Ted Cruz Says Durham Report on Hillary Clinton Campaign Is 'Bigger Than Watergate'

Landon Mion | February 21, 2022 9:45 AM

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said if Special Council John Durham's recent report alleging that Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign lawyers paid a technology company to gain access to Trump Tower and subsequently the White House holds true, then the report is "bigger than Watergate."

During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," the Texas Republican called Durham's findings "deeply concerning."

"We have to see what the facts are but I can tell you what the allegations [are], what Durham filed in a filing in federal court is deeply concerning," Cruz said. "What Durham alleged, as a federal prosecutor, is that a lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign conspired with a big tech executive to monitor and spy on Donald Trump. To spy on him at his home, to spy on him at his office and indeed, they were spying on the White House itself. They were spying on a sitting president."

Cruz explained that he believes Durham's report is "a lot bigger than Watergate" if the allegations are indeed accurate, highlighting the fact that individuals complicit in the Watergate scandal in the 1970s were prosecuted. A total of 69 people were indicted and 48 people were convicted for Watergate.

"If what Special Counsel Durham is alleging is true, what Donald Trump said is absolutely right and to the extent that Hillary Clinton is completely complicit with this, her campaign is complicit with it, her lawyers are complicit with it, Big Tech is complicit with it. If this is true, it’s a lot bigger than Watergate," he said. "That was a bungled, third-rate burglary, it was wrong, people went to jail for Watergate and people need to go to jail for this if these allegations are true."

Durham's report from earlier this month alleges that Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann lied during a 2016 meeting with the FBI about connections between Trump and Russia. Sussmann is accused of working with tech executive Rodney Joffe to create "purported data and 'white papers'" that would "establish an 'interference' and 'narrative' tying then-candidate Trump to Russia."

The report also claims that billing records show Sussmann charged the Clinton campaign on numerous occasions for "work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations."

Durham further accused Sussmann of providing internet data to the CIA in 2017 in an effort to link Trump to Russia.

"The defendant provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious [domain name system] lookups by these entities of internet protocol ("IP") addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider ("Russian Phone Provider-1"). The defendant further claimed that these lookups demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations. The Special Counsel’s Office has identified no support for these allegations," the report reads.

Durham also noted that such DNS lookups coming from the White House is not rare, with around 3 million occurring between 2014 and 2017, during the Obama administration. This was not included in the data Sussman offered to the CIA.

Sussmann has denied the allegations outlined by Durham's report.