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You are here: Home / Politics / Mueller Report / Monday Evening Open Thread: John Durham Dumps His Final Report

Monday Evening Open Thread: John Durham Dumps His Final Report

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… And one imagines he slammed the door as he departed in a huff. Per the Associated Press:

… The report Monday from special counsel John Durham 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, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee but losing the only two criminal cases they took to trial.

The roughly 300-page report catalogs what Durham says were a series of missteps by the FBI and Justice Department 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,” saying the speed at which it did so was a departure from the norm. And it said investigators repeatedly relied on “confirmation bias,” ignoring or rationalizing away evidence that undercut their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the probe forward…

The impact of Durham’s report, though harshly critical of the FBI, is likely blunted by Durham’s spotty prosecution record and by the fact that many of the seven-year-old episodes it cites were already examined in depth by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The FBI has also long since announced dozens of corrective actions. The bureau outlined those changes in a letter to Durham on Monday, including steps meant to ensure the accuracy of secretive surveillance applications to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies…

Durham, the former U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, was appointed in 2019 by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, soon after special counsel Robert Mueller had completed his investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign had colluded with Russia to move the outcome of the election in his favor.

The Mueller investigation resulted in roughly three dozen criminal charges, including convictions of a half-dozen Trump associates, and concluded that Russia intervened on the Trump campaign’s behalf and that the campaign welcomed the help. But Mueller’s team did not find that they actually conspired to sway the election, creating an opening for critics of the probe — including Barr himself — to assert that it had been launched without a proper basis…

The original Russia investigation was opened in July 2016 after the FBI learned from an Australian diplomat that a Trump campaign associate named George Papadopoulos had claimed to know of “dirt” that the Russians had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked emails…

Durham’s mandate was to scrutinize government decisions, and identify possible misconduct, in the early days of the Trump-Russia probe. His appointment was cheered by Trump, who in a 2019 interview with Fox News said Durham was “supposed to be the smartest and the best.” He and his supporters hoped it would expose a “deep state” conspiracy within the top echelons of the FBI and other agencies to derail Trump’s presidency and candidacy.

Durham and his team cast a broad net, interviewing top officials at the FBI, Justice Department and CIA. In his first year on the job, he traveled with Barr to Italy to meet with government officials as Trump himself asked the Australian prime minister and other leaders to help with the probe. Weeks before his December 2020 resignation as attorney general, Barr appointed Durham as a Justice Department special counsel to ensure that he would continue his work in a Democratic administration…

(It is widely known that Everything Trump Touches Dies, but I would be pleased if the Trickster God could speed up the defenestration of Bill ‘Ever Lower’ Barr’s reputation.)

CNN has put the entire report online, for the completists.

Josh Kovensky, at TPM, liveblogging: “Trump Was Treated So Unfairly, Durham Says”:

An entire section of this report is devoted to what Durham described as “disparate treatment” of the Trump and Clinton campaigns by the FBI.

It echoes in concept if not in tone one of Trump’s favorite complaints about the Trump-Russia investigation, or really any attempt to examine or hold him accountable in any way: that it’s unfair.

In this context, Durham raises the issue of which campaign received a defensive briefing from the FBI in 2016 and which did not, and also publicizes potential 2016 investigations into the Clinton Foundation which, he says, immediately went nowhere.

This, of course, is in contrast to the Trump-Russia investigation, which went on for years and resulted in the convictions of his campaign manager, national security adviser, and others…

But then again:

Durham: Nothing Should Change At DOJ or FBI

With more than 300 pages of narrative and criticism of the FBI’s decision to open its investigation into Trump-Russia, Durham says that he does not think there should be any “wholesale changes” in federal law enforcement.

“This report does not recommend any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department and the FBI now have in place to ensure proper conduct and accountability in how counterintelligence activities are carried out,” the report reads.

He instead says that it’s all about “integrity,” and that he simply did his work to help the attorney general decide “how the Department and the FBI can do a better, more credible job in fulfilling its responsibilities, and in analyzing and responding to politically charged allegations in the future.” …

Today’s Conventional Wisdom, as declared by the CW experts at the NYTimes:

… The Durham report has been long awaited by supporters of Mr. Trump, who once hoped he would prove Mr. Trump’s theory that the Russia investigation had been a “deep state” conspiracy to sabotage him for political reasons. Mr. Trump would put high-level political or national security officials in prison, they insisted.

