Durham Report - 316 Pages of Blah, Blah, Blah

Have you read the Durham Report? Have you even gotten around to reading the Mueller Report? I wouldn't aspire to an opinion about either if you haven't.

Okay, if you've read The Mueller Report as I've suggested, you know agents of the Russian government set out to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. You know that this interference took the form of "fake news", i.e. made-up stories about Trump's opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as very real information "hacked" from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server by Russian State Security and disseminated through Wikileaks. You know that the Trump campaign, while not actively coordinating with these efforts, was happy to accept the help and take full advantage of the information that was spread, even meeting with a Russian agent who promised "dirt" on the Clinton campaign. You know that the Trump campaign declined to notify the FBI when approached by Russian agents. A Trump campaign consultant bragged to an Australian diplomat that they had compromising information on Clinton gotten from Russians. [Trumpist disinformation incorrectly claims that investigation was based on what is known as The Steele Dossier, an opposition research piece that was never confirmed and was eventually shown to be based on completely unverified information] This sparked the FBI to begin an investigation about Trump campaign "collusion" with Russia. If you've read the Mueller Report you know that far from "exonerating Trump, Mueller confirmed the many points of contact between the Trump campaign and Russian government agents, but concluded that there was no coordination between Russia and the campaign (in my view, Trump and his people were too lazy to do any of the work, but were glad to accept the help) nor did their actions rise to the level of "conspiracy", a notoriously difficult charge to prove. Mueller also concluded that there were numerous instances of obstruction of justice by Trump himself aimed at his investigation, but that Department of Justice (DOJ) policy prohibited charging a sitting president. 

In the waning days of the Trump presidency, Attorney General William Barr, who had previously incorrectly declared the Mueller Report an exoneration of Trump, announced an investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation by John Durham, an experienced and well-respected prosecutor. He was soon reclassified as a "Special Prosecutor" to shield him from being dismissed by incoming President Biden. At the time it was obvious to all but the terminally MAGA-brained that the origin of the investigation was suspicious Russia-reacted activity by the Trump campaign, that a Trump staffer bragged about, with suspicions heightened by Trump's public statements regarding Russia. It really was no mystery. By this time the DOJ Inspector General had issued his report that was critical about the FBI's methods in conducting their investigation (which Mueller's was but a continuation of), most especially using the suspect Steele Dossier to justify electronic surveillance of a Trump campaign staff member. The conclusions were not questioned. That Durham's investigation was anything but a partisan response to Mueller was apparent to all. 

When the Durham Report came out it too was highly critical of the FBI's methods, but not its conclusions. Very little had not already been addressed by the DOJ Inspector General. It did not address the conclusions of the Mueller investigation and made no attempt to even address them. No exoneration here either. Durham emphasizes that the FBI deviated from their usual policies for conducting investigations, but does not allege that the broke any laws in doing so (other than the aforementioned use of the Steele Dossier to get FISA warrants and one FBI agent who altered an email for the same reason) The report roundly criticizes any use of the Steele Dossier, but does not claim that it was the foundation of the investigation. The report criticizes the decision to open a full (rather than preliminary) investigation based on the boasting of the staffer to Australian officials, which he called "weak intelligence", but once again, does not question the results that it engendered. 

The true partisan nature of the report brings up a rumor that Secretary of State Clinton had authorized a plan to smear Trump with allegations that he was working with Russia to interfere with the election to his benefit and that the FBI briefed President Obama about this plan. (This plan is repeatedly referred to in the report as The Plan, - capital letters!) Durham's report states that there is no evidence that the plan (or The Plan) was executed. There is a suggestion that the Steele Dossier was the result of The Plan, although the convoluted path that Steele's work took before and after the election is murky. Durham, after bringing this up, states that there's no evidence of any wrongdoing. Then why bring it up? It only makes sense if you're trying to undermine the original investigation's conclusions to advantage Trump. 

