A Nothing Durhamburger

And so it has come to pass that after four years assigned to find Deep State corruption in the FBI and politically-motivated malfeasance during the Clinton and Obama Administrations, and releasing a 306-page report, William Barr-appointed Special Prosecutor John Durham found that the FBI didn’t always do its job as well as it could have.

Impressive.

Not that they did anything criminal or even remotely illegal -- and nothing politically motivated -- just that FBI handled a few things sloppily.  Something that the FBI has long-since acknowledged and addressed. 

During those four years looking for FBI, Clinton and Obama Administrations Dark State corruption, Durham only filed two lawsuits.  He lost them both.

In fact, the only criminal act that Durham came across in his four years was when he and then-Attorney General Barr went to Italy to track down some supposed leads, and were told by the Italians of suspected financial crimes by Trump.  And the reports were so serious that they couldn’t be ignored, but rather than assign an independent prosecutor to investigate, instead Barr expanded Durham’s responsibilities and had him look into Trump’s suspected crimes.  And as far as anyone can tell, Durham and Barr not shockingly buried the matter.

It's notable, too, that one of Durham’s conclusions was that the FBI should never have opened the investigation into a possible Trump-Russia conspiracy based on the Steele Dossier.  The problem is that the investigation was not opened because of the Dossier.  It might have been poorly or improperly used, but the investigation was opened because of what Trump advisor George Papadopoulos said.  Indeed, an independent Inspector General report released previously said that it was absolutely proper to have made the investigation.  Furthermore, we do know that Russia did try to manipulate the election, and there were actually 37 indictments (including a dozen indictments of Russians) and seven guilty pleas or convictions from the investigation.  So, actually opening an investigation into that seems like a really good idea.  And not investigating seems like it would have been malpractice.  That Durham, appointed by Trump’s Attorney General – who together seem to have buried an investigation into Trump’s own possible crimes – said otherwise is totally shocking, I know.

So, nothing corrupt, nothing politically motivated, nothing illegal.  And no convictions.

Nothing.  The only thing even close to corrupt was suspected financial crimes by Trump.  Which were buried.

There is, however, one hugely whimsical irony in all this.  The one and only critical conclusion by the Durham Report is that the 22-month Russia investigation of Trump (with 37 indictments and seven guilty pleas or convictions) should not have occurred -- a determination made by a four-year investigation that quite literally found absolutely nothing illegal.  And which should never have occurred. 

I don’t have anything more to say about Durham’s report, but in fairness this is probably more information than he had in it.