Before Rand Paul Went to Moscow, He Was in a White House Meeting Discussing... Eight Things Not Mentioned in the Durham Report 
Before Rand Paul Went to Moscow, He Was in a White House Meeting Discussing... Eight Things Not Mentioned in the Durham Report
This is bullshit. There has always been bullshit. There have always been purveyors of bullshit. What is so disheartening now is that there is no one left in the broad-reaching powered news media that is willing to call it bullshit, instead, it will trotted out as more he said/she said bothsiderism stenography.
I just saw the MSNBC report on this, with Ken Dilanian (I know, nobody’s favorite over here) doing the explaining.
Seemed to me he wasn’t spinning anything per se, but just explaining that Durham reached a wildly different conclusion than the DOJ IG report in the same matter.
The fact that the release of the report makes any news at all is the real news…
NPR has a particularly bad article, reads like a press release Durham could have written.
The sources they used are
– Durham’s report
– The FBI
– Jim Jordan
– Trump
Truly great journalism https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176219884/trump-russia-investigation-durham
Agree, watched ABC evening news, the segment on Durham’s report was disgusting. What is wrong with these people?
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Is this covered under penalty of perjury, or under the statute prohibiting lying to federal investigators? Because if it is, then Durham might have bought himself jail time by using already debunked information as factual. I’ll see what leaps out to me.
Let’s also remember that juries and courts have found Durham’s investigations to be equally specious. That limits the opportunity to pretend it’s a question of ‘interpretation’.
Lol, no.
It seems this was the only possibility for some accountability for Durham, which is why I and EW had mentioned repeating of already debunked information shot down after legal scrutiny. However that’s not the most appalling part of the discussion.
On the afternoon drive the CBS news feed made no mention of the fact that much of the 300+ page report was debunked, instead trying to goose it with some credibility without being transparent about who was saying what. No pushback either about the number of convictions (versus Mueller or Gardner) or that it contradicted the IG’s report. This total failure by the MSM to present news instead of clickbait/soundbite content will bite us in the arse in 2024.
Garland and DOJ are not going after their own Special Counsel. Never. Durham is done, and that is that. Neither will any successor iteration of DOJ. Be glad it is over and he humiliated himself; that’s all you will get.
No special executive summary by the USAG ala Bill Barr’s take on Mueller’s report? Ah, well. Garland just doesn’t do the job like Barr. Lawyers know that Durham repeatedly beclowned himself, but the general public will just see arguments on both sides. Then again, the issues around the investigations by Mueller and Durham (well, whatever it was Durham was doing) won’t be changing anyone’s vote in 2024. The worrying aspect is the continuing loose attitude to the truth in MSM.
Given the Yoo is still at Berkeley, yep, probably Durham is okay.
It’s the Tina Louise/Bob Denver erasure that’s really bugging me.
From footnote 1536 on page 269:
They figured out or (more likely) someone explained the Gilligan’s Island reference. And they didn’t realize where the first names came from. I can’t even…
**apparent references to the actors who played “Mary Ann” and the “Skipper**
These people are so extra… Ginger and Gilligan.
Thanks for posting that blurb. My wife wants to know why I’m laughing.
Conflation. Tina Louise (Ginger) + Dawn Wells (Mary Ann) = Tina Wells
Bob Denver (Gilligan) + Alan Hale Jr (Skipper) = Bob Hale
This is Boomer-style pub trivia.
We can give thanks they didn’t conflate the Harlem Globetrotters episode or we’d have Geese (Ausbie) + (Curley) Neal = Geese Neal
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I shudder at the thought of the House hearing where Durham will be treated like a latter day Sherlock Holmes.
Well, the Democrats get to examine the witness as well. “Mr. Durham, do you know what percentage of cases the government wins at trial?” “Mr. Durham, did the Mueller report ever use the word ‘collusion’?” Etc.
The House GOP investigation committees seem to be having problems processing the floodgates they’ve already opened, which is behind Comer’s attempts to spin his “missing whistleblower” problem.
I’m not sure they have the stomach to extend the Durham fable, and if they do, if they have the bandwidth to stage manage it.
The current House doesn’t have the bandwidth nor the intellect within the “leadership” to do much of all constructive. But they do have the meatballs and the walls upon which to fling them. Maybe something will stick?
