进程已经严重腐败，美国公民佩奇被错误地监控了将近一年。
霍洛维茨为每个人创造了一些东西。他在报告中把联邦调查局的线炸成碎片。但是民主党人高兴地领会了霍洛维茨的两个重要结论:基于100多次采访和100多万份文件，他发现偏见没有在俄罗斯调查中发挥作用；调查是出于合法的原因开始的。巴尔曾问这是否被“充分预测”。这就是霍洛维茨，他(双方)都很尊重他，说是的。
然后，对约翰·达勒姆来说，一切都乱了套。(达勒姆拒绝为这个故事说话，但是新闻周刊与超过15名同事、朋友和前司法部官员交谈。)
司法部长发表声明称，他不同意霍洛维茨关于调查开始的结论。他说IG的简报没有扩展到足以让他得出这样的结论。达勒姆的调查——不仅包括调查联邦调查局，还包括中央情报局以及其他外国情报机构——的确有适当的范围。
三十分钟后，著名的沉默寡言的达勒姆在调查过程中发表了自己的声明:“根据迄今收集到的证据，当我们的调查正在进行时……我们告知监察长，我们不同意报告中关于预测和联邦调查局案件如何立案的一些结论。”
在俄罗斯调查成为通战的背景下，这真是一个“神圣的***!”瞬间。几位与《新闻周刊》交谈过的现任和前任司法部官员不明白达勒姆为什么会直言不讳。所有人都认为他和巴尔一定协调了他们的陈述和时间，但是大法官和达勒姆的办公室都没有证实这一点。
“我惊呆了，”前联邦检察官和杜伦的老同事大卫·苏利文说。“他发表这样的声明是非常不寻常的。和任何人一样，他[通常]让自己的工作来说话。”
美国前特别顾问罗伯特·穆勒在去年7月就引发这一切的报告作证之前。
另一个问题:巴尔为什么会允许达勒姆发表声明？几位曾与司法部长共事的消息人士表示，他在保护检察官的同时公开抨击一个有争议的案件，这更符合他的风格。巴尔后来说，达勒姆的声明“非常恰当”。让人们明白他的工作没有被抢占，他在做一些不同的事情，这一点很重要。”
对调查的批评者来说，这份声明只是强化了他们的怀疑:他们认为，这是一项捏造的工作，巴尔和他亲自挑选的检察官达勒姆在选举年追捕特朗普的明显敌人。巴尔一定告诉达勒姆发表他的声明；通过这样做，他和许多为特朗普政府工作的人一样，玷污了过去清白的记录。埃里克·霍尔德(Eric Holder)写了一篇专栏文章警告达勒姆，“良好的声誉在法律界来之不易，但它们是脆弱的；任何处于达勒姆地位的人都应该牢记，在与本届政府打交道时，许多名誉已经不可挽回地丧失了。”
一些朋友和前同事说，他们相信他们知道为什么他会在这样一个充满政治色彩的案件中发表公开声明。正如与达勒姆共事多年的前检察官沙利文所说，“他显然知道一些事情。他不是一个会编故事的人。他可能会在霍洛维茨报告之后看到一些错误的报道，他可能会有点生气。报告中有些事情会让他生气。”
比如，具体是什么？
一位熟悉达勒姆想法的朋友说，霍洛维茨报告中关于一名联邦调查局律师凯文·克莱斯米思的某些指控可能并没有得到他的认同。据称，克瑞斯米斯从中情局获得了佩奇的信息，中情局称多年来他一直对中情局有所帮助。霍洛维茨声称，克瑞斯米斯的说法与FISA法院相反。“这是约翰最喜欢的事情。面对现实吧，媒体没有充分报道这一指控的可能严重性。这不是某个低级别的[联邦调查局律师犯的文书错误。这引发了许多危险。”
达勒姆的同事说，他也敏锐地意识到联邦执法部门的权力。行善的力量——赶走坏人——但当其权力被错误地部署时，也有伤害生命的力量。本文采访的几个人提到了达勒姆2018年3月在康涅狄格一所小学院的演讲。这是达勒姆职业生涯中少有的公开、长篇大论谈论检察官的事例之一。谈话的全部焦点是检察官的权力，以及为什么必须明智地使用它。他说:“发出传票会破坏某人的名誉。这会损害他们的生意，伤害他们的家庭。这是我们拥有的一种令人敬畏的力量，只能在适当的情况下使用。”在同一次演讲中，他补充道，“也许对某人提出的指控是不真实的，同样，如果这些信息泄露出去，我们可以毁掉一个人。”
在当前情况下，很难阅读这些言论，也很难不去想授予特朗普前低级竞选顾问target Page的监视令。一旦公众知道佩奇是特朗普竞选团队的前成员，然后成为联邦调查局监视的对象，用他自己的话说，他的生活就“毁了”他不得不动了几次。他声称自己受到死亡威胁。他以俄罗斯为重点的能源顾问业务结束了。现在，在科米坚持让佩奇接受监视的过程没有任何问题两年后，我们现在知道，根据霍洛维茨的报告，这不是真的。
大卫·苏利文推测，这也可能让达勒姆兴奋起来。“我想他非常关心到目前为止看到的情况。这是他做出那样公开声明的唯一原因。”
但不仅仅是关于卡特·佩吉。达勒姆的重点是预测:整个俄罗斯反情报调查——转变为对特朗普的刑事调查，转变为特别顾问调查——是在什么基础上开始的？官方故事是这样开始的，因为另一位年轻的特朗普低级助手乔治·帕帕佐普洛斯在伦敦的一家酒吧里表面上告诉澳大利亚高级外交官亚历山大·唐纳，有人告诉他俄罗斯人有希拉里·克林顿的丑闻。一位了解巴尔对此事想法的高级官员说，总检察长“目瞪口呆”，霍洛维茨会说调查是基于这个故事合法成立的。巴尔在公开评论中明确表示，他对此持怀疑态度。