But over an investigation that lasted about four years — far longer than the Russia investigation — Mr. Durham failed to live up to those expectations.

Critics have long argued his investigation was superfluous: an inspector general for the Justice Department, Michael E. Horowitz, was already scrutinizing the Russia investigation for evidence of misconduct or bias, and he released a report on the matter in December 2019.

Mr. Horowitz did not find evidence that the F.B.I. had taken any investigative steps based on improper political reasons. And he concluded that the investigation’s basis — the Australian diplomat’s tip — had been sufficient to lawfully open the full counterintelligence inquiry…

SAD!

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  1. 1.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Repost from below:

    bigger news than the fact that Durham found nothing

    The fucker wrote a 300 page report with the conclusion being the original assumption and the media falls for it:

    @CNN JUST IN: Special counsel John Durham finds the FBI should not have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

    I’m guessing that DOJ didn’t close this operative’s special counsel assignment because it would be too political. Unfortunately, Durham was discredited months ago and was still able to publish this bullshit report under DOJ auspices. Instead of the coverup, a lot of people will believe that ‘ol Donny was railroaded by the FBI.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    An entire section of this report is devoted to what Durham described as “disparate treatment” of the Trump and Clinton campaigns by the FBI.

    Well, I agree with that conclusion, although I’m sure I differ about who got the raw end of the deal.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    I hope that Jordan calls him to testify about the report.   He’ll be shredded into pieces by the democrats.

  5. 5.

    oldster

    “John Durham finds…. ”

    It wasn’t a finding of the investigation, it was the opinion he started with and could never confirm.

    He found *no* evidence that the FBI was wrong to suspect Trump and the Russians. He found *no* evidence that they should not have started the investigation. And he found no evidence of unfair treatment of Trump.

    In fact, he found nothing. He has no findings. Just his same worthless opinions.

    How can CNN be so bad at their job?

  7. 7.

    West of the Rockies

    Is this human-walrus hybrid still employed by the DOJ?  I hope he is fired/released ASAP.

  8. 8.

    catclub

    @Baud: ​
     

    Well, I agree with that conclusion, although I’m sure I differ about who got the raw end of the deal.

    Exactly. There was NO announcement that the FBI was investigating Trump-Russia during the electioon.

  9. 9.

    The Moar You Know

    Oh hooray. Trump will holler “exonerated“ and the idiot brigade will believe him.  Fucking awesome.

  11. 11.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Durham found nothing

    He didn’t even find Jimmy Hoffa

  16. 16.

    The Pale Scot

    saying the speed at which it did so was a departure from the norm.

    Because there is no rush to prevent an agent or the tool of a hostile power to take executive office.

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    @Alison Rose: I love that song. I keep trying to play it on the piano, with mixed results.

    There are some great epithets in that one! No spoilers.

  20. 20.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Alison Rose:

    Has TFG already started screeching about how this proves he’s an innocent little lamb?

    Of course he has…”treason” in all caps.

    And to JPL #4, supposedly Jordan is calling Durham in to testify.

  22. 22.

    prostratedragon

    Alison Rose@12: Migod! I thought he couldn’t surpass “Sedition,” but I see I was wrong.

  24. 24.

    cain

    @oldster: How can CNN be so bad at their job?

    We are talking about the network that put a insurrectionist and convicted sex assaulter for a townhall and then presented it like it was politics as usual.

  28. 28.

    twbrandt

    OT: the suspect in the baseball bat attack at Rep. Connolly’s office

    … sued the CIA last year claiming it had been “wrongfully imprisoning [him] in a lower perspective based on physics” and alleging that he is being “brutally tortured … from the fourth dimension.”

    One of the staffers injured was an intern on her first day at the job.

  31. 31.

    prostratedragon

    TV note: tonight on TCM, four movies photographed by James Wong Howe, including Sweet Smell of Success at 9:30 Eastern. For both fans and skeptics of b&w.