I know this expression as “throwing spaghetti against the wall, to see if it sticks” (I’m no cook, but I think that’s what a lot of people want out of spaghetti), so I appreciate you rephrasing as “throwing meatballs against the wall” – would they EVER stick?
But I just appreciate that emptywheel stopped using the same picture of Durham for each story on his travesty – I look enough like him (goatee, glasses, etc.) to shock me awake every morning when I saw it.
Shallowness reigns, until it don’t.
Does Twitter not show threads anymore? It showed me some inane response instead of continuing Marcy’s posts.
Works fine for me, though some you have to click the expand the thread button.
Sometimes, to see more of a thread, I need to click the date-link on one of the threaded tweets.
The threading of yesterday’s tweets seemed a little wonky to me as well. If you start with the beginning of today’s continuation, you can scroll both up to the beginning and continue down to the current end. Here it is:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1658377866004901889
3:44 AM · May 16, 2023
Well, I’m no longer certain about that…
the THREADING at TWITTER is really off!
I wonder if that’s just for MARCY’s probing TAKE-DOWN of Johhny D’s “Report”.
Thank you! Glad I didn’t miss this little gem
“It’s like Durham has gone insane and people just keep smiling at him as he raves on a park bench”
I was hoping someone would do a Thread Reader App Unroll,
and here it is [and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, it’s from NPR’s PETER SAGAL!]:
https://twitter.com/petersagal/status/1658803349926342659
7:55 AM · May 17, 2023
Here’s the LINK:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1658213613390143523.html
Does this capture the whole THREAD?
Sorry, I hadn’t seen that you’d already posted this link before I did the same. But you’re, right, that unroll doesn’t include her entire thread. Here’s another long part of the thread, which goes to the end: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1658436690829033474.html
But I’m not sure if there’s a bit missing in the middle.
I had problems as well, but here’s the Threadreader version:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1658213613390143523.html
Marcy better pace herself reading through this report, or she will blow a gasket.
The money quote from Charlie Pierce:
(https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a43896699/fbi-russia-investigation-william-barr/ sorry, I know it is paywalled)
“So he goes off in pursuit of snipes at the behest of a crooked president* and a lickspittle AG and the result is a 300-page doorstop in which he claims FBI mal- and nonfeasance with very little evidence, almost none of which stands up strongly enough in court for him to get convictions, and for which he provides no recommendations or remedies. One suspects that the Durham investigation was not conducted in good faith.”
Well, Durham does take time to attack juries…
Gratefully Dead 🤣Durham diatribes…
https://youtu.be/HSFWZ4uqkfs
Durham bull report
No other response but, Ha Ha, Ha,,,,,
ha
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Will you have some disinformation with your nothingburger?
Biggest scandal since Benghazi, HRC’s server or maybe Hunter Biden’s laptop!
This seems like something the DOJ IG should dig into.
Edit: I meant to add this to the root, not reply to this specific comment.
Lol, the same office that wrote the very flawed report Durham relied on and parroted? That DOJ IG? His name is Michael Horowitz.
It is astounding how many of you believe that the federal government who put Durham in place is going to magically “investigate” him and do something positive. Give it up, it is not happening. And, again, anyone who thinks OPR will correct anything simply does not understand OPR. It is laughable.
Oh I know Horowitz is a scumbag and I’m not hoping for an investigation into Durham, or revenge charges or anything, but just to get the wheels turning on a slow methodical “fact check” of Durham’s report.
As Einstein said, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has limits.
As Frank Zappa said: “Stupidity is more abundant than Hydrogen.”
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Alas that we have not yet mastered the technology to convert it to useful energy.
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‘The stupidity engine’ Good title for a new post apocalyptic sci-fi novel.
I fear the supply is unlimited and can even grow through replication and contagion. Once it is hooked up to fubar jack’s ‘stupidity engine’, the universe will explode.
Clearly what we need to do is combine ‘Confuse-a-cat’ with those optical implants which read the impulses in brain cells resulting from the poor moggies’ puzzlement and then we would have an almost unlimited supply of energy.
Hey, where’d my cat just go?
Thanks for this post and the Twitter thread.
Mods, this is my first time posting from phone, I hope I used same name.
Many people live in the alternative reality where Durham had something to investigate. It is awful that a Federal prosecutor chose to continue to live there after getting his ass handed to him by the courts.
Yep, you are good!
