Going to the John

The most recent hoobyjooby that has got the far-right dittoverse in a dither is the latest of special counsel John Durham’s investigation into whether there was malfeasance by the FBI and CIA in the Russia problem.  It’s a bit difficult to make sense of Durham’s various filings between there’s a lot more mumbo-jumbo than evidence, but that hasn’t stopped the far-right from grabbing onto words in the English language and finding meaning where none exists.

To be fair, that last sentence isn’t completely accurate because by saying there’s “more mumbo-jumbo than evidence,” that suggests there’s actually evidence that has been providence, and there hasn’t been any.

I tried to find what’s putting so many on the far-right into heebyjeeby’s, but the problem with doing a search is that you tend to find a story on Fox “News” and an article from a similar far-right source – “a” and “an” meaning one each – and those two pieces seem to keep getting copied and repeated and copied and repeated and copied and repeated over and over and over and over, giving the sense of many reports, when in fact there are pretty much these two.  On the other hand, this gives meaning to the term “ditto heads,” in case anyone didn’t understand where that came from.

The core issue seems to be something about servers in the Trump White House being hacked and lying to the FBI and passing along data via the Hillary Clinton campaign or…well, it’s sometimes hard to decipher the convolutions of the far-right conspiracy mind.  One far-right person I know was rejoicing about how Clinton and the libs have finally been “exposed,” thought without ever explaining how anyone was exposed about anything.

As MSNBC reporter Hayes Brown noted, a big problem with why stories about the Durham filing saying the Clinton campaign (or perhaps Hillary herself!) hacked Trump – putting aside that the filing doesn’t actually say that at all – is that “There was nothing really illegal about how that data was obtained. Nor is there any real connection to Clinton herself or her campaign..."

It’s also worth noting that the court filing offers only allegations, but absolutely no evidence. Further -- even if there was any merit, which is notable in its absence -- the Durham filing itself specifically states that the supposed actions in question began against President Obama, not Trump!

Salon has a new article by John Skolnik that explains much in its title – “Right-wing media’s latest ‘bombshell’ – the Durham report – is a nothing burger.”  The sub-heading is “Conservatives have framed John Durham’s filing as definitive evidence that Clinton spied on Trump – but it’s not”.  You can read the full story here.

Skolnik writes about how the far-right has been outraged that main stream media has not picked up on the story.  The problem though is that doesn’t appear to be a story to pick up on, since the Durham filing doesn’t remotely say what the far-right wants to believe in its heart of hearts what it should say.  As he writes, “Even though Durham never directly said in his motion that Clinton coordinated a campaign to ‘spy’ on Trump through [tech expert Rodney] Joffe, The New York Times noted, conservatives have been quick to draw such conclusions, accusing liberal media of being biased for not covering the alleged scandal.”

Skolnik also notes what I mentioned above, that “the White House data allegedly ‘mined’ from the White House was targeted before Trump took office.”   Which, as I said, John Durham even says himself in his court filing.

The article points out, as well, that what is likely to be the case is that if the aforementioned Rodney Joffe’s firm did, in fact, “record the web addresses of White House users,” that most probably is because it had “simply been part of a pre-arranged contract rather than a politically-motivated breach of conduct.”  Reporter Skolnik comes to this conclusion because, as he says, it’s in the indictment itself, which alleges that Joffe’s company had access to the White House servers “as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP." (Executive Office of the President.)  Again, that last quote is in the Durham filing itself! That there was an agreement with the White House to do this.

There’s an even more in-depth analysis by Marcy Wheeler, who’s an independent journalist who writes about national security.  Among other things, she is a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.  She particularly writes about an earlier filing by Durham when he indicted lawyer Michael Sussman for lying to the FBI.

A fascinating point Wheeler makes is that Durham’s accusations of lying to the FBI means he is making the FBI the victim.  This is critical because, as she notes, Durham's specific mandate for his investigation was to find misconduct by the FBI.  Instead, at best, he made them the victim!

You can read the full article here.

It’s also worth noting that Sussman’s indictment contained zero specific charges of lying.  His lawyers, in turn, have said that this makes it impossible to deny the charges when there aren’t any charges actually in the indictment.

And all this is what has the far-right in a dither.  Excited that it “exposes” Hillary Clinton and the left.  All over something with no evidence, no claims of illegality, its own claims that these actions began before Trump, no accusations of illegality, and tries to make the FBI the victim, not the problem – which was the whole point of the investigation in the first place.

So, that’s what a nothingburger actually is.  With a side of hooey.  It turns out, the far-right not only love it, they eat it up.