Despite the snarky, partisan, holier-than-thou nature of the Durham Report, what it doesn't say is that 

• Trump was exonerated...of anything
• The Mueller Report was wrong
• An FBI investigation was unwarranted
• There was any evidence that Secretary Clinton or her campaign broke any laws
• The Clinton campaign was the source of disinformation to impugn Trump
• That President Obama "colluded" with Clinton to impugn Trump
• The FBI investigation framed Trump

That's right, it doesn't claim any of those things - the whole Durham investigation, even though Trump had high hopes that it would expose  a conspiracy against him and vindicate his claims of total innocence, was a big, fat nothing. Even his criticisms of the FBI weren't news - the DOJ Inspector General addressed all their missteps and deviations from policy and they have been addressed by FBI Director Wray. (who was appointed by Trump) Trumpublicans have been calling for more investigations, arrests and impeachments based on their hope that their ignorant base wouldn't actually read the report, or perhaps wishful thinking by ignorant members of Congress who haven't read the report. 

Nothing to see here folks, move along. 

 

There Was No Steal to Be Stopped

Read the Mueller Report. 

I'll wait.

Okay, if you've read it as I suggested, you know agents of the Russian government attempted (and probably succeeded) to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. You know that this interference took the form of "fake news", i.e. made-up stories about Trump's opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as very real information "hacked" from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server. You know that the Trump campaign, while not actively coordinating with these efforts, was happy to accept the help and take full advantage of the information that was spread. You know that the campaign declined to notify the FBI when approached by Russian agents. 

Donald Trump won that election, no doubt assisted by the disinformation about Clinton, but there is no evidence that the Russian interference took the form of changing vote totals, hacking voting machines, fake ballots or other election fraud. Many people thought Trump and his campaign benefitted from lies and was therefore an illegitimate president. But that was not an opinion that resulted in accusations that the votes themselves were in any way "rigged" or that the election results should be overturned. At worst, it was a comment on the gullibility, and stupidity of much of the American electorate. 

Fast forward to the 2020 election. President Trump had redefined the term "fake news", which originally applied to stories that were fabricated to elicit a reaction or to smear a candidate, to mean all the mainstream media, or more narrowly, any news source that didn't support him wholeheartedly. He tarred mainstream media as "the enemy of the people". Months before the election he began claiming that it would be "rigged" against him (a claim that he made in the runup to the 2016 election as well) and alleged all that manner of voter fraud would occur. He lost. The vote totals were overwhelmingly against him, while the electoral vote totals were a mirror of his 2016 win. (Which he claimed was a landslide). Due to (1) Most states requiring that mail-in and early ballots not be counted until election day after the vote-in-person ballots were counted, and (2) The fact that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to vote early or vote by mail, Trump's early leads in some toss-up states began to disappear late into the night. There was no question that Trump lost the election. The electoral vote margin were not as decisive as total vote margin, but there was no question that Biden won and Trump lost. 

Unlike most losers, who admit defeat when they lose, and gracefully give a concession speech and call to congratulate the winner, Trump refused to believe that he lost. Or at least said that he refused to believe that he lost. On election night he suggested to aides that he simply announce that he had won, even though votes were still being counted in close races. When it was clear that there was no path to victory, he began clogging the courts with challenges to the results, focusing on the so-called battleground states, but only those where he lost. Interestingly, while claiming publicly that there as "massive" election fraud on the part of the Democrats, and that he had actually won (not only won, but won by a landslide) none of his court cases alleged fraud, but claimed that large swaths of votes should be thrown out based on spurious challenges to the election laws of various states and their implementation by local election officials. Over 60 cases were brought and none were successful. (Trump supporters like to claim that these cases were dismissed due to lack of standing, when in fact it was only one or two that were dismissed for this reason - one was from the State of Texas, which was challenging the election laws of Pennsylvania and other "battleground" states. In most cases Trump or his allies did not present evidence, only "theories" about how fraud could have been perpetrated). He even made phone calls to at least one state election official, asking him to "find" enough votes to change the outcome. Trump's cult leader-like sway over many of his followers resulted in widespread belief in his accusations that the election was rigged against him, that he won, only to see it stolen from him. His allies in Congress hatched a plan to throw out inconvenient electoral votes and tried to persuade the Vice President to do the same. All this rhetoric culminated in a crowd of his supporters invading the Capitol and disrupting the largely ceremonial counting and certification of the electoral votes by Congress. 