  32. 32.

    Albatrossity

    As they pointed out on MSNBC, this is a $6.5 million op-ed. And weaponization of the government.

    Jordan will undoubtedly call him to testify. Hopefully the dems can also call in the attorneys who quit working for him when they thought the evidence was too flimsy. Since it turned out those attorneys were correct about that, it would be interesting to hear their perspective.

    As for Rudy and his shenanigans, I definitely need a better bingo card…

  33. 33.

    Scout211

    CNBC seems to be better at reporting about this:

     

    Durham lost the only two prosecutions he brought to court. But the report released Monday appeared to be an appeal to the court of public opinion — an argument that Trump was treated unfairly by FBI officials who were too quick to unleash the bureau’s investigative powers.

    Trump allies have been eager to see the report, arguing that Durham would make clear what the former president has been saying all along — that his campaign did nothing wrong but that the Obama administration was using the power of the federal government to try to influence the 2016 election.

    Durham’s central conclusions were previously contradicted by a 2019 report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, which found that while the FBI made a series of mistakes, the decision to open the Trump Russia probe was justified as a matter of law and policy — and untainted by any evidence of political bias.

  37. 37.

    brantl

    ALI think it would have been more to the point had you said John Durham took a dump on his 300 page report.

  38. 38.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: Not me. I have never been able to understand silent movies. I admit it’s a big blind spot. I’ve tried. Even Hitchcock — couldn’t make it through The Lodger.

    Don’t get me started on sitting through Abel Gance’s Napoleon.

  39. 39.

    Miss Bianca

    So, apropos of nothing in particular…got a text from my publisher today that a reporter and photographer from the FTFNYT are coming to my office tomorrow. So we have that to look forward to while we’re laying out the paper.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    I think we need to have Bill Barr summarize it for us, just to be sure.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    lowtechcyclist

    … And one imagines he slammed the door as he departed in a huff.

    If that’s too soon, he can leave in a minute and a huff.

  45. 45.

    karen marie

    @Baud:   There are people who wouldn’t necessarily be predisposed to believe Trump was framed but will believe it when CNN tells them it’s true — like my neighbors — lovely people but they believe that “if it’s on TV it must be true.”

  47. 47.

    JPL

    @karen marie:  For a long time, the media has led with the rights slant of the news.  I’m not sure how to take it back, but the dems have to try.

  50. 50.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Miss Bianca:

    Ha! I was sure it was going to be NotMax who had dredged up that groaner for us.

    I first saw Duck Soup in 1971, and have been a devout Marxist ever since.

  54. 54.

    cmorenc

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    As much as CNN is failing by bending more right-ward, not sure CNN getting beat out in prime-time ratings is any sort of positive development, unless it results in CNN management realizing what a huge mistake they made about moving right to capture audience share, even apart from the corollary mistake about journalistic quality and integrity.

    Yeah, I know you were probably making an observation about cause and effect, ridiculing CNN’s effort to capture RW audience share, not celebrating Newsmax’s comparative success.

  56. 56.

    schrodingers_cat

    I am still on a high of BJP getting its ass handed to it in Karnataka, its southern bastion.  Modi was practically living in Karnataka in the final days of the campaign

    ETA: Karnataka is home to Banglore now Bengalaru. Its the  home of India’s tech bros, whose ill-gotten wealth from off-shoring funded the right wing hate factories of BJP

    Chief among them is the off-shoring giant, Infosys, whose founder is Sunak’s father-in-law.

  58. 58.

    Bupalos

    The Durham thing is a show about nothing. And not really even worthy of a post noticing it. Not worth the distraction.

    Especially as we really appear to be at the cusp of yet another “let’s kick the can down the road where we’ll be much worse positioned to deal with it” moment – with the administration openly talking about “negotiating” and “working with” Republicans to try and “avoid” this whole debt limit thingie.

    At some point we have to confront these fucking sleestacks, and every day we put that off works to their advantage. This debt ceiling thing the closest thing you’ll see to a clear-path slam-dunk. A week ago Mitch McConnel was saying “don’t foul, don’t foul!! Clear the lane and just let them dunk it!!” And now here we are pulling the ball back to the arc and working it around and hoping for a contested jumper with the shot clock going off.

