Durham Report Confirms Mueller Report – Hillary’s Dirty Trick
During the 2016 presidential election, the Hillary Clinton campaign engaged in a massive dirty trick – to concoct “evidence” that then-candidate Donald Trump was (1) under threat of being blackmailed by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and (2) was coordinating and conspiring with Russia’s meddling in the election.
The primary – and only — “evidence” was a Dossier alleging Trump’s improper and salacious activities in Russia. It was said to have been received by former British intelligence agent Michael Steele from a “source” in Russia.
The Steele Dossier – as it was dubbed by the media – was obtained by the Clinton campaign and leaked to the media. It was also provided to the FBI by a lawyer claiming to be acting in the public interest. Turned out he was operating on behalf of the Clinton campaign.
The dossier did not serve its purpose – to snatch the election for Clinton. Trump won. However, it was then used to launch an investigation of Trump and his campaign in the hope that the conspiracy with Russian claims would lead to impeachment and Trump’s removal from office.
As it turns out, “evidence” of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia did not exist. The Dossier was proven to be fake. Even worse. The phony Dossier – and its political uses – were funded by the Clinton campaign. It was arguably the most elaborate political dirty trick in American history – and unprecedented in terms of its use … make that misuse … of government agencies.
Mueller Report
While it did not stop Trump from being elected President of the United States – and did not lead to his removal from office – it was used by Democrats and their media allies to smear Trump for more than four years. It triggered the naming of Special Counsel Robert Mueller – in the hope that he would find Trump guilty of criminal conspiracy with Russia.
Democrats and the left-leaning news platforms issued daily statements and reports of the certainty of Trump’s guilt. California Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff – an outspoken advocate of the conspiracy accusations and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – announced publicly that he had seen incontrovertible evidence of Trump’s guilt. He was lying, of course.
Despite the best efforts of the anti-Trump folks in government and in the media, after two years of investigation at a cost of more than $35 million, Mueller reported that there was no evidence of any such conspiracy between Trump or his campaign and Russia. It was all a huge political hoax empowered by politically compromised government officials and baseless (fake??) news reports.
The fake narrative was so embedded in the leftwing establishment that the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for reports supporting the phony conspiracy theory.
That came long after the FBI – using the Dossier as their sole rationale – launched the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. They used the phony Dossier to obtain wiretap authority without telling the FISA Court that the “evidence” was unvetted and had been paid for by the Clinton campaign.
More disturbing is the fact that most of those promoting the conspiracy accusations and the ensuing investigation knew that the Dossier was phony – a product of the Clinton campaign.
It was such a fiasco, that even those involved could not prevent the spotlight from turning on them and their roles in propping up the fake Dossier and launching the investigation against Trump. Top officials in the FBI (Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant Deputy Director Peter Strzok, and others) were complicit in a conspiracy against Trump.
The false narrative was supported by officials of the outgoing Obama administration and former intelligence officials, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former head of national intelligence James Clapper.
Durham Report
Department of Justice official John Durham was named special counsel to investigate the role of the investigators – after the FBI’s Inspector General had raised concerns about the legitimacy of Crossfire Hurricane. The essential question was whether FBI officials acted properly in handling the Dossier and the Trump investigation.
Like the Mueller Report, The Durham Report contained no recommendations of indictments against officials who abused power to launch the investigation of Trump, but it did answer questions left unanswered by Mueller.
Did government officials – especially those in the upper ranks of the FBI – proceed with a major investigation of a presidential candidate without sufficient evidence – or any real evidence at all?
The Durham Report is unequivocal on that question.
They did, indeed.
It is clear from the Durham Report that political considerations trumped credible evidence in launching Crossfire Hurricane – and that key individuals had abused their power based on political biases to weaponize the offices they held at the time.
Summary
Whatever one thinks of Trump – or what even his culpability may be in the various court cases he faces – we should all be able to agree that the entire Russian conspiracy controversy was nothing more than a political dirty trick by the Clinton Campaign that led to dangerous abuses of power by politically compromised individual in key positions – damaging the image and credibility of the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department as non-partisan law enforcement agencies.
While the left points to various paranoid conspiracy theories on the right, they turn their back on the largest, most destructive, and dangerous conspiracy theory in history – a conspiracy created and proffered for years by Democrats, partisan government officials, and a biased news media solely for political purposes.