Trump never backed down on his claims that his "landslide win" was stolen from him and in polls, a majority of Republicans believe him. And in the Bizzaro World that MAGA Republicans inhabit, any attempt to hold Trump accountable for his crimes is called election interference. His civil trial for defamation, where he was held liable for defaming an accuser, was called election interference; the investigation into his hoarding and hiding government documents is called election interference; the possible indictment in Georgia for...election interfemale is called - you guessed it: election interference. Anyone who publicly points out any possible crimes or unethical actions by Trump is accused by his cult of election interference. Meanwhile, the Republicans in the House of Representatives, when they aren't holding our debt obligations hostage, hold hearing after hearing trying to smear President Biden with fantasies and imaginings attempting to smear him as the head of a vast "crime family". The Durham Report, which claims that the FBI didn't follow all the rules when investigating Trump, but emphatically did not suggest that any of the findings in the Mueller Report were wrong (or even addressed them) is now being held up as another faux-exoneration of Trump, with the Republicans calling for investigations and even arrests of people where there is no actual allegation of any crime. As if that mattered to the Republican Trump cult. 

Throw enough shit against the wall and some of it will (hopefully) stick - that seems to be the plan. 

The big concern is that with so many Republicans convinced that the election was stolen, how many of them will feel justified in stealing the next one? Most of the election deniers were defeated in last year's elections, but a few of them made it in. Kari Lake, who lost in her run for governor of Arizona, is pursuing serial legal challenges to her loss and styles herself the "rightful governor of Arizona" and claims to have won in a landslide, despite all evidence to the contrary. She has also suggested that in the next election her supporters flood the election offices with mail-in ballots, presumably fake ones, since she has consistently alleged that thousands of them in the previous election were fake. As close as a lot of these states are, it would take many instances of election results being overturned, or ballots thrown out, or any number of shady actions, for an election to be really stolen. 

Theocrats, Autocrats and Bigots, Oh My

At one time I thought that the Republicans were sometimes the better choice in an election. I came of age when, for the most part, Republicans were the party of free markets, fiscal responsibility, assertive foreign policy, a strong military, were friendly to big business, tried to minimize intrusive regulation, supported individual responsibility and were the party of limited government. While sometimes those policies had harmful consequences, both to individuals and to the country as a whole, in theory they were sound, rational policies. Republican politicians were willing to work with and compromise with Democrats on a host of issues; some of them were single-minded in their pursuit of their party's goals, but you always knew where you stood and you knew that if they screwed things up too badly another election was just a few years away. 

I've written before about the extremist journey that Republicans have taken starting with Newt Gingrich through the Tea Party movement to Donald Trump and beyond - today I'm going to focus on where they are now. 

Republicans have abandoned any pretext that they're governing. I'm defining "governing" as making laws, and executing those laws, in a way that has the best outcome for the country as a whole as a central feature. Passing budgets, setting priorities, maintaining infrastructure, nurturing good relations with our allies and standing up to our foes are all part of that. Republicans have moved on from governing to ruling. 

In many places Republicans do receive a majority of votes in most elections. Through the magic of gerrymandering Republican candidates for a state legislature can receive less than 50% of the overall votes yet still have a commanding majority in the state Senate or Assembly. In states where they have only a slim majority they manage to have veto & filibuster proof majorities (often 2/3 of total membership). In several states the statewide officers are Democrats while the legislatures have large Republican majorities. Once a party is able to maintain even a slim majority that party then has the power to set district boundaries after each decennial census, further entrenching their power. Republicans have been waging a two-front war over several decades: securing uncontested control of state legislatures on one hand, and thanks to Mitch McConnell, remaking the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, turning it into a Republican rubber stamp. If today's Republicans when they achieved power were cast in the mold of the last generation of Republicans it would be bad enough, but we're dealing with a new breed.

