According to Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten, the Durham report didn’t go far enough in its investigation and left many stones unturned.
Special counsel John Durham has released his long-awaited report into the origins of “Russiagate” and the subsequent investigations. The report is an indictment of our national security and law enforcement apparatus at its highest levels of our justice system, and also to a degree of the special counsel itself, corroborating much of what I’ve been arguing for months here at Straight Arrow News.
Durham’s report lays out unequivocally that Trump-Russia collusion, which was used to de-legitimize, destabilize and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency — casting a pall over that presidency and subverting its efforts — was a farce from the very beginning. As the report notes, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Further, one of the chief errors from the start of the Crossfire Hurricane [investigation] was the poor analysis the FBI brought to bear on the critical pieces of information that it had gathered, as well as an over-reliance on flawed or incomplete human intelligence that only later was found to be plainly unreliable.
Special Counsel John Durham has released his long-awaited report into the origins of Russiagate and the subsequent investigations. The report is an indictment of our national security and law enforcement apparatus at its highest levels of our justice system, and also to a degree of the Special Counsel itself, corroborating much of what I’ve been arguing for months here at Straight Arrow News.
Durham’s report lays out unequivocally that Trump-Russia collusion, which was used to de-legitimize, destabilize and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency — casting a pall over that presidency and subverting its efforts — was a farce from the very beginning. As the report notes, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Further, one of the chief errors from the start of the Crossfire Hurricane was the poor analysis the FBI brought to bear on the critical pieces of information that it had gathered, as well as an over-reliance on flawed or incomplete human intelligence that only later was found to be plainly unreliable.
The report in fact lays out a bevy of items the FBI discounted or willfully ignored, constituting material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. The investigators covered their eyes and plugged their ears in the face of any and all exculpatory evidence and didn’t take obvious steps that would have removed all doubt, including interviewing implicated people.
There’s line after line in the report showing middle-tier employees of the FBI wondering what it was their superiors knew that they didn’t about why they were pursuing pathetic unsupported leads. The informants and sources the FBI ran got virtually nothing for their efforts. Many of them were wholly dubious and discredited individuals. Even when the shoddiness of the idea that George Papadopoulis had the goods on Trump-Russia collusion, or Carter Page was a traitor at the heart of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, or that the Steele Dossier was the Holy Grail of the entire case was obvious that it was all garbage, the authorities pursued it in their pursuit of Trump, eviscerating the rights of those they used to try and get to him.
Durham concludes “that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.” Talk about an understatement. The second major takeaway is that almost no one is paid for what Durham shows is arguably a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels to make a criminal conspiracy case against political foes based on opposition research passed along by the dirtiest of tricksters, the Hillary Clinton campaign and its surrogates, and using the most awesome national security apparatus in history, and a winning media — all to invalidate the votes of tens of millions of Americans and halt a genuine transfer of power.
We the People got three lousy false statements cases, only one of them against the government official and a low level one at that, and a handful of referrals. The absolute best you can say is that Durham didn’t bring these cases, despite demonstrating in stark detail their merits, because he knew that a Deep State-aligned jury in DC or Virginia would never convict, as the false statement cases he brought illustrated.
This should be unacceptable to the American people and calls into question whether such cases should be pulled out of these venues. The third major takeaway is that Durham’s own report seems to have been deficient. He let people who should have been compelled to interview skate, and omitted from his own report much that should have been pursued. Amazingly, he never spoke with some of the most significant participants in overseers of, or obfuscators about, this conspiracy.
Here’s a non-complete list of people who declined to interview with Durham, yet he never subpoenaed or who it appears he never even considered asking to interview: Peter Strzok, Bill Prestap, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Kevin Clinesmith, Rodney Joffee, Mard Elias, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko. Last but not least, there’s Barack Obama himself, the Commander-in-Chief, who was overseeing all of these individuals in the national security apparatus and their co-conspirators when all of this was put into motion.
