Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit suggested as much in a recent opinion. Is the Supreme Court's "entire qualified immunity jurisprudence … based on a mistake"? Judge Don R. But nothing uncovered the elaborate fantasies of evil and massive corruption that either side concocted. Both the Mueller and Durham investigations revealed that. On both sides, there was bad behavior and sketchy dealings, to be sure. Republicans rightfully repudiated this.īut they didn't stop there, instead concocting a broad-based and elaborate conspiracy involving the Clinton campaign, Robert Mueller, and the "Deep State." And given the opportunity to use government power to try and prove this equally nonsensical conspiracy, they took it. Democrats spent years convincing themselves of an elaborate Trump-Russia conspiracy and, when given the opportunity, used the levers of government to try and prove it even when the evidence wasn't there. Ultimately, the Durham report represents one more entry in a sad, symbiotically conspiratorial, paranoid juncture in American politics. It's much more detailed and consumed far more (taxpayer-funded) resources, but it's only somewhat of an exaggeration to say that it's not much more than a 316-page op-ed with a huge price tag. In fact, the report itself mirrors much of the commentary. Plenty of people in power drew similar conclusions previously, without all of the additional time and expense. But that doesn't make his report a valuable use of taxpayer money. The investigation "was unable to establish that any government officials acted with a criminal intent to violate the law, as opposed to mere negligence or recklessness," he states at another.Īfter everything, Durham does not recommend widescale changes in FBI enforcement policy.ĭurham's scathing indictment of the initial Trump-Russia probe may be correct.
#Dirt 5 6.03 trial
"The evidence gathered was not sufficient to prove at trial that any FBI personnel intentionally violated any criminal statutes in relation to the transmittal of the Steele reports" nor that "any FBI personnel intentionally lied during their interviews," Durham writes at one point in the new report. The conclusion of the investigation did not yield any new charges. The two criminal trials his investigation yielded-against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and Trump-Russia dossier source Igor Danchenko- both ended with not-guilty findings. The only successful criminal charges were against an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to altering an email used to get a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign aide Carter Page and wound up sentenced to 12 months of probation. It included " more than 480 interviews," the review of "more than one million documents consisting of more than six million pages," the serving of "more than 190 subpoenas under the auspices of grand juries," the execution of seven search warrants, and the obtaining of " five orders for communications records."Īfter four years of investigation and more than $6.5 million in taxpayer money spent, Durham failed to uncover any evidence of major wrongdoing.
Trump," per the appointment order. The ensuing investigation "was broad and extensive," according to Durham's new report. According to Trump and his allies, Durham was hot on the trail of the "crime of the century" (as Trump told Fox News last year) and would reveal a massive conspiracy between the FBI and Hillary Clinton's campaign.ĭurham was officially " authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. However, Durham's lengthy and expensive investigation was also misguided. And certainly, the hype over Trump-Russia collusion was misguided, as were a lot of government antics surrounding it. political campaign and a foreign power," concluded Durham in his 316-page report, which was released Monday.įor libertarians, there's something psychically satisfying about seeing anyone in power criticize the FBI.
Ultimately, the FBI failed to act with " appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. The FBI's investigation was hastily opened " based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" and " senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities," wrote Durham in a report on the investigation he was appointed by former Attorney General William Barr to lead. The FBI should never have launched its probe into possible collusion between former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, according to Special Counsel John Durham.
0 kommentar(er)