4 years and 6.5 million bucks from the taxpayers and the best he can come up with is a personal opinion?
Obviously all the incriminating stuff was suppressed by the Deep State.
You mean “the best he can come up with is Trump’s personal opinion”. He can’t even come up with anything original.
Somewhere, there is a high school English teacher who is reading this, shaking their head, and saying “I knew he slept through our unit on persuasive writing.”
I’d forgotten about the two on Durham team who quit. If they are no longer with the DOJ they might talk out of school now. Not too likely now that I think about it, unless they are retired, or want to be.
Now that his master work is done will Durham be de-latched from the public teat and set adrift on the sea of compromised obscurity?
Yes, he is done. Apparently going back to private life.
Empty Wheel, I am sorry. I went to read your account of the Durham report, and by the second sentence I had to object to what you have to say. In that sentence, you say that Durham found “literally, bupkis.” I believe it would be correct to say that he found “figuratively, bupkis.” “Literally, bupkis” is actually more than he found, which is absolutely nothing.
Oh goody, the grammar scolds are back. Come on man, “that” is your big “objection?
FAR worse is the transliteration! Literal is “bobkes,” although “bubkes” and “bupkes” are common, but the use of “i” in the second syllable is … well, I just can’t even.
Aw jeez, let’s not do this. The post is fine.
JOking, hahaha, making light, riffing off the “grammar scolds.” No worries, not actually criticizing. Transliterations abound, everybody knows what it means, no worries.
Lol, you are fine.
“Borrowed from Yiddish באָבקעס (bobkes), plural of באָבקע (bobke, “goat or sheep dropping”), from באָב (bob, “bean”) + ־קע (-ke) calquing Polish bobek (“oval-shaped turd”), ultimately from Proto-Slavic *bobъ (“bean, fava bean”).”
I would tend to agree with Marcy that Durham found, LITERALLY, “an oval-shaped turd.”
And he continues to find one every time he looks in the mirror.
Something very goaty about that goatee.
Now you’ve got me curious. Does Polish have, say, 77 words to describe differently-shaped turds, like Esquimo has 77 words for snow.
Haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing but the “blame the DC jury” trope shone out very clearly in the first few pages. What a dork.
And the people who are mad because he didn’t charge anyone with “collusion”. Which isn’t even a legal thing, as bmaz and others have explained.
I hope someone here can shed some light for me:
Is there some plausible way that a purported Clinton plan to accuse Trump of links to Russia would be the appropriate subject of DOJ scrutiny? Seems to me even dirty underhanded dishonest political rhetoric is simply not a matter for federal criminal law enforcement. Am I missing something big, or even a nuance here?
Sure. Fraud, federal election crime and, potentially, civilly, defamation. The problem is there was no predication as to Clinton as there clearly was as to Trump.
Ok, I read the section in question beginning at p. 81, including the prosecution decision discussion at pp. 97-98. This has nothing to do with federal election law or (obviously) defamation, and the Clinton campaign is not even the target of this assessment. Durham was interested in the possibility that DOJ personnel may have, for example, failed to inform FISC of the purported Russian assessment of the purported Clinton plan in order to conceal it from FISC, in the service of violating the civil rights of a surveillance target.
This is even more insane than I had suspected. Durham was evidently obsessed with the notion that what looks like obvious and low-quality Russian disinformation should have been more heavily relied upon in assessing mountains of other dubious stuff. Very far down the rabbit hole. I already had contempt for Durham but this makes me actually concerned for his psychological health.
Good thing he’ll be getting the opportunity for some much-needed R&R soon!
Yeah, thanks, I can read just fine on my own. And I do not give a shit what the “report” says. The question was if there were facts (there were not), what crimes were potentially in play. And “you” are going to cite Durham to me???? You have been here occasionally since 2019. I have been here writing about Durham from over a decade previous to that. I understand who and what he is. Again, thanks.
PS: If you want an example from back in our torture coverage, here is one. Don’t neglect to also read the earlier linked letter!
Special Prosecutor Durham’s frequent but highly irregular scotch-laced tête-à-têtes in private quarters with then Attorney General Bill Barr who appointed him after Trump appointed Durham should be a thing.
And what happened after the Durham Barr field trip produced evidence of a suspected Trump crime referred by Italian officials which Barr said he handed over to Durham who neglected to even bring it up in his final report?