    Now we’re “negotiating” and lending force to the idea that somehow there’s a problem we all need to solve together with the hostage takers, maybe by eviscerating the social safety net, maybe by reversing the climate change provisions of the IRA, maybe by throwing migrant toddlers in jail…or something. We’re negotiating with terrorists about how many and which hostages they shoot this time. It INCREASES the risk of default if they are doing anything in these “negotiations” other than trying for something better than a clean bill raising the ceiling.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    That subpoena demands Musk turn over any documents showing communication involving him, JPMorgan and Epstein, as well as “all Documents reflecting or regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of girls or women for consensual sex.”

  61. 61.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: Not at all. There’s plenty of low information voters who will watch what the MSM is spluging about this and come away thinking that it was proven that the investigation shouldn’t have ever been started and that therefore it was all done by Trump’s enemies.

     

    ETA: And it wasn’t just CNN reporting it this way. I just saw The Mens Shirt Model on ABC stating the exact same thing.

  63. 63.

    prostratedragon

    @zhena gogolia:  Hey, what can I tell you?＼(+_<)/ Really I was thinking more of younger people who often automatically think of b&w as an inferior, outmoded technique.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Turgidson: I had the same thought this afternoon, and just saw this mini-thread

    Daniel Goldman @danielsgoldman

    The Durham Report is a political hatchet job. The only thing more pathetic is the outcome of his prosecutions.

    It retreads the same material that both Mueller and the IG found to justify the opening of the 2016 Russia investigation.

    Goldman et al will run rings around the Rs and Durham if Jordan is dumb enough to hold a hearing. OTOH the original Russia investigation didn’t move the needle. I don’t expect much to come from this in either direction

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @zhena gogolia:

    I think there’s a difference between thinking black and white is outmoded and thinking colorization is OK.  Basically, the choice of black and white over color (these days, at least) is an aesthetic one.  It can be a reasonable one, but often it’s just pretentious.

    Colorization, though, is a bastardization of what the movie maker intended.  Whether they consciously chose black and white or if it was just the only option for them, they made a lot of decisions about how to film their movie based around the requirement of the medium.  Colorizing is throwing away all those decisions and substituting the colorizer’s ideas for the original creator’s.  That’s abominable.

  85. 85.

    Jackie

    This is interesting!

    ”Some defense and congressional officials believe the White House is laying the groundwork to halt plans to move U.S. Space Command’s headquarters to Alabama in part because of concerns about the state’s restrictive abortion law, according to two U.S. officials and one U.S. defense official familiar with the discussions.

    “The belief is they are delaying any move because of the abortion issue,” one U.S. official said, referring to the White House.
    Another U.S. official said, “This is all about abortion politics.”

    Or… later in the article, is THIS the reason?

    “Administration officials said the push not to headquarter Spacecom in Huntsville has nothing to do with Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blocking of at least 234 of Biden’s military nominations in protest against the Pentagon’s abortion policy. Still, one official said, “He’s not helping.” Other officials said the White House does not plan to announce its halting of Spacecom’s move to Alabama until after the standoff with Tuberville over nominees was resolved.”

    I think both reasons are acceptable.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/biden-admin-may-halt-move-space-command-alabama-abortion-law-rcna84336

  88. 88.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud:

    (MSNBC) does a half assed job at focusing on a liberal audience.

    As Mona Charen is ruminating right now about DeSantis’ political skills. That he has them. Fucking Mona Charen. On the only “liberal” cable “news” show.

  91. 91.

    Jackie

    @Baud: I don’t know? There’s been so much bad news for the GQP  in the past week… but it sounds like the decision is definitely being slow-walked. Tuberville is being schooled.

  95. 95.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: For you from Devdas.

    Humesha tumko chaha (I have always wanted you..)

    If you haven’t watched it, you must watch it. It has been made 5 times in Hindi . It is based on a novel in Bengali from the pre-independence era

    The song at the link is from the 2002 Shahrukh Khan version directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

  96. 96.

