From day one, I'll bet Durham knew exactly what he wanted out of his investigation. He saw what the FBI did, Jim Comey admitting that he would never have treated Obama the way he treated Trump because he loathed Trump and "thought he could get away with it". What an incredible arrogant thing to say in public. Don't think that is supposed to matter to the FBI, who you hate and who you like and we got plenty of that with Peter "I'll get the scumbag for you sweetie" Strzok to his crying girlfriend Lisa Page who wanted assurances from Strzok that he would take down Trump. "Don't you worry about that honey", said Strzok
So how to get the ball rolling in exposing the FBI ( the leadership ) for their bias and corruption? Got to put somebody on trial for something so that you can put an FBI agent on the stand ( Auten ) who confirms that the FBI violated the law and their oath when first they falsified an official application to the FISA court, which got the FBI lawyer indicted.
Then when their investigation of Papadopolos, the first to be investigated, became nothing worthwhile, the man got 14 days in jail because the judge thought the whole charge was stupid and certainly didn't prove any wrong doing by Trump.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/07/64553...ced-to-14-days
Ex-Trump Aide Papadopoulos, 1st Charged In Russia Probe, Sentenced To 14 Days
Same deal here, indict somebody for lying ( it works both ways unfortunately ) even if a conviction means nothing, to get to the real crooks and that is what Durham accomplished setting up for the hearings by the Republican House Judiciary Committee come Jan.
So, the Democrats will say see, Sussman, acquitted even though the trial proved he was a key player in putting together this conspiracy between the Clinton campaign, the FBI and the media. Now they can say, see, Danchenko acquitted of lying!
But what Republicans and Independents heard was an FBI agent on the stand confirming that the FBI presented un-verified evidence ( Steele dossier ) or as I like to call it, lying, in the first application for a FISA warrant on Carter Page who the FBI also lied about.
Durham apparently recognized in his many years of experience, that he couldn't, in some cases bring charges against some FBI people because the statute of limitations had run out and how difficult it would be after witnessing the IG Horowitz fiasco when he said, even with all the evidence in all those e-mails showing Strzok's bias, that Horowitz couldn't prove bias. Yeah, right.
So, how to get in the evidence of all the law breaking and un-ethical activities of the FBI without going after all the people at the FBI responsible for this debacle? Go after the low hanging fruit with "pick somebody" and charge them with lying even though getting a conviction would be essentially meaningless since he couldn't get the actual FBI lawbreakers for what ever reason.
So now we know what really happened. From day one when the Papadopolos case fizzled to nothing, the Steele dossier became "the thing that would finally get Trump" and it was all lies made up by a guy who hated Trump and to get a payday, made up a story.
Of course Durham would have liked convictions but they weren't the purpose of the investigation, they were a means to an end, that end being proof that the FBI was as corrupt as the day was long from the very being of the Trump Presidency.