Brilliant insight, Hal - your clever analysis has been so missed. But what's the Hillary angle?

Let me help you a bit with Mr. Maté.
Here's a set of headlines and sub-ledes:

Syria's My Lai? US massacred 70 civilians and covered it up

After killing dozens of Syrian civilians in a 2019 bombing, the US military exonerated itself and concealed evidence. It's the latest scandal for a shadowy US war in Syria that has evaded oversight.
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The indictment of the Steele dossier's key source newly humiliates the Clinton campaign, FBI, and US media.
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Indicted Clinton lawyer hired CrowdStrike, firm behind dubious Russian hacking claim
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Pressed for answers on Syria cover-up, OPCW chief offers new lies and excuses
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Accused Russian 'spy' Kilimnik refutes US intel claims and exposes key Mueller falsehood

In an exclusive interview, key Russiagate figure Konstantin Kilimnik responds to evidence-free allegations that he is a Russian spy who shared Trump polling data in 2016.

or this blurb on a 2019 interview re: the Secretary of State in the 90s:

Kasparian also conducted a friendly sit-down with Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State. Somehow, Kasparian's self-proclaimed disgust with those who launder the killing of children didn't impel her to even raise Albright's infamous declaration that killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children was, in her view, "worth it." In fact, Kasparian went so far as to declare that she was "delighted" and saw it as "an honor" to interview the admitted child murderer.

Note the shift when discussing the Trump years:

Underscoring the bipartisan mission, Stroul's rationale was expressed more crudely by President Trump in January 2020, when he told Fox News that he had backed off a withdrawal from Syria in order to "to take the oil. I took the oil."

Although the US claims that its "sole purpose" in Syria is fighting ISIS, the US military has in fact barely done any fighting over the last two years. In 2019, now-senior Biden official Dana Stroul admitted that the US military occupation in Syria in "not only about completing the anti-ISIS fight."

 omitting the hegemonic motives previously admitted by Stroul and Trump.

Aaron Maté mentions Trump 5 times in an article about an atrocity occurring under Trump. Three of those are to connect this event as "bipartisan" (i.e. Biden's fault) and tie it to figures under the Biden administration, 1 is to note Trump cancelled a costly controversial CIA program, and one is largely neutral - no blame, no blame when it comes to the President who managed to lord over so much else, "I took the oil", which more bolsters Trump's braggadacio than condemns it, when Maté *could* link it stronger to this:

The Caesar Act, approved by voice vote in December 2019, aggressively seeks to prevent Syria's reconstruction and has, in the unapologetic words of former Trump envoy James Jeffrey, "crushed the country’s economy."

And 1 mention of "now-senior Biden official" glosses over that the reason the US military has barely done any fighting over the last 2 years was because Trump pulled back troops against the military's wishes to let ISIS escape after a painful 1 year operation by a 5-country coalition while halting protection of the Kurdish safe zone - but Aaron manages at the same time to praise the Russians for a Syrian protection zone.

In short, Aaron Maté can reach back decades to declare a Secretary of State as a mass baby-killing war criminal, but uses kid gloves with the President who (barely) left office in January supposedly in charge during this 2019 "My Lai" who's just not important enough for vitriol - but let's make sure to mention Biden twice as many times as Trump along with a *video* of Biden from 2014. Of course Trump changed the rules when he came in, liked his smashball tough guy proclamations and running over anything that smelled of following humanitarian rules and protecting civilians - but you wouldn't know that from reading Maté - Trump seems to be largely an invisible character to appear next to (and after) lower-level functionaries [and in Maté's "work", Hillary as subordinate always has more agency than the President she served under despite Obama's command decisions on Syria or the strategic interests of the strong & independent European countries who spearheaded the Libyan effort]

So a US operation in Syria 2019? let's not mention names. But if Hillary can be connected? a quick succession of headline stories. Note how Aaron will dig into the weeds on anything related to Douma - but if it's accusing someone tentatively tied to Clinton - and Danchenko did not work for Clinton - Aaron's fine with the drive-by hit job approach, such as Durham relying solely on thinly-documented vapory "lies" to the FBI for his *only 3 indictments during 2 1/2 years of investigation!!!* As long as Sgt Schultz/Aaron Mate sees nuttink/hears nuttink, Durham gets the press he wanted.

