LAUGHINGSTOCK:

Top Durham prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis - who led the team's case against a Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer earlier this year, which ended in a swift acquittal - was supposed to handle another trial next month, but instead is leaving the Justice Department for a job at a private law firm, according to sources. DeFilippis in recent months was at one point working on writing a report on Durham's findings, which will be submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The scheduled upcoming trial, against a Russian expat who was a primary source of information for the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, is set to begin next month in Alexandria, Virginia. But four weeks before trial, Durham's case suffered a significant blow, with prosecutors acknowledging in recent court filings that they can't convince a critical witness to return to the US to testify.

The October trial against the dossier source, Igor Danchenko, is set to be the third and likely final prosecution of Durham's sprawling investigation, which began in early 2019 and has since gone after Democratic opposition research efforts against Trump's 2016 campaign. (Danchenko pleaded not guilty.)

The federal grand jury Durham had used for his investigation has also expired, and there are no plans to revive that type of investigative work, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

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