It isn’t enough for intellectuals to talk amongst themselves.
We need the free press to dig, turn over and expose the corruption.
Not coddle it and pretend it falls into a neat story.
All a lot of people hear is the narrative.
They should have more of the facts repeated to them on a regular basis.
Sorry to go on but the milquetoast is sour.
So you want to go after attorneys that have cocktails together? Does that just apply to only federal prosecutors, or does it apply to a couple of defense attorneys too? Can a defense attorney get a drink, scotch or otherwise, with a prosecutor? How about…GASP…with a judge?
Do you have any idea how ludicrous you sound?
I don’t think it’s okay for Jack Smith to get together with Merrick Garland in private rooms over drinks on a regular basis either.
I did not think that was proper during a special investigation.
Lol, how pious of you. People eat. People drink. People talk. Doing that is not analogous to Thomas on super yachts in the Caribbean. Lighten up. If you think a SC should never talk to an AG, you are literally nuts.
I appreciate the frustration, but you’re aiming at the wrong target. It’s not that Smith and Garland might occasionally have drinks together. There’s no evidence they do, but Smith works for him and it would not be a problem, any more than would be the informal networking and socializing that makes DC and most bureaucracies effective. (That it does was highlighted by VP Cheney’s unceasing assaults on it, because he only wanted his network to be successful.)
The problems lie in their motives and what they do about them. Barr and Durham sloshing the booze was a boondoggle, enabling them to keep doing their awful deeds. Smith and Garland doing it would be something else entirely.
We’d have to ban Mortimer’s Rumpole books, for starters.
Marcy has fun with crafting titles for her posts. For instance, here’s one, from last September: John Durham Wants to Lecture EDVA Jurors about Being Played by Foreign Spies
Judging by Durham’s comments about juries on p. 5 of this report (and subsequent references to juries later in the document), it seems clear that he *still* wants to lecture jurors.
What I’m seeing so far from the Durham report is that it’s similar to the bullshit allegations that Representative Comer is spewing about the “Biden Crime Family.”
There is simply no there there. Total waste of taxpayer funds.
Durham was/is an owned puppy. None of his screed is surprising, though he manages to insult himself with his credulous innuendoes. May he crawl back into his hole forevermore.
Here’s a “headline overview” (in alphabetic order by name of media outfit) of how various outlets have summarized this situation:
———————————————————————————————
Al Jazeera: Probe of FBI’s handling of Trump-Russia investigation ends
AP: Report on FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation: Some problems but not the ‘crime of the century’
Axios: Special counsel Durham blasts FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation
Bloomberg: Trump-Era Special Counsel Blasts FBI Conduct in Russia Probe
CNN: Takeaways from special counsel John Durham’s report on FBI’s Trump-Russia probe
CBS News: Special Counsel John Durham releases report on FBI’s Russia investigation
Daily Beast: Jake Tapper Claims Durham Report ‘Devastating’ Despite Own Reporter’s Analysis
DW (from Germany): U.S. special counsel criticizes FBI’s Trump-Russia probe
Fox News: Durham finds DOJ, FBI ‘failed to uphold’ mission of ‘strict fidelity to the law’ in Trump-Russia probe
Guardian: FBI accused of failures but key report finds no deep-state plot against Trump
(The) Hill: Prosecutor ends probe of FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation with harsh criticism, but no new charges
Independent: Probe into Trump-Russia investigation slams FBI but fails to recommend new charges
L.A. Times: Prosecutor ends probe of FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation
National Review: FBI Ignored Possibility Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinformation, Durham Confirms
New Republic: Trump-Era Special Counsel Ends Probe of Russia Investigation in Total Bust
Newsweek: Durham’s Trump-Russia Report Is Another Black Eye for the FBI
NPR: Trump-era special counsel’s final report criticizes FBI’s Trump-Russia probe
NY Post: Durham proves that Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election
NY Times: Durham report finds fault with FBI over Trump-Russia investigation
PBS: Durham report criticizes FBI for actions in Russia investigation
Politico: Takeaways from the Durham report on the Trump-Russia probe
Sky News: FBI lacked ‘actual evidence’ to begin probing potential links between Trump and Russia, report finds
USA Today: Durham Report: FBI probe flawed but already overhauled policies
Wall St. Journal: FBI Faulted for its Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign
Washington Post: Durham report released: Trump-Russia FBI probe sharply criticized
Yahoo: Prosecutor ends probe of FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation with harsh criticism, but no new charges
Great reading. Thanks for this compilation.