It doesn't matter to today's Republican lawmaker or executive whether or not the majority of their constituents agree with their actions. The gerrymandered majority sees the very fact of their election as a mandate to as they please. An example in Nebraska is the recently passed ban on abortion past 12 weeks. Reputable polls have consistently shown that Nebraskans are evenly divided about whether abortion should be legal, a recent poll had 55% of respondents opposed to the ban. Yet Nebraska Republicans without exception refer to the state as "pro-life", the common euphemism for "anti-abortion". A Nebraska State Senator justified passing this ban and the on-the-fly rules changes that enabled it by stating that Nebraskans elected a conservative majority and they could do as they pleased.

So, if they're not governing, what are they doing?

Today's Republican office holder seems to be animated by a combination of theocratic and autocratic tendencies, as well as a significant amount of anti-everyone-but-us bigotry. Theocratic in that the rationale for many of the laws that are being passed is what the Republicans believe that Christian Bible says. This isn't guesswork, by the way, more and more legislators are declaring in floor debate that the reason certain bills should become law is "God wants it". Abortion is a prime example. Opposition to abortion always has been and still is, a religious opinion, an interpretation of the scientific facts to fit a preconceived religious doctrine. Of course a fetus is "alive". Off course a fetus, if it has developed healthily and is born, will be a person, a human being. There is "life" there. But the point at which he fetus becomes a person, a human being is an opinion, usually energized by religious dogma. But it's only dogma of some religions, mainly just the conservative outposts of Christianity, including Catholicism. Republicans would have you believe that it's 100% settled, when the point when personhood is achieved is not something science can weigh in on. 

Okay, so maybe you're a believer that is abortion is murder too, and fully support the actions to ban abortion nationwide. I understand that if you believe abortion is the killing of a human being you'd want to stop at nothing to stop murder. But I'm not here to debate abortion rights. That's just one piece.

Religious opinion also informs the way the law is affecting LBGTQ+ people. Many conservative religious people, not limited to Christians by the way, believe that homosexuality is a sin, even an abomination. A good number of the laws that are being passed in conservative bastions seem to equate being gay with that opinion. Gay people, simply by being visible, simply by existing, if they are around young people, are accused of "sexualizing children" and even, by default of being pedophile "groomers". This is not lawmakers making a good faith effort to protect children from real sexual predators, but using a religious assumption to define LBGTQ+ people as inherently dangerous. Their struggle to be protected by the same rights as every other American is called "an agenda". Republicans find the most outside the mainstream examples of gay culture to attempt to shock Americans into supporting their agenda of eliminating LBGTQ+ from society. I said this was religious opinion, but in reality it's more akin to simple hatred and bigotry with a thin veneer of religiosity and a thinner coating of concern for the well-being of children. 

Some of these politicians have sincere religious beliefs which they are imposing on the rest of us, but some couldn't care less about religious convictions, but know that their constituents have them. They are also aware that bigots vote too. 

All of this holy war mentality naturally breeds an authoritarian mindset. They believe that they have the support of "the people", they believe (or pretend to) have the imprimatur of the Almighty, why wouldn't they attempt to force these views upon the rest of by any means possible? The anti-democratic tendencies of the Republican Party have been on display for years. Medicaid expansion voted on by a majority of a state's voters, "slow-walked" or repudiated by Republican administrations or starred of funds. Books banned, mainly in Florida, but coming to a "red" state near you. Businesses punished for speaking out against a Republican governor, also in Florida - but it will spread if he gets away with it. Not to mention how election deniers are slowly gaining a foothold on election commissions, enabling elections to nullified if the Republicans don't like the results. 

Republicans have become the party of theocracy, authoritarianism and bigotry. Maybe you agree with some of what they have pulled off so far. But it won't end with that - it never does. It took a long time for us to let them get to this point. And I don't know if it can be reversed - a  significant percentage of voters see the Democrats as Marxist pedophiles and think anything the mainstream media says to expose the Republicans is "fake news" and would vote for any Republican who ran, makes the problem more difficult. But if it's going to be reversed, we can't be discouraged by the current state of affairs. It may take a long time to take our government back. Baby steps...and a lot of them. Don't accept the burgeoning despotism. 

