Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy
I’m used to Mike Schmidt ignoring Trump’s weaponization of DOJ against his rivals during the first term. I’m used to Devlin Barrett credulously writing down propaganda that right wing law enforcement sources tell him to write down as if it were true.
But this, from the two of them, is a remarkable exercise in disinformation in service of a weaponized investigation.
They describe that a fox is in the hen house, but are so ignorant, naive, or corrupt that they describe the fox, instead, as a guard dog.
The factual details the story describes are:
- Kash Patel is investigating his claim that he found burn bags full of classified documents which, he claims, is proof people intended to destroy them (but which sources for the story explain is really dumb because any documents found in a burn bag would be on digital servers too)
- Paul Abbate (who was considered a candidate to be Director of FBI after Jim Comey was fired) is a subject of the investigation
- Kash put the investigation in WDVA, basing venue on a storage facility there, to avoid DC grand juries
- The US Attorney for WDVA, Todd Gilbert, recently resigned shortly after being appointed
- John Durham’s lead FBI Agent, Jack Eckenrode, who endorsed Kash to be FBI Director, is conducting interviews in the investigation
- “One of the documents investigators have been asking about…was declassified in 2020, while Mr. Trump was in office”
The men describe the Durham Report as Devlin described it in 2023 when he credulously parroted Durham’s claimed findings, without mentioning how badly the report itself undermined Durham’s claims.
Mr. Durham ultimately concluded that the F.B.I.’s work on the Russia investigation suffered from “confirmation bias” against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Durham brought two separate cases to trial on charges that people lied to the F.B.I. in the course of its Russia investigation, but both trials ended in quick acquittals.
Such a description was sloppy in 2023 but is inexcusable now, in the wake of the declassification of the classified annex. The classified annex showed that by July 2021, Durham should have concluded that the premise of his entire investigation was based on documents fabricated by Russian spies to frame Hillary.
Here’s the NYT story on that, in case Devlin and NYT Mike have difficulties learning about this.
Once you understand that the classified annex disclosed that John Durham and Jack Eckenrode knowingly spent years investigating Hillary’s people based off a Russian fabrication — literally committing the crime they were investigating — then Kash’s burn bag claim would most immediately implicate Durham and his team, including Eckenrode. Durham went to great lengths to obscure that he had been chasing Russian disinformation, even in his classified annex. Such an effort bespeaks guilty conscience, the kind of guilty conscience that might lead someone to attempt to destroy evidence.
If this were a real investigation, Eckenrode would be a suspect, not the lead investigator.
Worse still, if Kash imagines (or claims to imagine) he’s found new, hard copy versions of what he himself helped declassify in 2020 — documents that included a report about the SVR documents bearing John Ratcliffe’s name (but undoubtedly written with Kash), heavily redacted notes from John Brennan, and a somewhat redacted version of the CIA version of a referral to the FBI — then the steps that Durham’s team (that is, Eckenrode) took to access those documents in 2019 and afterwards would likewise be a central focus of any credible investigation.
Indeed, the apparent fact that Durham — that is, Eckenrode — never presented an FBI version of a September 7, 2016 referral purportedly sent to the FBI, which none of the FBI witnesses remember seeing, would be a central issue in any investigation.
That referral is something that, if it exists in hard copy, if it exists at all, might present new investigative leads.
But also would raise still more questions about the criminal conduct of Eckenrode and Durham — their willing quest to chase disinformation created by Russian spies to frame Hillary Clinton.
And it would raise real questions about whether, after chasing a Russian fabrication for years, Kash’s FBI decided to start fabricating evidence themselves.
This is an investigation led by someone who should be a chief suspect. Such investigations never turn out well.
More of the same with this administration. All they need to do is get their version of events on the front page of the NYT or WaPo. Mission accomplished. Their target audience believe Trump and his minions, the headlines prove what he says is true and there’s nothing more to it. The details and final disposition aren’t important. A legal setback is easily waved away as the product of a liberal judge, appointed by Obama or Biden. That’s why the Durham BS and the laptop still have legs. The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.
I also believe that the incompetence bred by Trumps governance will create enough inertia to bog down the legal proceeding. When that happens, Trump will likely escalate his retribution. Maybe that will be enough to wake up more Americans.
Thank you all at Emptywheel. I appreciate your work.
Mike Schmidt, Devin Barrett, and the Kash burn bag…
It’s the old Judith Miller double reverse play!
Of most interest to me: a paper copy of Durham’s “classified annex” seems to have been included in the contents of the so-called “burn bag.” (Was it *really* a burn bag? Will proof of that claim be supplied? Did Barrett & Schmidt request/receive such proof from “those familiar with” the whole cabal?)
And this outrages MAGA…why? Tulsi just declassified and published that “annex”, so no one can argue it’s been suppressed or erased. My guess is that Patel and Co. are engaged in DARVO: drumming up the appearance of a cover-up by the Deep State so as to distract from their own efforts to, well, cover up.
As for the Times article, it read to me like standard, skim-the-surface coverage. I fail to see any Judith Millering in it, just the sort of “Google it yourself if you really want to know” disinterest that passes for mainstream journalism these days. Which is why I keep coming here, and sending EW my money.
I will say, however, that after a year’s abstinence I did just resubscribe to the NYT, mainly to participate in this discussion and others here, and also to grab their dollar-a-month-for-a-year deal, which ends tomorrow. Someone please remind me next August to cancel…again!
My experience with NYT subscriptions is to just to go through the standard online cancellation process when the cheap deal is about to expire. When you’re about 2/3 of the way through this, they will automatically offer you the cheap deal again for one more year before allowing you to complete the full cancellation process. This has happened to me twice in the last 2 years …
Thanks for that advice, Matt___B. Having spent half the summer trying to (finally) detach myself from a clutch of deceptively priced subscriptions–much harder than I expected!–I vowed to never again re-engage without a clear exit plan.
The NYT’s treatment of Joe Biden forced me to cancel last year. The Times is now on probation…as if they care.
You might want to consider “double secret probation”.
I think each glaring instance of ineptitude and criminality by Trump’s people does shave off a tiny sliver of Trump’s support. And those slivers can add up.
Wouldn’t any criminal charges now risk discovery about this material, a decent affirmative defense on selective/vindictive, and a malicious prosecution lawsuit, then? It’s all public record. Pretrial and interlocq motions would drag this into next administration, which could be “more adverse” to what Patel et alia are/were shoveling and less likely to raise privilege claims in their defense.
The claim is the proof; the headline is the verdict; the cost of defending yourself is the punishment.
Undue process.
Fourth Estate
Gather ’round me, everybody
Gather ’round me, while I teach some
Feel some learnin’ coming on here
The topic will be spin
It’s time to save our skin
We don’t want to end as quarry
So settle back and just sit tight
While I start reviewing
The attitude of our birthight
You got to e-val-u-ate the causative
De-ac-ti-vate the decorative
And latch on to the confirmative
Process the gist of the smokescreen
You got to employ a healthy stratagem
Make room for real journalism
Ply the trade, or fascist odium
Liable to lock up every scene
To illustrate my last remark
No dictators here, no kings or monarchs
What did we do, just when
Everything looked so dark?
Man, we said, we better
E-val-u-ate the causative
De-ac-ti-vate the decorative
And latch on to the confirmative
Process the gist of the smokescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_UqLak3EPY
Johnny Mercer & Pied Pipers – Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive – 1945 (#1)