Yes! Thank you. You provide a fascinating, dispiriting way to assess in real time how Durham’s report is being processed for national consumption. Because few will read it, or even the articles headlined here, these headlines themselves will shape opinion for many.
Obviously the headline writers couldn’t possibly have read it; they were relying on the content of the articles. But editors can still curb such excesses as “Durham Proves…” or “Durham blasts” or really any of the slam-bam active verbs used here, none of which accurately reflects the report’s content. All of which, however, serve the purpose of those who’ve cheered this misfit operation on since Barr knighted Durham.
Also…curious how 3 of Murdoch’s media holdings headlines
differ while ostensibly reporting on the same topic:
Active voice:
1) Fox: Durham “finds” DOJ/FBI failed to uphold mission
Passive voice:
2) WSJ: FBI faulted for its probe
Batshit voice:
3) NY Post: Durham “proves” Hillary (!) tried to rig 2016 election
Yes, makes you wonder how much Dominion influenced the rest of the operation.
How about the headline, “Said and Done, Durham’s Report Produces Nothing.”
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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/john-durham-fails-bigtime-but-confirms-donald-trump-lied-about-russiagate/
Great list– here is another one
I shudder at the thought of the House hearing where Durham will be treated like a latter day Sherlock Holmes. I found this comment darkly hilarious.
I hope Jamie Raskin comes with his incisive rebuttal and ‘cross’.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1658216281659645952
5:02 PM · May 15, 2023
DURHAM’s audience does NOT care if his claims are debunked. It’s what they WANT.
TRUMP and DURHAM will use this “Report” just like TRUMP used the CNN Interview.
As Dahlia Lithwick said about the interview and reactions to it:
And, as Paul Waldman observed about the interview and reactions to it:
TRUMP’s “enemy” is not only “fake news”, and everyone else who oppose him.
TRUMP’s “enemy” is TRUTH itself.
The links are at the CNN interview post, here, and the next comment:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/05/12/medias-past-indifference-to-trumps-past-abuse-of-pardons-invites-him-to-do-it-again/#comment-992528
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Ari Melber (The Beat, MSNBC) did a good job playing clips from Fox propaganda channel before and after. I enjoyed seeing him rub their noses in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XigIMkJzhC0
Likewise, Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) played some Fox clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehk9JYdhfqM
As did Nicolle Wallace, former White House Communications Director for George W. Bush, during her 4 o’clock hour (Deadline: White House, MSNBC)
Yes. it is fun to watch Fox personalities’ hypocrisy mocked, but it is little remedy for the top cable talk channel’s continuing threat to our democracy and our security. Fox channel has capitalized on this politically for years, employing innuendo and outright lies on its gullible or complicit audience. “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.” ~Jonathan Swift
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Three things should happen.
First: The DOJ Inspector General should examine EVERYTHING durham did during his 4 plus years and report on it and the $6.5 million dollars of taxpayer money spent;
Second: The DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility should investigate the contacts between Durham and Bulbous Barr during his time as Special Counsel regarding what was discussed between the two when Durham was supposedly “independent”; and,
Third: The results of these investigations should be reported to the Bar Associations of Durham and Bulbous Barr to examine whether they should retain their status as lawyers licensed to practice law.
No, none of that should or will happen. Let this chapter die out. Lol, you want the OPR, the proverbial roach motel of professional accountability, to investigate and act? Good luck with that.
Please don’t be so negative.
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Naw, making this a forever thing is dumb and not going to happen.
Please avoid policing contributors and moderators. If you have a well-researched counterargument, share it; but if you simply don’t like their tone, move on.
Especially ones that have known, dealt with and written about OPR forever.
I hesitate to comment here anymore, due to the gratuitous personal attacks, but here are a couple of random initial observations about Durham’s final “report”:
* Durham spends a lot of time trying to debunk the “golden showers” allegation from the Steele dossier. Considering how irrelevant this allegation is to the premise of FBI interference in the 2016 election, it seems there is some sort of personal reason (or a personal reason of someone else) for all the ink that is spilled on this.
* Durhams also spends an inordinate amount of space and energy in discrediting Igor Danchenko. Again, it seems that Durham is very passionate about giving the reader every nuance of his life, to try to prop up some sketchy narrative, perhaps?
