After Robert Mueller finished his investigation of Donald Trump's ties to Russia back in 2019, Trump pressed his attorney general, William Barr, to open a counter-investigation of the FBI's investigation. Barr appointed John Durham, the US Attorney for Connecticut, to lead the revenge-a-thon.
Durham accomplished nothing. He got a guilty plea from one minor player on a minor charge. He lost his case against a second person. And today he lost yet another case. After three years and millions of dollars, he hasn't found even a shred of serious evidence that points toward FBI malfeasance in its investigation of Trump.
But that might not matter.
While this is a major loss for Durham, the reason for his appointment is the final report Barr required him to write. It will be filled with bullshit - just like his so-called “talking indictments” - and right wing media will push it like some kind of holy grail. https://t.co/th39eTLnJh
— Nancy LeTourneau (@Smartypants60) October 18, 2022
Yep. Durham's final report, for which he's accountable to no one, will almost certainly be stuffed to the gills with innuendo and unproven conjectures. Truth will not be the point of the report. Neither will it be an effort to set out a record for history. The point will be to provide Fox News with lots of vaguely worded outrage in order to feed the right-wing conspiracy machine. He's done it before, after all.
At least it will be a change to hear Trump ranting about the election he won, instead of the one he lost.
Durham's performance has been quite the contrast to his investigation into the CIA's use of torture. Not only did he not find any reason to prosecute anyone in that exercise, he fought to prevent the release of any of his investigation's findings to the public.
Can’t he be disbarred? Seems to me he brought obviuos garbage before the court. I’m not lawyer and have not slept in a Holiday Inn lately.
They were shitty cases, no doubt. But I don't think you could call them frivolous, which would be the standard for sanction.
And it takes a lot more than this to be disbarred. If you're not stealing from your clients or engaging in extremely high-profile crime, you have to work at it.
What does it take to get Sidney Powell disbarred?
Yes, but Durham was always really the "caravan" of the Mueller investigation -- a ruse worked up to get the the GOP through the elections (in this case 2020, in the case of the "caravan", 2018) and then completely dropped.
Back in summer 2020, the right wing was saying Durham would show Brennan and Comey framed Trump. Then it became clear even Durham wouldn't attach his name to such claims and he only went after small fry on some minor matters, indirectly exonerating Brennan and Comey.
What a farce. The guy has completely ruined his reputation for life, but I guess he'll wind up executive director of Judicial Watch or something similar for $1 million a year.
So...what are the odds his report will drop in a couple weeks?
Garland would surely withhold publication until after the election, assuming he intends to publish it at all.
He could not prove anything. 0 - 6: one dismissal and 5 acquittals.
Will he further tarnish his record as a prosecutor by issuing a flawed report that includes allegations that were rejected by multiple juries?
Seems risky to constantly punch yourself in the face, but hey, if that's what Durham gets off on, let him KO himself.
There was one guilty plea in there for some minor thing and the guy got probation, iirc.
After the fact, he may be disappointed in his counsel's advice.
“Up in flames”
Wouldn’t the expression here be either down in flames or up in smoke?
Down here, it would be "burnt slap up."
"one minor player on a minor charge. "
Which Durham didn't even discover. It was turned up by the DOJ inspector general. On just his own investigations, he has discovered bugger all.
I wonder why Trump is so eager to extricate himself from charges of collusion with Russia while he is ignoring the much more serious charges of extorting Ukraine, the five-step plan to steal the election that culminated in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, and stealing classified documents and obstructing their retrieval. A strangely obsessed man heading an even more obsessed party.
Trump always bristled at the notion that Russia had helped him in the election because he thought it detracted from his own innate greatness. Of course at the same time he also clearly had a fanboi crush on Vladimir Putin and the authoritarian grip he has on Russia. So it was complicated.
Methinks 'Trump' and 'complicated' do not belong in the same sentence.
Going on stupid issues distract from the serious ones. Trump use this technique repeatedly.
So Durham has given up his role as a prosecutor in favor of fiction writing?
The case against Dashenko was so inconsequential and flimsy I can't believe Durham had the chutzpah to waste FBI and DOJ resources pursuing it. Has any federal prosecutor ever been spanked by two consecutive juries this hard before? I can't think of an example. Of course the point wasn't to reveal the truth or seek justice, but to keep the "Trump Russia was a hoax!!1!" a viable chyron crawl on Fox News every day.
Can't Garland fire him? Either he's an incompetent prosecutor or the underlying rationale for his appointment is bogus. Either way he's wasting taxpayer money.
I suppose he could. In a Trump DOJ someone doing this for the other side would sacked so fast it would make their head spin. But that's not how Garland's DOJ operates and of course cannng Durham now "before he's issued his report" would absolutely make wingnut heads explode and Garland's not going to whack that hornet's next this close to the midterm. Stupid, I know, but it's a small price to pay for having a government run by non-corrupt grownups.
Wingnuts are going to have to investigate this, obviously something is going on here!
DC juries stacked with Kamala Harris clones is their general explanation for why Durham keeps stepping on his own dick like this.
Tiny, tiny thing, yet looms so huge in the mind the stepping on it is what they know will happen so invariably it does, like a projection placebo of anxiety, Durham had to do this he could not stop himself.
Apparently, the judge in this case was real close to throwing out all the charges due to their weakness. Garland could withhold the report for as long as he likes, publish a summary without the MAGA bullshit, and then months later, release a redacted version of it excluding the MAGA bullshit.
The Maga controlled congress will call him to testify next year notwithstanding how he handles this issue. Of course they will need to find time among their other priorities, like investigating Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, Hillary's emails and/or Benghazi, and 2 or 3 Biden impeachments (managed by Marjory "Jewish space laser" Greene). Passing a few trillion $'s in unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations to tame inflation will also be on their agenda.
Durham isn't failing to convict the FBI. Durham is failing to convict FBI informants. But then, Durham wasn't attacking the informants; he was attacking the FBI.
In the words of the defense: "The government is not here to defend the FBI's performance in these matters." The FBI was NOT on trial; only the informants were.
Yet Durham concentrated on the FBI instead. So of course he lost the case. But his goal likely wasn't to win it. His goal was to get his story against the FBI into public record.
And conservatives gobbled up that story - hook, line, and sinker.
Yellowcake and aluminium tubes.