The content of the story is less important than the network within it.
The New York Times writes a story about John Durham issuing subpoenas to the Brookings Institute for records of Igor Danchenko’s work there. Danchenko was Chris Steele’s primary sub-source for the infamous Steele Dossier.
The material provided by Danchenko to Steele was described as unsubstantiated “gossip”, “rumor”, “hearsay” and innuendo by Danchenko himself after he was questioned by the FBI.
New York Times – […] Mr. Durham has keyed in on the F.B.I.’s handling of a notorious dossier of political opposition research both before and after the bureau started using it to obtain court permission to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016 and 2017 and questioned witnesses who may have insight into the matter.
In particular, Mr. Durham has obtained documents from the Brookings Institution related to Igor Danchenko, a Russia researcher who worked there a decade ago and later helped gather rumors about Mr. Trump and Russia for that research, known as the Steele dossier, according to people familiar with the request.

Direct targeting of Donald Trump has not succeeded. Direct attacks against Donald Trump and his organization and personal finances have not succeeded. The DOJ is not getting the results they need…. So now they need a backdoor, some leverage, from somewhere, anywhere, where they can use that leverage to destroy their enemy. THAT is what’s going on.
Today Politico takes the walk-back reports one step further by warning the leftist ideologues that most of those arrested and/or accused will likely not serve any jail-time and will instead face misdemeanor trespassing violations.
The 2021 political prosecutions against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys are essentially akin to former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s 2018 indictments -on behalf of Mueller/Weissmann- for mysterious Russian operatives that never surfaced and were never prosecuted.
NBC is reporting on these new developments as the U.S. intelligence apparatus is preparing to go live with the assembly of lists of Americans who “could be” potential threats to the government; and need to be watched.