The Durham Fiasco Is a Warning of What’s to Come
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Thank goodness Speaker Kevin McCarthy has created a House subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government!
Last week, The New York Times reported on an outrageous example of such weaponization, the flagrant use of federal law enforcement powers to target an administration’s political enemies. I’m talking, of course, about the John Durham special counsel investigation, which was meant to root out the ostensibly corrupt origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and quickly came to embody the sins that Donald Trump and his allies projected onto the F.B.I.
Trump’s circle insisted, falsely, that the Mueller inquiry was a hit job that employed Russian disinformation — via the Steele dossier — to frame Trump, all part of a plot cooked up by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Durham seems to have bought into this Trumpist conspiracy theory, and to help prove it, he tried to employ what appears to be Russian disinformation to go after the Clinton camp. More specifically, he used dubious Russian intelligence memos, which analysts believed were seeded with falsehoods, to try to convince a court to give him access to the emails of a former aide to George Soros, which he believed would show Clinton-related wrongdoing.
Astonishingly, The Times found that while Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr and Durham were in Europe looking for evidence to discredit the Russia investigation, Italian officials gave them a “potentially explosive tip” linking Trump to “certain suspected financial crimes.” Rather than assign a new prosecutor to look into those suspected crimes, Barr folded the matter into Durham’s inquiry, giving Durham criminal prosecution powers for the first time.
This squalid episode is a note-perfect example of how Republican scandal-mongering operates. The right ascribes to its adversaries, whether in the Democratic Party or the putative deep state, monstrous corruption and elaborate conspiracies. Then, in the name of fighting back, it mimics the tactics it has accused its foes of using.
Look, for example, at the behavior that gave rise to Trump’s first impeachment. Trump falsely claimed that Joe Biden, as vice president, used the threat of withholding American loan guarantees to blackmail the Ukrainian government into doing his personal bidding. Hoping to get Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to substantiate his lies, Trump tried to use the threat of withholding American aid to … blackmail the Ukrainian government into doing his personal bidding. The symmetry between accusations and counter-accusations, in turn, fosters a widespread cynicism about ever finding the truth.
It’s important to keep this in mind because we’re about to see a lot more of it. Now that they control the House, Republicans have prioritized investigating their political opponents. McCarthy has stacked the Oversight Committee, central to the House’s investigative apparatus, with flame-throwing fantasists, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert. Further, as Politico reported in a “ field guide ” to the coming Republican inquiries, McCarthy has urged Republicans to treat every committee like the Oversight Committee, meaning all investigations, all the time.
There are going to be investigations into Hunter Biden, and investigations into the origins of the pandemic. There will likely be scrutiny of the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago and Biden’s handling of classified documents. And, as my colleague David Firestone on the editorial board put it over the weekend, “Republicans in the House are launching a new snipe hunt” for proof that the F.B.I. and other intelligence agencies were “weaponized” against conservatives.
These all promise to be congressional equivalents of the Durham inquiry. Certainly, most if not all congressional investigations are politically motivated, but there is nevertheless a difference between inquiries predicated on something real, and those, like the many investigations in the Benghazi attack, meant to troll for dirt and reify Fox News phantasms. House Democrats examined Trump’s interference with the C.D.C. during the acute stage of the pandemic. House Republicans plan to look into what the Republican congressman Jim Banks termed the military’s “dangerous” Covid vaccine mandates. There might be an equivalence in the form of these two undertakings, but not in their empirical basis.
It remains to be seen whether our political media is up for the task of making these distinctions. The coverage of Trump and Biden’s respective retention of classified documents offers little cause for optimism. Again and again, journalists and pundits have noted that, while the two cases are very different, there are seeming similarities, and those similarities are good for Trump. This is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since by speculating about political narratives, you help create them.
“John Durham has already won,” said the headline of a Politico article from last year, noting his success in perpetuating the right’s fevered counter-history of Russiagate. Of course he didn’t win; he would go on to lose both cases arising from his investigation as well as the honorable reputation he had before he started it. What he did manage to do, however, was spread a lot of confusion and waste a lot of time. Now the Republican House picks up where he left off.
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Yay, political trench warfare wherein the fans of slinging mud will not be agile enough to duck. Using your opponent's tactics is indicative of a serious lack of imagination. The USA, like Wilde's Remarkable Rocket, is sinking deeper into the mud and her real enemies, both internal and external, will applaud every move. Pogo had something astute to say about this ...