Anyway, those are my initial thoughts, with the caveat I still have more to read in the report. I do so look forward to Marcy’s expert analysis and deconstruction of Durham’s report! Thanks to everyone.
Oh noes, have you been gratuitously personally attacked? Apologies for offending you while trying to keep a grip on a serious enterprise that deals in very serious subjects (mostly), with giant security issues, and does it for free and without ads. Sorry your sensibilities have been offended.
Commenting is not a contact sport, but, as someone said after visiting the Kennedys in the early 1960s, it would be a mistake to assume that touch football is always a harmless bit of fun.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1658231318931468289
6:02 PM · May 15, 2023
The whole world is SO UNfair!
The second part of that section:
DURHAM seems to be actually alleging here, that the government [deep state]
sees itself as the “opponent” [> ENEMY] of TRUMP and the GOP.
This “report” seems to be
DURHAM teeing up TRUMP’s ENEMIES for targeting by TRUMP’s CULT.
No.
This is Durham trying to salvage some smidgen of self-respect. He’s lost what little of a good reputation that he had with the general legal community long ago, and the only folks who can possibly praise him with enough fervor to provide him with a sliver of a reason to get out of bed in the morning are the MAGA crowd. His dream is to have a Sally Field at the Oscars moment: “You like me! You really like me!”
And he isn’t going to get it.
The legal community has been appalled with his work as a Special Counsel, going back to his willingness to look the other way with respect to the destruction of tapes and other evidence of CIA abuses and torture. The quality of his work in this Special Counsel assignment (especially this final report) only reinforces their sense that Durham is a hack at best or a partisan weasel at worst. To be scrupulously fair, there are also some who believe he is a hack of a partisan weasel.
Meanwhile, the folks who look to the Lord of Mar-a-Lago as the One True Leader and Savior of Mankind(tm) are furious that Durham didn’t push more cases to trial, didn’t issue an interim report in late October 2022 or late October 2020, and didn’t have Hillary Clinton clapped in irons and made to walk the plank. Now, in closing up shop, all Durham has for these folks is “We’d have pulled off this whole Special Counsel thing if it wasn’t for those meddling jurors!” excuse. That’s not going to help him in the least.
Exactly.
Yes. His job was to find evidence of what Trump called “the crime of the century.” When there wasn’t any, the job became whipping up what wasn’t there into “evidence” of much smaller putative crimes that could be sold as propaganda. When he failed at that, losing the Sussmann and Danchenko prosecutions in court, it became spinning a narrative–never his strong suit, obviously, especially without Bill Barr to twist reality into its opposite.
Now the question will be how RWM sells this to an audience they have primed for years to expect the Second Coming.
So I’m a newbie to this blog in the sense that I discovered it as part of the original Mueller investigation, so I haven’t followed everyone here for long enough to go back to reporting you all did in the 2000s. With that caveat, and knowing that you’ve reported on Durham for a long time, I have a question: do you all think that Durham is intentionally making these errors, assumptions, and omissions? From reading your reporting, it seems like a pattern, one that causes him to lose cases in court (cases that perhaps he shouldn’t have opened). Or is it more like he really believes these things, and doesn’t see them as errors, and thinks he keeps losing because of a biased system? One example I’ve seen on Dr Wheeler’s Twitter thread is an allegation that he repeated despite a judge ruling against him. That seems to imply he’s intentionally misleading people in his report, but I could also see him just thinking the judge was wrong and he’s right and no one can overrule him in the report.
Durham has been a political whitewash actor for a long time. The general conviction rate at DOJ is +/- 95%. It is easy to build a record of “success” like that. But Durham has always mapped his own ideology on to the big assignments, has remained so, and it shows.
Durham is an idiot. He makes “errors” but his biggest crime is ommission. Completely ignoring Kilimnik and the Meeting in trump tower is a pretty big tip off that he’s full of shit.
Not only did The Mueller Report reveal that Manafort passed detailed polling data to Kilimnik shortly before the 2016 Presidential election, but Konstantin Kilimnik has also been identified as a Russian intelligence agent, and the FBI has a $250,000 reward out for his arrest in another matter.