But the exposure by the Durham investigation is no reason to abandon concern. The role of the FBI in supporting the initial false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was merely a Russian invention – and the signatures of 51 former intelligence officials on a letter reinforcing the false claim that the laptop was a Russian trick – is sufficient reason to do a little more investigating of what was – and perhaps is — going on within the intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
So, there ‘tis.
As per usual, your memory is getting a little foggy. Of course Durham does not want to say that 4 years and $6million was wasted, so he does a little hand waving and the folks on the right feel good. However, you forget that the whole investigation was started by a fellow name Papadopoulos running his mouth off to Australian intelligence about the dirt the Russians had on Hillary. The dossier was just something else the FBI looked at, but it did not start the investigation. Of course, despite the Barr synopsis, the Mueller report did not absolve Trump of collusion with the Russians, rather it made mention of the various times that the Trump administration prevented Mueller from interviewing people who Mueller thought might have information, and specifically said if I could definitely exonerate trump, it would, but it didn’t. There was definitely collusion, the trump campaign expected help from Russia, but it did not rise to a level of criminal activity. (Recall little bozo meeting with Russians to get dirt on Hillary?). So there tis…
Mkef … I have to give you credit. Once you bite into a lie you do not let go. Mueller made it very clear that based on his 2-year, $35 million investigation he could find no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russian meddling. He neither filled or recommended any charges to be filed against Trump. He questioned whether some actions by team Trump could rise to obstruction — but he left that determination up to his boss as the DOJ without even a recommendation. The case was reviewed by officials at the DOJ –and upon examination of the evidence recommended to the AG that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with further action. The FBI full investigation of Crossfire Hurricane was launched using the Dossier as the “evidence” to get the FISA court to authorize wire taps. That was after the issues surrounding Papadopoulos. I understand that you and a lot of Democrats and media left-wingers insist on Trump’s guilt, but you are ignoring the FACTS to propagate political lies. I would think you have enough legitimate issues with Trump without have to beat this old dead horse. You post gets four Pinocchios.
Larry, Before you award those Pinocchios, I suggest that you reread the report. Your memory is obviously failing. The justice department that did not bring charges against trump (or others) was led by none other than Bill Barr, who lied in his synopsis of the report (per mueller) so not too surprising he didn’t bring charges. You and other Republicans are unable to grasp the enormity of trumps lying and obstruction which caused an incomplete evaluation by mueller. Even an idiot such as yourself should be able to look at the facts and realize that trump was eager to receive Russian assistance in his quest to ruin the country and become president. Instead you prefer to believe the sanitized version of the investigation put out by Barr and others. The Pinocchio’s belong to you (as is usually the case). In case you are too busy playing tennis to read the report, I have attached a review below. Happy reading! https://www.acslaw.org/projects/the-presidential-investigation-education-project/other-resources/key-findings-of-the-mueller-report/
Mikef … you are doubling down on lies — stupid lies. Nothing in the link you provided counters anything in my commentary. You are fighting facts with factoids. The fact that you want to believe the Trump campaign criminally conspired with Russia n meddling — and want to believe that he is guilty of obstructions of justice — the FACTS remain that Mueller said Trump did not conspire and no one has even been indicted for conspiring with Russian meddling — and Trump has never been indicted for obstruction of justice in conjunction with the case. The Pinoccchios are yours.
Larry, I realize you are blind when it comes to seeing the wrong doing of republicans, but this is ridiculous. What about the meeting that trump aids had with Russians that promised dirt on Hillary (which included little Donny and Jerrod)? What about the obstruction that mueller discusses to his investigation? While neither of these warranted charging under Barr justice, there is a lot of smoke for you and others to claim there was no fire. Durham certainly found far less in his investigation than Mueller looking at the criminal prosecution. And were any of the alleged wrongdoings attributable to Hillary as your title suggests? Her campaign may have funded the Steele dossier (after being started by republicans) but they had nothing to do with starting either the FBI investigation or the Mueller investigation. Never expect factual information when I read your tomes, but this is much worse than usual….
MF: I do agree that Larry has a Trumpian blind spot that disallows him from seeing hundreds of Russian meetings, Manafort turning over election data to the Russians, and Mueller saying the fact he could not prove it did not mean he was unconcerned. Plus, given the encryption, lies, etc. Mueller said hard to peal the onion.
My question has always been Mueller on the money. He hired the best financial forensics team, it was a bunch of great people, and —- nada, not even a rationale as to finding or not finding anything. Mueller never talked and has virtually disappeared from the scene.
BUT —- Hillary did the dirty trick; the FBI totally screwed up, the FISA on Page was bogus, and basically —-the FBI jumped the gun. I think it was the right thing to investigate, but this was most certainly the wrong way.
