Special counsel John Durham recently issued his final report after a four-year review of the FBI’s decision to investigate the 2016 Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia, concluding that the agency’s basis for launching the inquiry was “seriously flawed.”
This from news.yahoo.com.
Durham said the FBI relied on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence” when it applied for electronic surveillance search warrants against Trump campaign aides and rushed into a politically explosive inquiry based on flimsy suspicions that Trump colluded with Moscow to boost his chances in the 2016 presidential election.
Durham said:
FBI agents dismissed information that ran counter
to the narrative of a Trump/Russia collusive relationship.
Yahoo News was quick to state the report lacked major new revelations about the Russia investigation—known as “Crossfire Hurricane”—that the FBI opened after an Australian diplomat reported that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had boasted to him that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, who was Trump’s democrat communist/globalist opponent.
NOTE: The document Yahoo News referenced in the above paragraph is from another liberal stalwart source of leftist bias misinformation—the Associated Press.
According to these two liberal sources, Durham made no new charges, wrapping up his work with a mixed and limited record: One guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee, and losses in the only two criminal cases prosecutors took to trial.
Both sources decline to mention the “losses” were in a fixed court system and each court case obtained valuable information for the Trump cause.
Now, let us ask, ‘Did Durham deliver evidence that the FBI’s investigation of Trump was partisan, or was Durham’s investigation itself a politically motivated attempt to clean up Trump’s reputation?’
The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial:
Durham makes clear that a partisan FBI became a funnel for disinformation from the Hillary Clinton campaign through a secret investigation the bureau never should have launched.
The pretext for the probe—a random conversation between unpaid Trump adviser George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat—was so flimsy that FBI agents complained it was ‘thin’ and British intelligence was incredulous.
The report shows that many factors led the FBI astray, from the “bias” of investigators like former agent Peter Strzok to the agency’s “willful” disregarding of indications that Clinton’s campaign was using it to spread lies about Trump, like the ones in the shady Steele dossier.
It will take years to ‘undo the damage’ of the Russia
collusion hoax, ‘but the Durham accounting is a start.’
C.J. Ciaramella at Reason—a monthly libertarian magazine—stated Trump may not see a cabal of deep state perpetrators being found guilty of the ‘crime of the century’ against him but the civil liberties problems inside the FBI are very real.
Ciaramella continued:
Durham’s investigation highlighted serious deficiencies with the FBI’s sloppy warrant applications before the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is supposed to provide oversight of surveillance activities by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Other reports, including a 2019 ‘bombshell’ from the Justice Department Office of Inspector General, have corroborated Durham’s finding that the FBI botched applications to a court with no outside review or oversight, and that should be alarming to us all.
The Los Angeles Times, another source of liberal repute, stated in an editorial:
Rarely has a government report taken so long—in years and pages—to tell the public so little.
The nation waited four years for Durham to uncover what Trump promised was a criminal conspiracy to derail his campaign, and the best Durham could produce was a ponderous, 316-page tome that interminably chews over information that has long been in the public record.
Anyone who has the time and patience to wade through the report will only find a few familiar, petty complaints about FBI procedure. But “Durham’s mission was always questionable.
After the FBI received a tip from an Australian diplomat that the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of the Russia-linked hacking of [democrat communist/globalist crime syndicate] emails, the bureau had no responsible choice but to investigate the matter.
Lastly, Charlie Savage in The New York Times said:
Durham’s report shined a light on a troubling investigation all right—his own. There were ‘real world flaws’ in the Russia investigation, but the Justice Department watchdog, Michael E. Horowitz, had already gone over those in detail.
Barr appointed Durham to find something more—a smoking gun proving [President] Trump’s baseless claim there was a ‘deep-state’ conspiracy to take him down.
Barr set up Durham to fail, and he did, ultimately settling for scolding the FBI when he uncovered no crimes and complaining of ‘confirmation bias’ because he couldn’t uncover political bias.
Durham’s report did reveal one problem that must be addressed.
This country needs to find a way to shield sensitive law enforcement
investigations from politics without creating prosecutors
who can run amok, never to be held to account.
Final thoughts: Did the Durham Report Deliver? For those who didn’t keep score, this is what I have: The Wall Street Journal, Reason, and the New York Times each seemed to admit the Durham Report furthered the knowledge of We the People concerning FBI wrongdoing. On the other hand, Yahoo News, the Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times merely stated the Durham Report lacked major new revelations.
However, each of the six sources neglected to report The Report in full. They all selectively presented what they thought they must or what they thought their readership and their corporate leadership would tolerate. No doubt, what went unsaid will fill volumes in the coming weeks, months, and years.
Further, none of the six propaganda sources stated the Durham Report was flawed or was anything less than truthful, which, of course, are tools they each utilize with absolute aplomb.