我们现在知道达勒姆也是。他的工作是找出怀疑是否合理。他能吗？他职业生涯的标志之一是长期艰苦的调查，通常需要几年时间才能完成。中情局的案子花了三年多的时间，对波士顿联邦调查局一名官员的起诉也花了三年多的时间，这名官员与臭名昭著的黑帮成员怀蒂·布尔杰勾结在一起。巴尔说达勒姆的调查是“一件大事”然而，这只是在5月份才开始，12月中旬，巴尔说，他预计达勒姆将在2020年春末或初夏总统竞选最激烈的时候结束调查。
这使达勒姆走上了正轨。对他来说，这可能足够时间来完成像这次这样充满政治色彩和复杂的调查吗？像达勒姆这样彻底的检察官？前检察官称，一项起诉似乎是可能的:联邦调查局律师克瑞斯米斯涉嫌伪造提交给FISA法院的文件。此外，可能还会有其他误导FISA法院的案件，这是一项重罪。(克林顿的律师没有回复置评电话。)
但这只是粗略地与预测问题相关。第一份FISA申请于2016年10月获得批准，几个月后，7月下旬正式启动了交叉火力飓风行动。杜伦真的会在明年春天之前搞清楚俄罗斯调查到底发生了什么，如果有涉嫌犯罪的话，会提起诉讼吗？
现任和前任执法官员中有许多人持怀疑态度。司法部国家安全司的一名前律师说:“这真的让你想知道这到底是怎么回事。”。
正如埃里克·霍尔德所说，特朗普时代的声誉很容易丧失。我们现在来看看约翰·达勒姆的作品。
What Happens When a Highly Regarded Prosecutor Joins Trump World? Just Ask John Durham
John Henry Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, is a self-effacing, modest, deeply religious, hard-working prosecutor. Unlike a fair number of U.S. attorneys across the country, he also shuns the limelight relentlessly, even though, on several occasions through a storied career, the limelight has nonetheless found him.
But not like this. Not like now.
Appointed by Donald Trump to lead Connecticut's U.S. attorney's office in 2017, Durham was tapped by Attorney General William Barr in May of this year to investigate the origins of the investigation into candidate and then President Donald Trump—and his alleged ties to Russia. Depending on where you fall on the red-to-blue spectrum, this makes him either an avenging angel, come to right the wrongs inflicted on Donald Trump by an evil deep state—or a deeply untrustworthy partisan hack, tasked to do the dirty work of an allegedly illegitimate president and his attorney general sidekick.
So which is he? Maybe a little of both now.
Until very recently, Durham had, somewhat magically, avoided being part of the partisan bludgeoning. That was all due to his record—and his reticence in talking about it. Though a registered Republican, Durham, now 69, earned chits from Connecticut Democrats for successfully prosecuting former Republican Governor John Rowland for corruption.
