Trump issues official statement asking if special counsel John Durham is still alive

Donald Trump has issued a formal statement asking whether Special Counsel John Durham is still ‘living’ and demanding to know whether he will ever issue his report on the origins of the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation.

‘Where’s Durham? Is he still a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report?’ said the official statement on Friday from The Office of Donald J. Trump.

Durham’s investigation, which the Justice Department has described as a criminal probe, is focused on the activities within the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as the Trump-Russia inquiry was code-named.

Trump has long anticipated that it will reveal grave misdeeds by his enemies within the department, and previously vented fury that Durham’s findings have not been released sooner.

Donald Trump has issued a formal statement on Friday asking whether Special Counsel John Durham is still ‘living’

Since the November election, Durham has maintained a remarkably low profile.

He last spoke publicly in February, to confirm that he would resign from his position as the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut but would remaining as a special counsel to conclude his probe.

The 93 U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and are typically asked to step down with a new administration. 

Durham was appointed in October by then-Attorney General William Barr as a special counsel to investigate the origins of Crossfire Hurricane, and whether it was executed on solid legal footing. 

The FBI in July 2016 began investigating whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to sway the outcome of the presidential election. 

That probe was inherited nearly a year later by special counsel Mueller, who ultimately did not find enough evidence to charge Trump or any of his associates with conspiring with Russia.

John Durham (above) was appointed in October by then-Attorney General William Barr as a special counsel to investigate the origins of Crossfire Hurricane

FBI lovers Lisa Page (left) and Peter Strzok were both key figures in the Crossfire Huricane investigation. They left the FBI after their secret love affair was discovered by supervisors

The early months of the investigation, when agents obtained secret surveillance warrants targeting a former Trump campaign aide, have long been scrutinized by Trump and other critics of the probe who say the FBI made significant errors. 

A Justice Department inspector general report backed up that criticism but did not find evidence of mistakes in the surveillance applications or partisan bias.

Durham’s investigation has so far resulted in one prosecution so far. A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation in January for altering an email the Justice Department used in its surveillance warrant application for Carter Page, a former Trump campaign advisor. 

Trump’s brief statement on Friday, similar in tone to many of his tweets, comes after he boasted that his press statements are more ‘elegant’ than tweeting after he was banned from Twitter and other platforms. 

Trump has remained coy about reported plans to start his own social media site, saying on Thursday: ‘I have a lot of options.’

‘We might open up our own platform,’ he added, but said his new mode of issuing press statements was superior to tweeting.

‘What I’m doing now, I almost like it better,’ he said of issuing press statements. ‘You do it less and you do it better.’