Well, you’d think -- considering how certain the right was that absolutely terrible and treasonous acts had been committed by a host of Deep State actors, in league with the FBI, Hillary and the Obama administration, for the purpose of damaging Donald Trump — that the complete and utter failure of the Durham report to show any such evidence, would be a huge disappointment for the right.
After all, the right’s expectations were sky high. Obama, Hillary and the entire FBI hierarchy would be behind bars. They were so certain that the treachery was so bad that they were demanding tribunals, that people be sent to Guantanamo and summary executions -- all this before any of the supposed evidence was even presented. All of the Deep State actors were going to be unmasked and punished for their treason. How dare they try to frame such a fine, noble, heroic, morally unsullied person as Donald Trump with such totally fake evidence.
But contrary to what one would think, based on all the hype, most conservatives have taken this lemon and and somehow made it seem like all their hysterical nonsense has been vindicated. Wow! They are really good at protecting themselves from painful emotions. A sharp contrast with how the left reacted to the disappointment of the Mueller investigation. The left was expecting incontrovertible incriminating evidence of collusion but all they got was a ton of suspicious activity, a a lot of circumstantial evidence and many unanswered questions that the FBI couldn’t get to the bottom of because of all the lying, hiding and destruction of evidence, refusal to cooperate and obstruction of justice.
The left was really dispirited by the Mueller report. I saw that as a turning point for the left. Before that, there was a lot of anti-Trump action — massive protests, huge demonstrations, Trump getting booed at ball games and in public. After, it all stopped. The irony is that the Mueller report (along with the Senate Intelligence report) was still, actually, very damning against Trump and his henchmen, while the Durham report couldn’t even get a guilty verdict on either of the two measly indictments they managed to bring to court. Not only did the jury deliberations end quickly but a juror said the whole thing was a waste of time. Durham couldn’t even recommend any new changes in FBI procedures.
I can’t believe how most of the mainstream media swallowed Durham’s bull. Headlines calling it “scathing” and “damning”. The usually sharp Jake Tapper actually said it was “devastating” for the FBI and a partial exoneration for Trump. Oh my God. But thank God for centrist political talker, Dan Abrams. There’s a great article, which is a transcript from his TV show, in which he lays out how right wing talk shows are lying through their teeth about what the D report says.
Bartiromo said: “The Durham report has finally been released late yesterday, and it confirmed everything that we’ve reported on this program to a T from back in 2018 — That the Trump Russia collusion story was made up by Trump’s opponents, including the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrats. The FBI pursued their investigation, despite having no evidence.”
As Abrams proved, the report said absolutely nothing of the sort. Bartiromo, of course, is the same person who promoted disgraced nut bag conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell’s completely discredited Dominion voting fraud lies which led to that massive $787 million lawsuit loss. Wow, how in the world does a fraudster like Bartiromo still have a job? Did you know she makes $10 million a year for telling lies like that? You’d think that after that Dominion debacle, Fox would expect Bartiromo to pay them $10 million a year for the next 78.7 years
Trump’s opponents made stuff up, Maria? You make stuff up, you lying …. am I allowed to say the F word followed by the C word on this site?
Then there’s this from Sean Davis of The Federalist on Fox News:
“The most important thing you can gather from this report is that the FBI is a domestic terror organization. They use their power, they use their influence to try and lie, try to gaslight the American people, to try and rig an election,” Davis said.
This guy belongs in a jail cell. He and fucking Fox News are the fucking domestic terrorists using their power and influence to lie to their audience. Like the lies they told about voter fraud that incited the Jan 6 insurrection. And that last lie he told about the FBI trying to rig an election? They keep repeating that lie about the FBI over and over again, and hardly any any one ever calls them on it. Dan Abrams is the only person I know who does.
The fact is that news about the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign never came out until AFTER the election, you lying scumbag. Comey announced the reopening of Hillary’s email investigation 11 days before the election but said absolutely nothing about the investigation into Trump’s campaign.
As Dan Abrams pointed out in his usual understated tone: “But most importantly, if Durham believed that is what you should gather from the report, don’t you think he would do a little more to bust up the “terror organization?”
Over on Newsmax, Eric Bolling just engaged in more complete bullshit.
“The Durham report shows collusion between the Clinton campaign, the FBI and the Obama administration. The Durham report implicates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the intelligence community in one of the biggest scandals in American history,” Bolling said.
I’d say you’re a shithead, Eric. It did absolutely none of those things, as Dan Abrams pointed out.
Everything the right wingers falsely said about the Mueller Report is precisely true about the Durham Report.
The Durham Report was a four year, $6.5 million witch hunt performed by a biased Barr stooge, that should never have been launched. The real purpose was to deflect attention away from Trump’s obstruction of justice during the Mueller investigation and his campaign’s many lies, obstruction and unproven, but still very plausible, illegal collusion. I stress "illegal" because there was plenty of collusion, it just wasn't illegal. Some examples: Manafort sharing private campaign polling info on swing states with a Russian agent. Don Jr meeting with Russian agents at Trump Tower for dirt on Hillary. Trump publicly calling for Russia to, in effect, hack Hillary’s emails (Russia actually started an operation to do exactly that, the very same day) Roger Stone’s real, actual collusion with Wikileaks to obtain illegally hacked (by Russia) DNC emails.
