Last week, I wrote several articles about how the far-right was making gleeful, but totally unsubstantiated claims about how special counsel John Durham’s court filings supposedly exposed wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton and Democrats, despite the reality that Durham actually made no charges, but only raised allegations – and also specifically noted that any events he referred to had actually begun during the Obama Administration and not Trump. This didn’t sit well with some far-right readers here and on social media, who insisted to the contrary, that the proof was now "established" despite the total absence of any such inconveniences as, for instance, evidence and reality. So, it was wonderful to see the other day that even John Durham himself felt he had to distance himself from how his court filing about supposed hacking was being misinterpreted by far-right media and supporters. (A filing that, it’s important to repeat, contained zero evidence, only allegations, about events his report said began during the Obama Administration, not against Trump.) While stating in a new court filing that charges of his own partisanship were not valid, Durham also took a step back by removing his personal responsibility for how far right media had interpreted his initial filing. Indeed, the only thing he defended was that it was reasonable to include the material, even if it was being misinterpreted, and didn't say what was being claimed. “If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion," Durham wrote to the court, "that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information." And since it was being misinterpreted, even didn't want that happening again, and therefore said that any future filings he might make would be done under seal if they contained “information that legitimately gives rise to privacy issues or other concerns that might overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.” In other words, “Man, I am not doing that again!!” You can read a full article about it from the NY Times here. Then came a fascinating follow-up. On Saturday, former Republican Party spokesperson Kurt Bardella (who apparently is so repulsed by the party he used to be officially speak for and now advises the DNC) appeared on MSNBC and suggested that Trump, the far-right media and his acolytes are exaggerating Durham’s a report to distract from the last week. "Well, it's very clear when you look at the timing," Bardella explained. "Donald Trump is in trouble. He's in legal jeopardy, court filings are going against him left and right all week long." He then went into more detail about the huge legal trouble that Trump is now facing – not just from the legal rulings, but the monumental challenge Trump himself will face having to testify truthfully under oath. "His kids are going to have to testify under oath, he's going to have to testify under oath in the SDNY stuff and that's pretty much game over because he's a walking perjury case all to himself,” Bardella noted, “and here comes this great conspiracy theory from the same chorus that brought Hillary's e-mails, pulling nonsense stuff, language that doesn't actually exist, and it's clear misdirection, an effort to take any attention away from what's going on with Donald Trump and put it on somebody else." But it was one other factor he explained which pointed not only to one possible reason Durham felt compelled to distance himself from how his filing was being misinterpreted, but also to evidence of how the far-right media itself was pulling back from its totally-erroneous claims, which shows they themselves likely know they went too far in lying about Durham’s report. And that factor is when Hillary Clinton gave a blistering (and well-covered) speech about Durham’s filing and even suggested she was considering a defamation lawsuit, "It says a lot, by the way,” Bardella explained, “that after Hillary Clinton called it out, and pretty much laid out how it's defaming her, and could be a legal issue for those propaganda outlets that carry John Durham's water here, that all of a sudden yesterday there was hardly any mention of it on Fox. It went away when they realized, 'Oh, crap, we may be breaking the law by defaming Hillary Clinton.'" Short version: as I noted – no, even John Durham himself has now said that any claims his filings proved wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton and Democrats were misinterpreting what he wrote. And now even the far-right media appears to be backing off, after being threatened by Ms. Clinton with defamation. Go figure.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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