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Sen. Josh Hawley is calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to have Justice Department employees recuse themselves “from any involvement in the Durham investigation” if they had anything to do with the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign’s alleged activities involving the collection of non-public internet data related to former President Trump.
A court filing from Special Counsel John Durham’s office last week in the case against campaign attorney Michael Sussmann indicated that the Clinton campaign paid to get information from servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House, in order to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to bring to federal government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia.
CLINTON CAMPAIGN PAID TO INFILTRATE TRUMP TOWER, WHITE HOUSE SERVERS TO LINK TRUMP TO RUSSIA: DURHAM
“The Clinton campaign may have engaged in criminal conduct that includes hacking into computer servers and lying to the FBI,” Hawley, R-Mo., said in a letter to Garland sent Wednesday. “These are serious crimes.”
Hawley went on to state that what he called “the Clinton campaign’s criminal enterprise” involved current Biden administration officials including national security adviser Jake Sullivan. He also stated that Sullivan’s wife Margaret Goodlander, who serves as counsel in Garland’s office, is “close to Hillary Clinton.”
“I am calling on you to set a clear example and instruct Ms. Goodlander, and all of your other employees potentially implicated in the Clinton Campaign, to formally recuse from the Special Counsel’s investigation,” Hawley said in the letter.
Durham’s filing did not make any criminal accusations, but said that a tech executive who worked with Sussmann and an investigative firm on behalf of the campaign “exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” and had researchers “mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia.” Durham did not specify how the executive allegedly obtained access to the data, but the filing has led to Republican accusations that the actions were nefarious, if not illegal.
Special Counsel John Durham.
“These actions were part of a concerted effort to smear President Trump by promoting the false narrative that he was in collusion with Russia,” Hawley wrote.
The Republican senator asked Garland whether he will have anyone associated with the Clinton campaign, including Sullivan and Goodlander, recuse themselves from Durham’s investigation, and to provide a list of all Justice Department employees who are recused.
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At the end of the letter, Hawley also asked if the Justice Department currently has any open investigation into Hunter Biden, “including for his sweetheart deals with Ukrainian energy company Burisma and Chinese companies.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