What would have been illegal would be a quid pro quo. Like, “you lift sanctions on us, and we’ll launch a dirty tricks campaign, spreading lies about Hillary, and other things, on your behalf, and illegally hack emails then give them to you through Roger Stone and Wikileaks”. Which easily could have happened during any one of those secretive 140 contacts/meetings with Russian agents. Like the time Jeff Sessions had that meeting (that he lied about) with the Russian Ambassador right before the Republican Convention where Sessions’ associate Gates successfully fought the Party to remove Russian sanctions from their platform. And then the meeting Sessions had with the Ambassador right after the Convention, which Sessions also lied about.
Those were two of four lies Sessions told, before Congress, about his meetings with the Russian Ambassador. Lying to Congress under oath is a felony. Why didn’t Sessions get charged?
“Well, ah do declare, ah, ah just forgot, a heh, heh, heh. Four times” He should have been charged. I’m sure they could have gotten something out of him.
Here’s another thing. You know that “thinnest of suspicions” that opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation? Where a drunken Papadopoulos told some ambassador that Russia had damaging information on Hillary’s campaign and wanted to release it anonymously to help Trump? The evidence that Durham claimed wasn’t corroborated and wasn’t enough to start the Mueller investigation? That turned out to be true. Did you ever think about that, Johnny boy? Or was that just a little too hard for your right wing audience to swallow?
Contrary to what the lying liars in the Right Wing Media Propaganda/Hate Machine are lying about what the Durham report said, here’s what the libertarian Reason.com quoted from the Report: “The evidence gathered was not sufficient to prove at trial that any FBI personnel intentionally violated any criminal statutes in relation to the transmittal of the Steele reports” nor that “any FBI personnel intentionally lied during their interviews.” The investigation “was unable to establish that any government officials acted with a criminal intent to violate the law, as opposed to mere negligence”
Aside from the fact that this completely contradicts all the right wing bullshit, I find it odd how Durham inserts FBI “lying” into the trial. The two people on trial were not FBI personnel. They were accused of lying to the FBI. No FBI personnel were on trial.
But the most important thing for the right wingers, was, of all the “villains” they wanted to hang the most, it was the FBI. Because if they could convict anyone from the FBI, not only would it “prove” their claims of a treasonous plot to get Trump within the organization we rely on to uncover treasonous plots, it would give them the excuse, once they are in power, to remove any personnel that is not a MAGA Trump loyalist and replace them with the most extremist, conspiracy believing, ultra MAGA right wingers.
That is a frightening thought. Not only would that give them the power to ignore any justified investigation into any right winger, but it would give them unchecked power to go after the left.
Durham’s nonsense wasn’t so much of a report, but an editorial opinion. No new information, no new recommendations, no criminals caught and convicted. It was supposed to put a lie to the conclusion of the Horowitz report, but it was basically a rewrite of the report, except with a sinister tone added to it. And the so called inappropriate actions weren’t even uniquely applied only to Trump. Horowitz determined that these things had become routine in the FBI going back to 2014.
These are the kinds of things one could expect from any large organization where things become more relaxed over time and the rules are not adhered to as stringently.
One last thing. Durham couldn’t, as hard as he tried, find outright wrongdoing but he did describe “confirmation bias” when looking at Trump. Well, that makes sense. After all, they weren’t looking at a normal person. They weren’t looking at a Mitt Romney or a John McCain. They were looking at a notoriously unscrupulous person, someone who was well known to not follow rules and norms.
Someone who could fairly and objectively be described as a miscreant. Someone with very suspicious connections to shady Russians and a perfect target for Putin to cultivate as an asset.
This guy, who became famous for accusing the press of reporting fake news and calling them “the enemy of the people” (like all good dictators do) was and is, himself, the greatest promoter of fake news in American political history. For five years he promoted the Birther hoax and all the falsehoods that came with it. He told monstrous lies about Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks and a disabled reporter who he mocked and imitated. He repeatedly incited violence at his rallies, incited his supporters to chant “lock her up” as he promised to do just that to his political opponent if elected (like all good dictators do) and suggested to a rally crowd that if Hillary got elected, the Second Amendment people could take matters into their own hands. Unlike any other previous presidential candidate, he openly courted the most dangerous, violent and racist elements of the right wing fringe. He repeated their rhetoric, retweeted their tweets and let them know, loud and clear, that he was with them. If you don’t believe me, just ask them. They loved how he refused to condemn or disavow them. That’s why they love him so much.
He repeatedly, and without any proof or explanation, claimed that if he didn’t win the election, it would be because it was rigged.
His ignorance was astounding, as was his pathological willingness to lie about anything. The man was a menace. How could any normal person working in the FBI not have noticed this? Why shouldn’t these agents, most of whom were Republicans, have looked more carefully than usual at a character like Trump? Any confirmation bias would have been justified and prudent.
Any notions about this man being a menace were vindicated by his actions after the election. He has poisoned the country with his toxic personality and torn the country apart. He has been inciting and threatening violence as his supporters have been calling for secession or even a civil war. His outrageous lies have destroyed the country’s faith in the institutions that have truly made this country great. That man is a monster.