Shifting a bit to what Aaron thinks is the "debunked" Russiagate, the Kilimnik bit would be even funnier, except it's the first Trump "Big Lie" covering up and downplaying his support from Russia in the 2016 - including Manafort's well-documented giving Kilimnik *REGULAR* polling updates during the campaign and the double role Deripaska played. And here's Trump - who pursued a hotel in Moscow for 10 years with all sorts of dodgy deals with shady Russians in Moscow, Miami, New York, and who asked Russia to hack his presidential opponent in July 2016 - proclaiming Danchenko a "Russia spy", with Durham purposely ignoring that the FBI didn't need the Steele Dossier to notice that the Trump campaign had Manafort and others with tight Russian connections acting up to no good (including dodgy Carter Page on intel's suspicions since 2014 already):

In August the committee published its counter-intelligence findings into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. The bipartisan report was dismissive of Steele’s dossier, but corroborated key elements in it, saying that a Russian intelligence officer was “permanently based” at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and spied on guests via a “network” of hidden cameras.

[ US Senate report goes beyond Mueller to lay bare Trump campaign's Russia links ]

The nearly 1,000 page report also laid out multiple contacts between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager who features in the dossier, and Konstantin Kilimnik, described as a Russian intelligence officer. Manafort gave Kilimnik internal Trump polling data, and the report described his willingness to pass sensitive material to a Moscow spy as a “grave counter-intelligence threat”.

Danchenko said the campaign against him was designed to deflect from the damaging Senate report. “I think they thought I would be an easy target to discredit the dossier. By doubling down on this they would be able to discredit the whole Russia investigation,” he said.

He said his dossier assignment was no different from other projects he’d done before. “I was not on any political fishing expedition on behalf of anyone. My mandate was broad and standard: while doing your research on A and B, also see if there is anything on Trump campaign-Russia. Report any leads or red flags back. As a seasoned Russia expert, that was exactly what I did.”

Danchenko said he cooperated fully with the FBI – but not, as has been suggested, as part of some “deep state” plot. He described its agents as “very knowledgable and professional”. “They treated me with respect,” he said.

During the interviews Danchenko appeared to downplay the reliability of his own information – a point seized upon by Republican commentators. According to inspector general Michael Horowitz, Danchenko told the bureau his work with sub-sources in Russia amounted to “hearsay” and “conversation had with friends over beers”. Statements about Trump’s sexual activities were “jest”, he said.

Danchenko declined to discuss whether he was afraid at the time of his now-leaked FBI interview and therefore keen to minimise his role and the strength of his sources. He said there were “nuances” and questions of interpretation. He stressed: “I didn’t write the summary. I’m not the inspector general.”

We've known since 2016 that the Steele Dossier had blemishes, that it was raw data, aka "intelligence" but with flaws. Once again like Barr's pre-spin on the Mueller reports, and the initial complaints about the Steele Dossier exposes these guys' mission - something as innocuous as misspelling Alpha as "Alfa" makes the whole thing crumble, flawed somehow, rather than the explicitly stated version that it might be 70% valid and which 70% had to be checked out. Aaron has spent years on examining every bomb fragment in Douma, but can't be bothered to examine the details behind Russiagate. Because, likely, he's a Russian pawn, from his own initiative or theirs, I don't really care (though he does use weasel words, such as to say "working for the Russians" would mean "140 million of them" rather than the obvious normal use of "working for the regime". That's like 5th grade clever.

To be clear Danchenko may not have gotten his tips from where people think he got them, and some of the info obviously may not be too reliable - case-by- case, or in the case of the Galkina it all seems flawed.