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It was a rough day in DC for Special Counsel John Durham, who spent yesterday morning being ritually pantsed by Democrats for being an incompetent hack, only to come back from lunch to find himself accused of being a Deep State plant by the GOP. We almost feel sorry for his poor, weird mustache, if not for the partisan shitbird attached to it.
In 2019, Attorney General Bill Barr tapped former federal prosecutor John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI’s 2016 inquiry into the Trump campaign’s copious ties to Russia. For years it’s been an article of faith on the Right that it was somehow inappropriate to open this investigation. Sure, the campaign was managed by someone consorting with a known Russian spy. And yes, they did change the Republican party platform to benefit Russia. Okay, yes, the campaign manager, the candidate’s son, and the candidate’s son-in-law met with a Kremlin lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. And Trump publicly asked Russia to hack his opponent. Which it did. And a campaign aide got drunk and bragged that Russia would release hacked material to harm Hillary Clinton. Which it did. While seeding American social media with divisive rhetoric aimed at sapping Democratic voter turnout.
But other than that, BUPKIS!
“”I’ve been trying to get answers to the questions and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate and some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together. In a sense, I have more questions today than when I first started,” Barr told Fox’s Bill Hemmer in 2019 shortly after he was confirmed, adding, “People have to find out what the government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale.”
In January, the New York Times documented the shambolic, partisan result of Barr and Durham. While a special counsel is supposed to be independent of the Justice Department — and indeed Durham confirmed that he’s had zero interference from Attorney General Merrick Garland — Barr and Durham regularly plotted their strategy to get the Obama FBI over expensive Scotch, taking overseas junkets to pressure the Italian and UK intelligence services to confess to feeding Obama’s Justice Department lies to get Trump. But finding no Deep State plot, they first put out nasty statements undermining the finding of the DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz that the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was appropriately predicated. Then they cooked up a scheme to demonstrate purported FBI bias by comparing the FBI’s treatment of Hillary Clinton with its treatment of Trump — the insane theory being that somehow the Department was too nice to Hillary.
After four years and $6.5 million of taxpayer money, the sum total of Durham’s efforts amounts to two embarrassing jury acquittals, one false statements plea by a line attorney whose crime was anyway discovered by IG Horowitz, and a 316-page report full of innuendo about a supposed Clinton plot to frame Trump. And if you were disappointed in Robert Mueller, well, think how those conservative assholes feel.
Seeking to salvage something from the debacle, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan invited Durham to testify, that he might more fully air his fact-free theories on the Democratic National Committee’s connivance with the Deep State. But as with so much of Jordan’s output lately, he got outflanked by the committee’s Democrats, who took advantage of the hearing to kick Durham in his bits.
Here’s Rep. Adam Schiff garroting Durham over his suggestion that there was somehow no predicate to open a full investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
“There was a suggestion of a suggestion that the Russians could help with damaging information as to Mrs. Clinton,” Durham scoffed.
“By releasing it anonymously. And that’s exactly what happened isn’t it?” Schiff pressed.
“I don’t know,” Durham muttered.
“The Russians released stolen emails through cutouts, did they not?” Schiff retorted, growing increasingly incredulous as Durham purported to be unsure of facts agreed upon by the entire US intelligence apparatus and the then-Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee.
“You really don’t know the answer to that?” Schiff hammered. “The answer is yes, they did.”
Ranking Member Jerry Nadler took a turn to remind Durham that he failed to secure any convictions that someone else didn’t hand to him on a silver platter.
You lost all the cases you brought to trial, correct?” he demanded. “In fact, two juries acquitted your defendants on all charges. And the one conviction you obtained, the defendant pleaded guilty to a single count that never went to trial. Correct? I will note that in that case the primary investigative steps were all completed by Inspector General Horowitz. Perhaps you were better when it came to your report? From my reading, your report did not make any specific concrete recommendations to improve DOJ or FBI policies or procedures. In fact, your report repeatedly references the recommendations made by Inspector General Horowitz, almost all of which DOJ and the FBI have already implemented.”
JANE, YOU IGNORANT SLUT.
And Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon was taking no prisoners either, asking Durham about multiple published reports that his longtime deputy Nora Dannehy quit in disgust at the political machinations to get a report out before the 2020 election.
“That’s okay, we can just Google it,” she responded when Durham demurred that he couldn’t discuss internal staff matters.
But the unkindest cut of all came from his own team — because, let’s be clear, everyone involved in this sham of an investigation is a partisan Republican.
Durham’s remit was to investigate the origins of the Mueller Investigation, not its conduct. Nonetheless, Gaetz accuses Durham of being a Deep State plant because he didn’t chase down every idiotic conspiracy theory, including hanging a foreign witness’s lawyers up by his toenails to force him to divulge his client’s whereabouts — not that an overseas foreign national is subject to a US subpoena anyway.
But don’t you worry, guys, Durham may have ruined his reputation on Planet Earth. But he’s still in good with his Heavenly Father, so it’s all good.
“My concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect, and my family, and my Lord. And I’m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them, sir,” he huffed in response to a question from Rep. Steve Cohen about his tattered professional reputation after this clusterfuck.
And with that, the Mustache exited stage right, never to be heard or thought of again.
Please to enjoy.
[NYT / Empty Wheel]
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