This article's premise bears no relation to reality. It's describing some alternate reality that exists only in the fever dreams of left wing conspiracy theorists.
Obviously it does not chime with your scenario, I would not have expected you to take it any other way ... your bucket of whitewash is so deep it's shallow.
This is literally crazy talk. Durham targeted Trump's enemies by investigating Trump! The horror! Durham followed the evidence where it took him even though it could hurt Trump. Investigating Trump is exactly what a pro Trump prosecutor with an agenda would do.
A flagrant use of federal law enforcement powers to target enemies looks like this:
@!@
Hahaha Some jackass assaults someone else and that is abuse of power?
They seem to forget. Durham had no criminal indictments against Trump or his associates. He brought two against people involved with the Steele Dossier; and one for falsifying FISA data.
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Maybe Clinesmith should have held out for a jury trial like the other two did? Might have lucked out with a Democrat appointed judge; and jury comprised entirely of DC Democrats like the other two.
A treasure trove of looney toon leftists that the judge allowed; and in some instances forced onto the jury. Outcome was predetermined from the start. But just in case.....
Nothing like stacking the deck to ensure the outcome of a trial.
Two tier justice system working at it's finest.
I'm certain the GOP won't go overboard and hang the the more moderate conservatives in swing districts out to dry. McCarthy will reign in those overzealous members like Large Marge Green. The Speaker has complete control of his members! Hahahaha. Fucking clown shoes...
It won't happen, but it would be funny if Biden pulled the rug from under these committees by proclaiming he will retire from politics after this term is done. It wouldn't stop the "investigations" but it would take all the fun out any perceived gotcha's the GOP might latch onto concerning Uncle Joe.
The facts that led to the baseless and fraudulent Mueller investigation solid and are well documented.
The leftist turds can deny and deflect all day long, but that doesn't alter the truth.
For having committed no wrongs and having nothing to hide, the progressives sure seem to be worried about upcoming investigations.
This one likes a circus and as with Benghazi that is what it will be.
There were 34 individuals and 3 companies indicted that resulted in 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial from the Mueller investigation. The Durham investigation resulted in 3 indictments with one guilty plea and no convictions in trial.
And not a single one of them are for what Mueller was to be investigating. But then again, it looks to be that you are just fine with how this all come about (i.e. lies to, well, EVERYBODY up to and including FISA Judges).
Oh, right. I forgot. Flynn, Papadopoulos and company weren't really talking to Russians during the election. The Democrat AG that assigned Mueller should... oh wait that was another of Trump's own Republican stooges. Oh well never mind.
Seriously though, the FBI lawyer got caught fudging paperwork and he was punished for it. Many people warned about potential abuses of the FISA court when Congress (under Bush) set it up, but here we are.
Apparently you did. If the DOJ hadn't lied to FISA courts none of it would have happened. But, don't let that fact stop you from your spread of misinformation.
They weren't.
Flynn talked to a Russians about not sanctioning Israel after the election and Papadopulous got drunk and talked to an Australian diplomat.
That's why Trump threw them under the bus and they both plead guilty.
When you actually have facts we'll talk. Hint - you won't get them from RT, Just The News, OAN or The Heritage Foundation.
Lets see, you've been told twice in just this thread that you're wrong and you still persist. That's some dedication to the false narrative. But lets talk:
I suppose you expect me to use your bloggers like those on CNN and MSNBC. I'll stick with the facts:
Yes you told me I was wrong in saying Flynn didn't speak to the Russians. FROM YOUR OWN LINK -
That seems to back up my point. What was your point again?
Flynn, Papadopoulos & Manafort, did, in fact, talk to Russian agents during the election. Flynn & Papadopoulos pled guilty for lying about it to the FBI - Manafort was convicted on 8 of 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account while working for Russian oligarchs. At a later trial he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering.
These are undisputable public records, or facts. I don't give two shits about anything else you might think is relevant.
You claimed it was DURING the election. Read the link again. The conversation occurred after the election and did not involve it.
. Flynn & Papadopoulos pled guilty for lying about it to the FBI -
No they didn't. Stop making things up.
of 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account while working for Russian oligarchs.
Manafort's crimes had nothing to do with the election.
Why can't you be honest about what crimes Mueller charged people with? It speaks volumes that you have to rely on half truths, misstatements and misleading summaries of what happened.