He believes himself to be a crusader (in the Catholic sense) for all that is Good and Right against all that is Dark and Evil. Barr tapping him was the honor of his life. Both are righteous religious warriors against the forces that they perceive to be threatening the reign of God’s Law & Order. Mere losses in court can be explained away with the certitude that these were glitches in a grand design.
Long before Trump came into office, Durham was the special counsel charged with investigating the destruction of tapes and other evidence of torture at CIA black sites during the War on Terror. The result of that was that he gave the interrogators a pass.
This is who he is.
Thanks everyone for these replies, I think it helps me to have this historical context. FWIW, John Yoo seems to be buying the Durham report hook, line and sinker, so I guess that’s not surprising given all this background.
Exactly.
Right-wingnut Welfare
One thing about John Durham:
Bill Barr was there to assure him
never to let the truth deter him,
We all know it will never cure them.
The Mueller Report lays out a multitude of instances of collusion between the trump 2016 campaign and Russia. Mueller even stated as much in his testimony in Congress. The most glaring act of collusion was the trump tower meeting with Jr and all the players. Yet this simple fact, that collusion occurred, seems to be missing from every discussion in the main stream media, not to mention in congressional hearings themselves. It is infuriating. It is like insisting water is not wet to a man standing in the rain. Why is this simple truth so unattainable for so many?
You know that “collusion” does not exist as a crime, right? The word is conspiracy.
Sir. I am not an idiot. Trump and the right are playing word games. They are playing at semiotics. If they used the word “conspiracy “ it would be harder to sell. So they say there was no collusion. Intellectuals are hung up on the idea that collusion is not a crime. Collusion is the coin of the realm. Making the distinction is like cutting your own balls off in an effort to get pregnant with your wife. Yes! There was collusion. Make them say it.
No, think you are proving yourself to be an idiot.
What a load of complete shit. Actual criminal lawyers, including me, are the main ones that hang up on this. Listen, being correct in discussing crimes, and the charging of them, is important.
YOU are the one playing into the Foxification of criminal law, not me. Don’t pull that bunk here. The term is conspiracy, not the bogus term “collusion”. And, yes, I’ll fight you over this, same as I do when similar idiots whip out the “treason” word.
Your analogies need a fair bit of work. Trump and his cohort are certainly trying to undo the meaning of facts and truth, and the purpose of public discourse. Being able to do that and get away with it demonstrates considerable power.
As you imply, Trump world uses collusion as a colloquial reference to real crimes. As bmaz keeps repeating, it’s not one of them. Similarly, the left misuses treason when describing most of Trump’s crimes, when they aren’t legally treason.
Misusing collusion is convenient for their cause. It enables them, for example, to deny committing a crime that doesn’t exist – it’s also a perjury dodge – and to falsely claim that no evidence of collusion equals no evidence of their criminal conduct.
You do the public no favors by adopting this supposed coin of the realm and dismissing those who reject it.
Thank for not being condescending. I am not now nor ever have said collusion is a crime. I understand. I am not misusing collusion. I am saying that omitting collusion is not using what needs to be used. It is giving up without a fight. The trumpers are saying there was no collusion. That is easy to prove false. Why not do so? Because collusion is not a crime? Who cares? We need to win in the court of public opinion, not a court of law. The intellectual left is arguing exactly what the right wants them to argue. Conspiracy takes forever to prove, if ever. Collusion just requires a little reminding. Yes. Collusion is not conspiracy. But collusion is a winning hand
Collusion is a winning propaganda hand against you only if you’re the card player who looks at the rest of the table and can’t tell who the mark is.
I have pocket kings. I call. In the flop, a third king shows up, but it’s the same suit as one I am holding. Now I know I am the mark. On the river, the winning hand draws a flush. But I point out there are two kings of the same suit on the table. Am I still the mark?
What stands out to me is Durham’s emphasis on Russian intel that suggests Hillary was concocting a collusion narrative to distract from her email server investigation. Durham implies that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation might have been impacted if this unconfirmed Russian intel was more widely shared. The problem is that Crossfire was opened at the end of July 2016 and Comey had already exonerated Clinton at the beginning of July. Durham was well aware of the timeline when he began his investigation at Trump and Barr’s request.
Comey did not exactly exonerate Clinton. He announced that there wasn’t evidence of a crime, so no crime would be charged. But he went out of his (and DOJ’s) way to characterize her actions as “reckless.”