Later, then–Attorney General Eric Holder put his trust in Durham, having appointed Durham to one of the most sensitive investigations of the Obama era. Holder's predecessor, Michael Mukasey, had appointed Durham to lead an investigation into why the CIA had destroyed video of waterboarding sessions of captured detainees. In 2009, Holder ordered Durham to widen his probe: He was now to investigate whether any CIA officers should be prosecuted for their roles in applying "'enhanced interrogation techniques" to prisoners. At the time, the political left in the U.S. was baying for blood in the wake of the torture allegations. After a lengthy Durham investigation, the Department of Justice decided not to charge. Holder praised his work publicly.
That might have been the last most people would have heard of Durham, until Barr decided to tap him to "investigate the investigators," as the probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation is known. That made him a potential lighting rod in the most bitterly partisan dispute of all in Washington. Barr, in his second stint as attorney general (the first being under George H.W. Bush), had made it clear that he had questions about the Russia investigation: specifically, whether it was "adequately predicated." That is: Did the government have enough information about the Trump campaign and Russia to justify opening a probe? After all, he famously—or notoriously—said, "spying on a political campaign [in the United States] is a big deal."
The statement caused a meltdown among Democrats. They had become deeply invested in the idea that the Trump campaign's alleged involvement with Russia was going to bring the White House down. Barr, by agreeing to serve as Trump's attorney general, was now simply a political pit bull, determined to go after Trump's enemies at the president's behest. In this view, his statement besmirching a perfectly legitimate counterintelligence investigation into Russia and any ties it might have to Trump was nothing less than scandalous.
On December 9, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a long-delayed, highly anticipated report into the FBI's pursuit of a surveillance warrant against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FBI, from former Director James Comey on down, had insisted that there was nothing wrong with the bureau's applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FBI went before the court four times seeking the original warrant and three extensions. The FBI's insistence was echoed by Democrats on Capitol Hill—led by now House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff—a position largely echoed by the mainstream media. Several Republicans on the committee insisted the opposite was true: the FISA process had been badly corrupted and Page, an American citizen, had been wrongly surveilled for nearly a year.
Horowitz produced something for everyone. He blew the FBI line to shreds in his report. But Democrats happily grasped at two important Horowitz conclusions: that he had found, based on over 100 interviews and over 1 million documents, no "testimonial or documentary evidence" that bias played a role in the Russia investigation; and the investigation had been started for legitimate reasons. Barr had asked whether it had been "adequately predicated." Here was Horowitz, who was well regarded (by both sides), saying it was.
And then, for John Durham, all hell broke loose. (Durham declined to speak for this story, but Newsweek spoke to more than 15 colleagues, friends and former Justice Department officials.)
The attorney general put out a statement saying he disagreed with Horowitz's conclusion regarding the investigation's start. He said the IG's brief did not extend widely enough for him to reach such a conclusion. Durham's investigation—which includes looking not only into the FBI but the CIA as well as other foreign intelligence agencies—does have the proper scope.
Thirty minutes later, the famously close-mouthed Durham, in the middle of his investigation, issued his own statement: "Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing…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."
In the context of the tong war that the Russia investigation had become, this was truly a "holy s***!" moment. Several current and former Justice Department officials who talked with Newsweek could not fathom why Durham would have spoken out. All assume he and Barr must have coordinated their statements and timing, but neither Justice nor Durham's office would confirm that.
"I was stunned," said former federal prosecutor and longtime Durham colleague David Sullivan. "It was very unusual for him to issue that statement. As much as anyone, he [usually] lets his work do his talking."
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller in Washington before he testified last July about the report that started it all.
The other question: Why would Barr allow Durham to issue the statement? Several sources who have worked with the attorney general said it is much more in keeping with his style for him to take the public heat on a controversial case while shielding his prosecutors. Barr said later that the Durham statement was "perfectly appropriate. It was important for people to understand that his work was not being preempted, that he was doing something different."
To the critics of the investigation, the statement simply intensified their suspicions: this, they reason, is a put up job, Barr and Durham, his handpicked prosecutor, going after Trump's perceived enemies in an election year. Barr must have told Durham to issue his statement; and by doing so, he, like so many others who have worked for the Trump administration, tainted what had been an unblemished record. Eric Holder wrote a column warning Durham, "good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham's shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost."