But the bottom line is DeadHam found nothing indictable and what he did prosecute was two balls, one strike, pretty lame. At $7M, he was cheap though.
Yes, it was a dirty trick way back in 2016 and we have known that for awhile. So what? Donald Trump’s best friend, Roger Stone, advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, is renown as the best dirty trickster that Republicans have ever seen. Does anyone believe he stopped in 2016? Trump himself is the master of the dirty trick starting with his famed “a lot of people say” word trick and so many more in-your-face spoken gambits. Aren’t The Big Lie and The Deep State Trumpian dirty tricks? Constant repetition of lies, defamation, and innuendos in his stock in dirty trick trade. Certainly this shit is not true, even Durham could not find The Deep State for his report; the main Trump noted villains in all this.
Larry, who, in another post, states: “First, there was that mantra about the 2020 election being “rigged.” I have never stepped into that quicksand because it is mostly a distraction and a moot point. He made those claims during the recount period and after. We have all heard it many times” is more than willing to regurgitate the already known, tell us one more time, as he hacks up once again from the Durham report as if it is hot news, direct from 2016 solely because it includes the word: HILLARY.
Of course, he does not note that there is no indictable crime here. He does not note that FBI failures have been fixed years ago.
That’s called hypocrisy, and Larry does it here once again as is his way. I ask him to tease out anything NEW that the Durham report has in it, as in NEWS. He won’t, but I can ask.
Otherwise, experts conclude:
“The FBI investigation of former President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in 2016 was “seriously flawed” and had no basis in evidence, special counsel John Durham said in a report released Monday” which is certainly yesterday’s news but the main conclusion of Larry’s fabulous revelations. Sounds bad, almost as bad as Larry paints it, but wait, there’s more: “It is the Office’s assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia,” said the report” most of which has been “fixed” by the FBI as Larry knows, but does not mention here.
“An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for [the investigation], but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not,” said the report.”
“Mueller ended his investigation in March 2019 after finding no evidence of a conspiracy between the then-president and Russia” although Mueller had much more to say including that this was not an exoneration, just not enough evidence to indict.
“Durham found investigators ignored exculpatory evidence, put too much stock in information provided by Trump’s political opponents, and carried out surveillance without genuinely believing there was probable cause to do so.” Again, nothing new.
BUT: here’s the NEWS that Larry ignores: “However, Durham stopped short of recommending significant reforms to the FBI, writing that “the answer is not the creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old.” Case closed, end of story.
“The report further corroborates key details of the saga, including that Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, was aware her campaign was indirectly paying former British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on supposed Trump-Russia ties,” a trip down memory lane Larry is overjoyed to rehash one more time, but Trump’s Big Lie —– no way, Jose.
“Durham’s report also confirms and fleshes out details about the awareness of senior officials, including then-President Barack Obama and the leaders of the FBI and CIA, about a claim that Clinton engineered the controversy around Trump’s possible collusion with the Kremlin.”
“Durham concluded his investigation, which ended up running longer than the probe that triggered it, without achieving the promise of spectacular accountability for the so-called “deep state” yearned for by 76-year-old Trump’s supporters,” which again Larry fails to observe and report.
And the tale of this tape: “Over Durham’s more than four years of work, he achieved just one guilty plea, with former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith copping in 2020 to falsifying documents in order to get a surveillance warrant against Trump campaign aide Carter Page renewed. Two other court cases, brought against Danchenko and former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann ended in swift acquittals.”
Oh yeah, did Larry mention: “The FBI acknowledged the Durham report on Monday with a muted mea culpa, saying: “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.”
Larry, before you toss ad hominins as usual with your childish names and petty grievances against me personally, please note that the former, in quotes, sans my comments, is from The New York Post, hardly a left-wing bastion of the news.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/15/fbi-doj-failed-to-observe-fidelity-to-the-law-in-trump-russia-investigation-durham/amp/
So Trump demolishes Biden and restores sanity to the Border and the economy. What the hell else matters, other than if the knuckleheads in the Media did not lie so often with impunity and Trump would’ve won in 2020. we would NOT have the massive chaos and potential collapse of the U.S. that we now are living. So FU to the leftists lying Media, the entire DNC, and the Deep State that owns their sorry butts. I hope Trump kicks the living crap out of the DNC, and fires every single top level official criminal running government our agencies and replaces them with people who ACTUALLY know what the hell they are doing.