America's latest independent prosecutor fiasco continues to roll along.¹ Trump fans are desperately hoping that US Attorney John Durham will prove that Russiagate was a Democratic ratfuck from the start, but Durham has now failed to prove even the trivial nano-charge that he finally brought against a guy nobody's heard of. That guy is Michael Sussmann, who was accused of the most inconsequential action possible: bringing information to the FBI but failing to tell them he was working with the Hillary Clinton campaign.
I mean, who cares, right? But it was all Durham had, and it gave him a vehicle for writing indictments that mysteriously implied greater crimes in the background. In the end, though, the jury unanimously voted against even the one trivial charge Durham thought he could prove. Sussmann is a free man today.
The era of the hyperpartisan special counsel really needs to come to a close. In particular, their endless investigations need to be limited not just in time but also in scope. They should be appointed with specific goals in mind, and not allowed to wander off into unrelated territory just because somebody who was related to someone did something vaguely unlawful.
In this case, Sussmann had nothing to do with starting the FBI's Russia investigation and, it turned out, nothing to do with keeping it going. Sussmann just passed along a tip, hoping it might go somewhere, which the FBI promptly looked into it and then killed. He should never have been in court, racking up God knows how much in attorney fees, in the first place. Durham is a disgrace.
¹Sorry, "special counsel" fiasco. Gotta get the lingo right.
it would be nice to see some sort of repercussions for durham for bringing such a frivolous case and for barr for abusing his power and ordering the investigation into such BS. but i don't know if there's even a realistic mechanism for that and even if there were, i have zero hope of it actually happening.
OTOH, if Democrats had the power to appoint a hyper partisan bulldog like Ken Starr and his henchman Brett Kavanaugh, we could have hauled Trump in front of a grand jury and watched the needle on the perjury meter vaporize.
sure, but that investigation would have been justified by a vast array of evidence and we wouldn't have needed a partisan bulldog. just a bulldog.
So he's shutting down his investigations, right????
Good one.
The era of the hyperpartisan special counsel really needs to come to a close. In particular, their endless investigations need to be limited not just in time but also in scope. They should be appointed with specific goals in mind, and not allowed to wander off into unrelated territory just because somebody who was related to someone did something vaguely unlawful.
Thanks for this super useful observation, Kevin. I'm sure the party that employs special counsel all the time to search for something, anything to tar their opponents with will take your advice under deep consideration.
Durham is a regular employee of the DOJ and could have been dismissed at any time by the attorney general. Garland could fire him today. Perhaps the referees will fire him and award the Democrats bonus points for bipartisanship.
It is simply not true that Durham is a regular employee of the DOJ. But you are right that Garland could fire him.
My understanding is that Durham is no longer a presidential appointees (specifically, he’s no longer a US Attorney). He’s simply a guy who was given the title of special prosecutor by Barr but this appointment has no special significance or independence from DOJ oversight.
Garland should fire him immediately.
I saw that the jury deliberated for seven hours.
Am I wrong to think this was a really short time?
It’s an extremely quick verdict, especially if they had lunch, too.
i think kevin's suggesting these limits be enshrined in federal law regulating powers of a special counsel, not that it's just something we should hope republicans do out of the kindness of their hearts.
We should jettison the special counsel system altogether. If evidence of a crime materializes, let the government's prosecution division—the Department of Justice—investigate, and, if warranted, bring charges.
What's that you say? There's an inherent conflict of interest, given the fact that DOJ is managed by presidential appointees? True. Which is why if we had a lick of sense we'd set up the Department of Justice as an independent government office run by a commission composed of persons selected by all three branches.
The downside of that is probably worse since the DOJ reflects the broad political priorities of the administration. So the attorney general would determine priorities for civil rights enforcement or police misconduct or for clean water and air, food safety. Basically, he’d be a shadow president.
It really depends on particulars. In the system I envision, Congress would still have the power to impeach/remove, and would still control purse strings. And citizens and pundits and politicians and journalists would have the right, of course, to criticize the Department of Justice all they like. And the "Commission" overseeing DOJ would have a say in whether officials get re-appointed (I'd probably argue for, say, five year terms, with a two year extension by majority vote of the Commission, or something like that).
Anyway, none of this is going to happen, obviously. But, I think the above would be an improvement over the current status quo, which hands DOJ over to the criminal lunatic party every 4-8 years. And of course no system is going to work well when norms of decency and process are actively ignored and disdained, and half the country supports autocracy.
I've wondered recently how come the "Department of Justice" isn't part of the Judicial system...
Because in our system the prosecution represents the people (and decides who to charge), the defense lawyer represents the defendant, and the judges are supposed to be impartial. You could have a dysfunctional situation with justice even in a system like that of France where responsibility and oversight of investigations is more or less centered on the judges.