Division

Yesterday I saw a post by a friend of mine referring to an article about the announcement by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott that he is running for the Republican nomination for president. I don't know much about Senator Scott other than he is the only Black Republican in the Senate. The focus of the article was how Sen. Scott decried divisiveness and wanted to unite the nation. I'm going to assume for the moment that he's sincere, but I wonder if he is being realistic. 

Politics in the United States has always been divisive. There have always been bare knuckle brawling in the quest for power. But the ability for politicians to appeal quickly to large numbers of people via social media and the ability of ordinary people to spread their own views the same way has had the result making politics more of an us vs. them contest than ever before. Elected officials are not rewarded for striving for consensus or compromising with the other party, rather they are voted out of office, even by "primaried" if they don't exhibit enough doctrinal purity. 

It's hypocritical at the very least for Republicans like Sen. Scott, or indeed any Republican, to take offense at a Democrat like President Biden making statements like "MAGA Republicans are semi-fascists" or that white supremacy is the nation's greatest threat while Democrats and the voters who support their policies are tarred as Marxists, pedophiles, evil and are intentionally out to ruin our nation, not to mention the personal attacks claiming that Biden is suffering from Alzheimer's and is nothing but a puppet of the "radical left wing" of the Democratic Party. 

President Biden campaigned in part on being a unifying figure, who, based on his decades of Senate experience, could work with the Republicans in Congress to "get things done". I'm on the record as branding him naïve to think so. As far as I can tell no Republican in Congress is interested in consensus or compromise or in uniting the country, their idea of unity is for everyone to fall in line behind their agenda. The Democratic members of Congress are not as bad, having a record of meeting Republican presidents (even the last one) halfway, but the intransigence of their Republican colleagues has hardened them as well. 

I'm not optimistic that any candidate can be a unifying figure; anyone believing that they can be that person is deluding themselves.

Lock Her...Him...Hunter...SOMEBODY up

Presidents sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes they're small, inconsequential mistakes. Presidents sometimes make mistakes with horrible consequences. Presidents sometimes make decisions where political considerations are part of their calculations. In our political system the assumption has always been that presidential decisions were made in good faith and that differences in opinion are the result of different priorities and variant views on what is best for the country. The working assumption isn't that the opposition "hates America" and is bringing about harmful results on purpose. (I fully understand that for many in government, this is no longer the assumption). The argument to throw the "other guys" out of office has historically been focused on their perceived incompetence rather than any nefarious intent. Mismanagement, bad policy, failure to take into account all the moving parts, none of these should be the impetus for criminal charges. A president's policy may lead to deaths in war, but that doesn't mean we charge him with murder; bad economic policy doesn't cause the president to be dragged into civil court to be sued for damages. A turning point came about during the 2016 presidential campaign amid cries of "lock her up" directed a former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Candidate Trump made Clinton's sloppy handling of government documents a focus of his campaign, encouraging his supporters to chant "lock her up" during his rallies, even stating during a debate that if he was elected she would be in jail and that he would (if elected) "instruct the Attorney General to 'look into' (he was always "looking into" things, wasn't he?) the missing emails". Of course, once in power he did no such thing. Like his "Build the Wall" chants, it was an applause line, an attempt to demonize his opponent, and get the masses on his side with meaningless one-liners. It helped that Secretary Clinton had already been investigated, and that the FBI had found nothing worth charging her over, and that otherwise, the supposed "crimes" were simply results of legitimate policies. Nonetheless, once Trump won the election Clinton was no longer a threat and it was safe to ignore her and move on to the job of making leadership of the free world all about stroking his ego. 

It didn't take long for investigations into Trump to take place. But what Trump was being accused of - "collusion with Russia" to influence the lection - had a factual basis. A Trump campaign associate bragged to a foreign diplomat about the help the campaign was receiving from Russia - the diplomat then reported this conversation to the FBI. Wiretaps on Russian agents in the U.S. revealed contact with Trump campaign officials. (The "Steele Dossier", which formed part of the FBI investigation, was never independently corroborated, but despite accusations by Trump, was not the reason the investigation started). There was an abundance of suspicious activity by the Trump campaign, which took place before the election and therefore was not related to Trump's duties as president, to warrant an investigation. And it should be noted that the Mueller probe was initiated by the Trump Justice Department. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from oversight of the investigation in order to obviate any accusations of partisanship, for which he was reviled by Trump. Even though Mueller did not find that the Trump campaign actively coordinated with Russian agents, nor did their actions rise to the legal definition of conspiracy, he did find that they willingly accepted any help that Russia was willing to give. ("Collusion" is not a legal term). He also determined that Trump's actions during the investigation constituted obstruction of justice, but that Department of Justice policy was that a sitting president could not be indicted. Attorney General Barr incorrectly characterized the report as exonerating Trump.  