    Tony G

    @oldster: CNN has been bad for a long time, but now they are trying to be a low-calorie version of Fox News.  I had forgotten all about this Durham nonsense.  I doubt that his “finding” will have much of an impact on anything.  The Trump cult supports their hero no matter what.

  102. 102.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    Interesting! I guess photographers chose B&W film for the same reasons?

    The article’s paywalled for me. Does it mention why filmmakers eventually switched to color?

  103. 103.

    karen marie

    @Baud:   I’m sorry – what?

    Forget the Musk part – the lawsuit seems like a whole lot of ass covering by “the Government” of the US Virgin Islands.

    Am I missing something?  How is a bank responsible for what a customer does outside the bank?

  105. 105.

    eversor

    @cain:

    Barr explained himself though.  Clearly.  Repeatedly.  It’s all about Christianity.  If the nation does not reflect traditional Christian teachings related to gender roles, heiarchy, patriarchy, and sexuality (and yes Christ himself demanded all of them as well) than Christians cannot live out and pass down the faith.  And since Christianity is what counts, he did everything he did and it was all justified.   Alito has said the same thing.  Leonard Leo rigged the courts for the same reason as well and said it, repeatedly.

    All these assholes keep coming out and saying everything they have done is for those traditional Christian teachings.   Rather than accepting it liberals throw up a bunch of squid ink that it’s really all about helping the poor and ignore all the nasty shit in Christianity or flat out lie their asses off that it doesn’t exist as the beating heart of the religion.

    That’s why the only solution to any of our problems is the rise of a younger generation that is not religious and actively hostile to Christianity.  That’s already baked in.   The younger generations are not just less religious and more hostile to Christianity they are also more liberal.   Within a few decades saying you’re a Christian will be instantly equated to being an evil human being.   And Barr and Alito having the guts to actually follow and accept the nastier parts of what it demands, and liberals constantly lying and claiming that they don’t exist, are going to be why the backlash is going to surpase even the wildest fever dreams of Rod Dreher.

  108. 108.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They switched to colour because the Technicolor process, which was expensive and unwieldy, came to be replaced by simpler and cheaper alternatives such as Eastmancolor.

    This coincided with a move in television to colour in the late 50s and early 60s. As a result, movies largely moved to colour (and widescreen) under competitive pressure.

  111. 111.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: Its a doomed love story. Devdas can’t stand up to his parents and marry the woman he loves. She is unhappy, he is unhappy. He can’t get over her and drinks himself to death.

    Indian society in a nutshell, if you don’t fit the mold it will chew you and spit you out. That’s why generations of Indians have found it relatable

    That’s why I find the attempts to rehabilitate the institution of arranged marraige by many Indian Americans born in this country  cringeworthy and unconscionable.

  112. 112.

    OverTwistWillie

    Silent era prints were mostly colorized.

    Hand tinting, tinting and toning, the early color systems. Unfortunately, much of it went up in Nitrate fires or got tossed. The early TV deals only needed B&W stock.

    “Silent” movies had a score, and depending on the theater size and market, had a piano/organ up to small orchestras play it.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat: Oh, that comes through!

    There’s an article in the Sunday Times about some show called Indian Matchmaking or something like that — it’s a scathing article.

  117. 117.

    prostratedragon

    @112: Theater organs. I’ve attended several showings that used the first one pictured in the article, at the Michigan Theater. Dr. Steven Ball, who now has the huge organ at Atlantic City, accompanied Metropolis, which has its own score, and The Battleship Potemkin, from traditional Russian and Ukrainian music. It is a distinctively pleasurable way to see a movie.

  118. 118.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I sat through a showing of a restored print of Gance’s Napoleon with a live orchestra in the Fox Theater in Atlanta. It was awesome!

    Chaplin is a good path into silent movies—The Gold Rush.

  119. 119.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: since you check dead threads—I saw it with the KC Philharmonic in a grand old auditorium. Music— A plus, movie —snooze. And I hate The Gold Rush and all Chaplin

  120. 120.

    H-Bob

    @oldster: I recall that during the 2016 campaign there was a report about significant Internet traffic between Trump Tower and locations in Moscow.  If so, that justifies an investigation.

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