Marcy Wheeler at has been following the setup and trial with insightful posts and meaningful comments.
She, as well as commenters like bmaz, rayne help someone like me follow her very insightful investigations.
Note: IANAL by any stretch of the meaning.
Marcy Wheeler also posted direct quotes from Barr’s memoir that make it crystal clear he took the AG job because he wanted to discredit the Trump-Russia scandal which he had decided was bogus:
“ I would soon make the difficult decision to go back into government in large part because I saw the way the President’s adversaries had enmeshed the Department of Justice in this phony scandal and were using it to hobble his administration. Once in office, it occupied much of my time for the first six months of my tenure. It was at the heart of my most controversial decisions. Even after dealing with the Mueller report, I still had to launch US Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the genesis of this bogus scandal.”
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/06/02/there-was-no-crime-predicating-the-durham-investigation/
The media reported extensively on Barr’s book yet has deliberately chosen not to shine a spotlight on this shocking evidence of Barr’s blatant bias or the fact that that bias was the basis for Durham’s appointment. Clearly Barr appointed Durham in order to discredit what Barr sarcastically calls “Russiagate”, not to do an objective, professional job. That fact should have been the top story in all of the mainstream “liberal” media and should have been mentioned in all reporting on the Sussman trial. Barr’s and Durham’s intent is clearly corrupt.
What does all this mean for the Deep State? My application is pending but I haven't heard a word from it/them.
Social conservatives operate on aesthetic, not objective reality, so that this prosecution failed will only become more meaningful to most of them and blur into the background fantasy of how they're being abused and cheated.
That they're entirely wrong will never occur to them because they exclude any basis for understanding it.
Moreover, the fact that "no evidence could be found" just proves that something definitely happened: "they" just don't want you to find out!!
I expect the next Republican president will order the AG to appoint a permanent SC tasked solely with investigating Democrats. What for? Like, everything, man!
Why stop at one?
Wingnuts in and out of office are always trying to claim that they're the authority in any situation that comes up, whatever it may be, like who qualifies as a 'real' black person, so I can easily imagine them contriving some kind of rule where every Republican lawyer should be regarded as an 'acting special counsel', or deputized commissar or some such madness.
Sounds like the VIBES BASED explanation of politics among the Trust Fund Fauxgressive Left & the Lamestream Media abettors of same. (The Lamestream of course also abet the GQP conspiracymongers leading the charge to LOCK UP the likes of ( ( ( SUSSMAN ) ) ).)
American democracy will not die with a bang, but a vibe.
Social conservatives???? Are you a retard????
"The era of the hyperpartisan special counsel really needs to come to a close."
I'd really like to hear you examples of when each party has tried abusing this system, because by my recollection only one side of the aisle has repeatedly done this with never ending investigations that wander into totally unrelated areas for the mere purpose of scoring political points, regardless of every single time coming up with nothing in terms of actual findings.
Durham spent far more time & money than Mueller, without justification. Too bad that he never had to undergo the nastiness endured by Mueller & that neither Barr nor Durham can be charged with misconduct or other charges.
Wasn't there evidence presented that showed that the campaign didn't actually want him to go to the FBI?
No. Since the campaign was unaware of what was going on tillater such evidence couldn't exist. There was evidence presented that he wasn't working for the campaign on this issue and no evidence that he was.
"FBI promptly looked into it and then killed it". According to the testimony they tried to kill it, and then looked into it. Initially they claimed it was bogus data before they even looked at it. When their bosses slapped that down they tried to kill it without looking into by claiming the trump organization computer couldn't possibly be a trump organization computer.
"Special Persecutor" would be more like it. At least, when the reactionary side of the Congress initiates it.
As far as Trump Republicans are concerned, Durham confirmed their "Russian hoax" narrative in spades, and Sussmann got off because the judge and jury were creatures of the Deep State. Mission accomplished, in other words, and another grievance added to the cult's ever-growing list.
If Durham had out in a relatively simple, straightforward case, he might have won a conviction in this two-bit drama.
But his true charge was to gin up (yet more) outrage among embittered, entitled right-wing morons.
Mission accomplished.
Like who cares about Trump Republicans. They hate America. They are the deep state. You need a finger snapped.
"I mean, who cares, right?"
Are you kidding? All the screaming heads have taken this up today as a justification for overthrowing the entire legal system. It, apparently, is rigged against them just like elections.
Oh come on. They are losers who mean little. False flags they fly are just billionaires elitists behind them. When debt markets collapse, they are toast.
Checked foxnews.com.
Only reference on their home page, tucked away in an obscure area, was Barr saying he's proud of Durham's work.
He'll follow the polls.
And indict Amber Heard.