EW,
Thank you for your breakdown of this propaganda passing as a report. Your feed has been incredibly informative. I think you’ll have a book’s-worth once you finish. It appears your next book is writing itself due to the report being so poorly composed. Again, thank you for your keen read.
Remember Nora Dennehy, Connecticut prosecutor resigned in Sept 2020 in protest of the investigation.
She read the tea leaves.
While Dannehy hasn’t made any public comment, informed rumor is that she stepped aside because of how politicized she saw Durham’s quest becoming.
Techno Frog has an hilarious account of Durham’s report that is pure hackery. I honestly don’t understand how these guys sleep. They’re just pure bullshit machines.
What in the world is Techno Frog?
Take the R out of Frog.
Durham’s deep pass to the end zone fell about 95 yards from the intended target.
My only regret is that Garland failed to warn readers of the possible side effects of the report, such as trouble focusing, confusion, hallucinations, feeling weak, lightheaded, or dizzy. Remember if the symptoms persist, purchase a bull shit detecting machine from your local pharmacy.
Meanwhile, call your doctor if you see the WJS, media outlets and right-wing journalists doing backflips down the corridors.
I didn’t see any other names on the report, besides Durham. It’s pretty hard to fathom any handful of people constructing this monstrosity and putting their name on it. So they didn’t? It might be handy in the future to make a list of possible partners of Barr and Durham who helped author this thing. What are the chances Durham wrote it alone, It isn’t like he didn’t have the time.
Just up thread someone mentioned Nora Dennehy who quit the SC. Is she still at DOJ? I don’t suppose she or anyone is going to talk out of school on this if you want to have a career in big law.
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It just amazes me how individuals previously thought to be honorable, like Barr and Durham, turn out to be so corrupt. (Twice for Barr – see Iran Contra).
The MAGA gene appears to be dominant.
When were either of those two really thought to be “honorable”? Do you know their actual history?
Bill Barr, the more evil and capable of the two, has been dishonorable since his days at Columbia. A socially made man, owing to his pedigree, and a proponent of the war, he managed to graduate with a masters just at the end of the Vietnam war era draft.
He immediately joined the CIA, and just as promptly followed J. Edgar Hoover’s course and studied law part-time at GWU. He left the agency after earning his degree. But his standout performance was as George HW Bush’s AG. Given his performance protecting Bush during the Iran-Contra investigations, his work for Trump was derivative. His private sector work as just as scummy.
Bill Barr is at heart, a Hand-of-God Royalist. Lacking a monarchy, he considered presidents GHW Bush and Donald Trump as little more than temporarily useful tools to weaponize his fav Unitary Executive theory, intended to bleed power from the Judicial/ Legislative branches and transfuse it to the Executive.
That’s one of three consistently employed strategies of his life-long quest to convert America from a representative republic to a theocratic authoritarian police state. Look at his efforts (and interviews and speeches) since the 1970’s—nearly everything fits into three buckets:
1. Increase the relative and total power of the Chief Executive and Executive Branch.
2. Weaken constitutional separation of church and state, freeing government to be a tool of religion (especially his favored strain of sour, ultra-conservative Catholicism) and vice versa.
3. Establish pseudo-military police and domestic intelligence forces accountable only to chief executives of governments at all levels, and free them to use force in support of his theocratic authoritarian dream.
Although he would have liked another four years to further lock-in his anti-democracy ideals, Barr is likely satisfied with the results of his Trump-manipulation. Too bad someone couldn’t make that the framework for one of his book interviews.
One thing that strikes me is that the PR rollout for this by the conspiracy types is so weak compared to what Barr orchestrated for the Mueller report.
I have to assume Durham’s side was doing what they could to work the refs before release — they certainly had enough time. But this points to the benefit of not having a manipulating hack like Barr in charge of DOJ, and instead having pros who play it straight.
There was no misleading summary ahead of time, games being played with redactions, and other tricks.
Obviously a big part of it is that Durham had already hurt his credibility pretty badly, and part of it was the press was going to be less hungry for crumbs in ways that might make them more susceptible to the kinds of tradeoffs they made in 2019.
But I don’t doubt we’d see a bigger splash if this was being promoted by a more clever, PR-focused team. And I think it points to the benefits of Garland’s team not playing games with this, and letting it founder on its own.
And I thought Bull Durham was an Eighties Rom-Com about baseball…..