Some friends and former colleagues say they believe they know why he would issue a public statement in such a politically fraught case. As Sullivan, the former prosecutor who worked with Durham for years put it, "he obviously knows stuff. He's not a guy that's going to make things up. He may see something being reported in the wake of the Horowitz report that's wrong, and he may be a little angry. And there are things in the report that would make him angry."
Like what, exactly?
A friend who is familiar with Durham's thinking says certain allegations in the Horowitz report about an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, likely didn't sit well with him. Clinesmith allegedly took information about Page from the CIA, which said he had been helpful to the agency over the years. Then Clinesmith, Horowitz alleges, said the opposite to the FISA Court. "It is the sort of thing that sets John off. Let's face it, the press has underreported the possible gravity of that allegation. This was not some low level [FBI] lawyer making a clerical error. It raises a lot of red flags."
Colleagues of Durham's say he is also acutely aware of the power that federal law enforcement has. The power to do good—putting bad guys away—but the power also to damage lives when its authority is wrongfully deployed. Several people interviewed for this article point to a speech Durham gave at a small Connecticut college in March 2018. It is one of the rare instances in his career in which Durham spoke publicly and at length, about being a prosecutor. The entire focus of the talk was the power that prosecutors' have, and why it must be used judiciously. He said: "Issuing a subpoena can destroy someone's reputation. It can damage their business, hurt their families. It is an awesome power that we have, that should be used only in appropriate instances." Later in the same speech he added, "Maybe accusations that are lodged against somebody are untrue, and again, we can destroy a person if that information gets out."
It's hard, under the current circumstances, to read those remarks and not think about the surveillance warrants granted to target Page, the former low level Trump campaign adviser. Once it became known publicly that Page was a former member of the Trump campaign and then the subject of FBI surveillance, his life, in his own words, "was ruined." He's had to move several times. He claims he has had death threats. His business as an energy consultant, with a focus on Russia, ended. And now, two years after Comey insisted that there was nothing wrong with the process of getting Page under surveillance, we now know, due to the Horowitz report, that that was not true.
This, David Sullivan speculates, may also have Durham worked up. "I imagine he's pretty concerned about what he's seen so far. It's the only reason he would make a public statement like that."
But not just about Carter Page. Durham's focus is predication: On what basis was the entire Russia counterintelligence investigation—which turned into a criminal investigation of Trump, which turned into a special counsel investigation—started? The official story is that it started because another young low-level Trump aide, George Papadopolous, ostensibly told Alexander Downer, a senior Australian diplomat, in a London bar that someone had told him that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. A senior official with knowledge of Barr's thinking on this matter says the attorney general is "dumbfounded" that Horowitz would say the investigation was legitimately founded based on this tale. In his public comments, Barr has made it clear that he is skeptical of that.
We now know that Durham is as well. And it's his job to find out whether skepticism is warranted. Can he? One of the trademarks of his career has been long, painstaking investigations that often take a few years to complete. The CIA case took more than three years, so too did the prosecution of a Boston FBI official who was in cahoots with notorious gangster Whitey Bulger. Barr has said the Durham probe is "a big deal." Yet it only began in May, and in mid-December Barr said he expected Durham would wrap up his investigation by late spring or early summer 2020 in the heat of a presidential campaign.
That puts Durham on the clock. Can that possibly be enough time for him to complete an investigation as politically charged and complex as this one? For a prosecutor as thorough as Durham? One indictment, say former prosecutors, seems likely: FBI attorney Clinesmith for allegedly falsifying a document submitted to the FISA court. And there may be other cases to be brought regarding misleading the FISA court, which is a felony. (Clinesmith's attorney did not return calls for comment.)
But that's only glancingly related to the issue of predication. The first FISA application was approved in October 2016, a couple of months after the formal launch of Operation Crossfire Hurricane in late July. Is Durham really going to get to the bottom of what actually happened to start the Russia investigation by next spring, and, if there are alleged crimes involved, to bring cases?
There are a lot of doubters among current and former law enforcement officials. "It really makes you wonder what all of this is really about," says one former attorney in the Justice Department's national security division.
As Eric Holder put it, reputations in the Trump era are easily lost. We'll now see what comes of John Durham's.