Despite some back-bencher Democrats wanting to impeach Trump on Day One, Democratic Congressional leadership did not actually proceed with impeachment until they had something concrete. The Mueller Report, as damning as it was to someone who actually read it, was so full of legal jargon it's likely that most Americans wouldn't be able to understand the points being made. Trump was off the hook for now. But he correctly surmised that Joe Biden would be his opponent in the 2020 election and set about to undermine Biden. Biden's son Hunter would be the weak spot he would attempt to exploit.

One of the  methods by which Republicans have continually attempted to open up investigations (or at least talk about it) into Joe Biden was not to use facts as a jumping off point, but to conjure up fantasies that could be true, but have no actual basis in reality. Hunter Biden was a board member of a Ukrainian energy company. He was paid well for this position. It's not unusual for family members of influential people to score lucrative positions like this. The fact is that Burisma, the company in question, was thoroughly investigated and no corruption was found. It was alleged that Joe Biden, as Vice President, forced out the chief Ukrainian prosecutor to prevent him from investigating his son's company, when the U.S. wanted the prosecutor out because he wasn't investigating corruption. There was nothing to investigate. Son of politician gets a cushy job. End of story. Except for Trump. His "perfect phone" call, according to the transcript that he himself released, has him threatening the Ukrainian president with withholding aid unless he announces an investigation into the Bidens. And he got impeached for it. 

This was the start of the obsession by Republicans with Hunter Biden, despite nothing ever surfacing that indicates Joe Biden did anything illegal. Hunter Biden may be charged with not paying taxes, illegal possession of a firearm and other, in the grand scheme of things, piddling offenses. Did Hunter Biden get his jobs based on his surname? Without a doubt. Is he a serial screw-up who has squandered opportunities time and time again? Also true. Is he an evil genius who, with the current President of the United States, his father, is molding U.S. foreign policy to enrich himself and his family? As President Biden would say "C'mon Man!" - it takes more than just a screenwriter's imaginative plotline of how it could be, it takes evidence. The fact that a lot of Bidens and their "associates" made a lot of money over a lot of years or structured their finances by setting up a lot of interlocking LLC's (that's what a "shell company" usually is) isn't evidence, it's wishful thinking.

And it's distraction.

It's a distraction to the fact that the former president is under indictment in one case, he or his company have been found liable in several civil cases, and there are possibly several other indictments coming soon. 

Trump and his cult like to call all the investigations into his conduct a "witch hunt", ignoring that there has always been concrete reasons to investigate and sometimes charge him. In some cases the evidence is his own words that have been revealed by whistleblowers or that he published himself on social media. It's not beyond belief that some of the investigations have been politically motivated, but it can't be denied that they are all based on concrete indications that a law had been broken. Trump has always operated within a miasma of impunity. He has always believed that the law didn't apply to him, and getting elected president just made it worse. 

So, in response to legitimate inquiries into alleged illegal actions by Losin' Donnie, he and his allies are desperate to "both sides" things by accusing Biden of fantasy crimes. Despite a lot of hype about the "evidence", all they have come up with is "some people that Joe Biden knows made a lot of money". Even the much awaited bombshell news conference produced nothing but more fantasies. One of the Republicans' "investigatory" committees have subpoenaed Biden bank account records. Did any of the Trump cult wonder who President Biden made no move to block the release of his records, as Trump regularly does? He has nothing to hide, that's why. 

Like him or not, support his policies or not, Biden is a lifetime public servant, Trump is a serial grifter who is finally seeing some consequences.