Long post, but sorely needed (edited and formatted to fit the blog):
After a 4-year
investigation by Trump’s DOJ under Bill Barr Special Prosecutor, John Durham,
comes up short in fully blaming the FBI on some of the Trump-Russia 2016
election issues, while NOT proving a conspiracy that the FBI “was out to get
Trump” as Trump hoped.
The rundown is from The AP
with this headline:
“Prosecutor ends probe of
FBI's Trump-Russia investigation with harsh criticism, but no new charges”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A special prosecutor has ended his four-year investigation into possible FBI misconduct in its probe of ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign with withering criticism of the FBI but a meager court record that fell far short of Trump’s prediction that Durham would “uncover the crime of the century.”
In Short: He did not…!!! The final 4-year old investigation report released Monday (May 15) from S/C John Durham (background links in the same site) represents the long-awaited culmination of an investigation that Trump and allies had claimed would expose massive wrongdoing by law enforcement and intelligence officials.
Instead, Durham's investigation delivered underwhelming results.
He only secured one guilty plea
from a little-known FBI employee, and losing the only two criminal cases he took
to trial.
The roughly 300-page report catalogs what Durham says were a series of missteps by the FBI and DOJ as investigators undertook a politically explosive probe in the heat of the 2016 election into whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to tip the outcome. It criticized the FBI for opening a full-fledged investigation based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.”
Durham said their speed at which they reported was
a departure from FBI norms. He said that FBI investigators repeatedly relied on
“confirmation bias.” That was by ignoring or rationalizing away evidence that
undercut their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the probe
forward.
Related key reporting from CNN here: A long-awaited report by Republican-appointed special counsel John Durham failed to find the “Crime of the century” that Trump said targeted him at the center of the Russia investigation.
But it delivered him a potential political payoff nonetheless.
Durham said that the bureau’s full-scale probe into multiple links between the Trump campaign and Russians should never have been launched, arguing that investigators “discounted or willfully ignored information that did not support preliminary theories that there was collusion between Trump and Russia.”
He called on the DOJ to appoint an official to oversee politically sensitive probes. While Durham criticized confirmation bias and mistakes in the FBI, he did not unveil any new prosecutions thus undermining Trump’s predictions of a sweeping purge of the bureau.
He did not offer recommendations for further reforms in the FBI.
But while Durham criticized confirmation bias and mistakes in the FBI, he did not unveil any new prosecutions, thus undermining Trump’s predictions of a sweeping purge of the bureau, and Durham had no recommendations for further reforms in the FBI.
Also,
related here from Vanity Fair here which
includes former AG Barr’s quote worth recalling.
------------------------------------------------------------
Highlights on this same
topic also here from The GUARDIAN:
“FBI accused of failures but report finds
no deep-state plot against Trump”
S/C John Durham found no evidence that DOJ and the FBI conspired in a deep-state plot to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016.
The report did find that the FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case were deficient. Durham’s report was sharply critical of how the FBI decided to open the counterintelligence investigation into Trump, known as “Crossfire Hurricane.”
He accused top FBI officials of relying on raw and uncorroborated
information to continue their inquiry.
However, much of the criticism of the FBI in his 300-page
report was already known when the DOJ’s IG issued its own report and raised
similar concerns, but ultimately concluded that the FBI investigation into
Trump was justified.
Reminder of the original
Trump-Russia probe from S/C Robert Mueller and his damaging 2-year investigation & report (that AG
Barr blasted unnecessarily) and that was updated from the NY Times:
Nine U.S. personnel
charged and/or pleaded guilty. The Crimes listed at bottom of the page:
1. Michael
Cohen: Sentenced to 3 years in prison.
2. Roger
Stone: Charged in Federal Court waiting for trial.
3. Richard
Pinedo: Sentenced to 6 months in jail.
4. George
Papadopoulos: Sentenced to 14 days in jail.
5. Paul
Manafort: Charged and convicted.
6. Konstantin
Kilimnik: Obstruction of justice.
7. Alex
van der Zwaan: Sentenced to 30 days in jail deported.
8. Rick
Gates: Financial fraud and lying to the FBI.
9. Michael
Flynn: Charged & guilty waiting on sentence.
29 charged and/or
pleaded guilty related cases:
· Bijan Kian: Violated lobbying law.
· Ekim Alptekin: Violated lobbying law.
· Maria Butina: Pleaded guilty as foreign agent.
· Sam Patten: Violated lobbying law.
· 12 Russian Intel Officers: Conspiracy & money
laundering
· 13 Russian Nationals: Conspiracy, bank fraud, ID
theft.
The total of 38
persons were charged with the following crimes:
1. Tax
evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance
2. Obstruction,
lying, witness tampering
3. Identity
fraud
4. Lying
to FBI (various crimes)
5. Tax-bank
fraud, lying, obstruction of justice
6. Conspiracy
against U.S., identity theft, money laundering
7. Violated
lobbying laws
8. Acted
as/for foreign agent
9. Lying
about Russian Contacts
Finally: The
following is a sample from some GOP House hardliners response to Durham’s dud
shell report from from THE HILL with this headline:
“Durham’s FBI Trump report
fuels House GOP weaponization attacks”
House Republicans say the long-awaited report from special
counsel John Durham bolsters their arguments that federal intelligence and law
enforcement agencies have been “weaponized” against political enemies — a theme
that has been a major defining belief of their new majority.
GOP House Conference
Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said in a statement: “The long-awaited
Durham Report confirmed what the American people already know; that individuals
at the highest levels of government attempted to overthrow democracy when they
illegally weaponized the federal government against Donald J. Trump.”
(FYI: To be honest and open, Stefanik is my congressional Rep... I have never supported her at any time).
GOP House Majority
Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) quoted from the report in a press conference raising
alarm about its assertion saying: “The FBI failed to uphold their mission
of strict fidelity to the law. It identified an FBI agent who knowingly made
misrepresentations to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court. Where’s
the accountability for this? Who’s going to be held accountable? These are the
questions we’re going to continue to ask.”
GOP House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) invited Durham to speak to the subcommittee
on weaponization (created at the request of the right flank ahead of the
tumultuous 15-vote election of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Several Republicans
said the report confirmed their own biases.
Rep. Thomas Massie
(R-KY) said: “We all already believed or knew what was in there. It’s like:
‘Yeah, see?” We told you so.”
My 2 Cents: FOX for years said and predicted and broadcast that S/C
Durham would being down the FBI for investigating the whole Trump-Russia thing
and it would be a “bombshell.”
Well, after 4 long years,
the full Durham report is out as reported above and his “bombshell report well, turns out it’s a dud.
As to why, as the old quip
says: “There ain’t no there, there.”
Thanks for stopping by.
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