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.
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