What’s more, the Special Counsel did not probe the DNC hack central to the broader Russian interference charge linked to Trump-Russia collusion. He didn’t probe the Mueller Special Counsel, which itself should have known and almost certainly did know what Durham found from the start — that this whole thing was a baseless conspiracy theory, and the investigators did everything they could to avoid reaching that conclusion.
He did not probe the mysterious Professor Joseph Massoud or other Clinton-linked dossiers that circulated, or informants Stefan Halper’s dubious deeds at Cambridge, as far as we can tell. Every aspect of Russiagate from its origins to the closing of this report is a national disgrace, in effect, rewarding the systemic rot, corruption and weaponization of the very critical institutions in which we can least afford it. And as I’ve said from the start, because no one pays, it guarantees even more egregious scandals to come.
In addition to the facts, we believe it’s vital to hear perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum. We hope these different voices will help you reach your own conclusions.
The opinions published in this section are solely those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of Straight Arrow News.
Ben Weingarten
Share
. . .
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
More from Ben
Commentary
Our commentary partners will help you reach your own conclusions on complex topics.
Here are the hard facts about de-dollarization
Friday
Peter Zeihan
Is Saudi Arabia ditching the US dollar for the Chinese yuan?
Friday
Peter Zeihan
Expect a last-minute compromise on the debt ceiling
Friday
Peter Zeihan
Do Americans blame Biden or Congress for the debt ceiling crisis?
Thursday
Dr. Frank Luntz
Durham report on alleged Trump-Russia collusion falls short
Tuesday
Share
. . .
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
By
The FBI should never have launched a full investigation into collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, according to special counsel John Durham in a report compiled over three years and released on May 15. In the report, Durham wrote, “We conclude that the [Justice] Department and FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
According to Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten, the Durham report didn’t go far enough in its investigation and left many stones unturned.
Special counsel John Durham has released his long-awaited report into the origins of “Russiagate” and the subsequent investigations. The report is an indictment of our national security and law enforcement apparatus at its highest levels of our justice system, and also to a degree of the special counsel itself, corroborating much of what I’ve been arguing for months here at Straight Arrow News.
Durham’s report lays out unequivocally that Trump-Russia collusion, which was used to de-legitimize, destabilize and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency — casting a pall over that presidency and subverting its efforts — was a farce from the very beginning. As the report notes, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Further, one of the chief errors from the start of the Crossfire Hurricane [investigation] was the poor analysis the FBI brought to bear on the critical pieces of information that it had gathered, as well as an over-reliance on flawed or incomplete human intelligence that only later was found to be plainly unreliable.
Special Counsel John Durham has released his long-awaited report into the origins of Russiagate and the subsequent investigations. The report is an indictment of our national security and law enforcement apparatus at its highest levels of our justice system, and also to a degree of the Special Counsel itself, corroborating much of what I’ve been arguing for months here at Straight Arrow News.
Durham’s report lays out unequivocally that Trump-Russia collusion, which was used to de-legitimize, destabilize and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency — casting a pall over that presidency and subverting its efforts — was a farce from the very beginning. As the report notes, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Further, one of the chief errors from the start of the Crossfire Hurricane was the poor analysis the FBI brought to bear on the critical pieces of information that it had gathered, as well as an over-reliance on flawed or incomplete human intelligence that only later was found to be plainly unreliable.
The report in fact lays out a bevy of items the FBI discounted or willfully ignored, constituting material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. The investigators covered their eyes and plugged their ears in the face of any and all exculpatory evidence and didn’t take obvious steps that would have removed all doubt, including interviewing implicated people.
There’s line after line in the report showing middle-tier employees of the FBI wondering what it was their superiors knew that they didn’t about why they were pursuing pathetic unsupported leads. The informants and sources the FBI ran got virtually nothing for their efforts. Many of them were wholly dubious and discredited individuals. Even when the shoddiness of the idea that George Papadopoulis had the goods on Trump-Russia collusion, or Carter Page was a traitor at the heart of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, or that the Steele Dossier was the Holy Grail of the entire case was obvious that it was all garbage, the authorities pursued it in their pursuit of Trump, eviscerating the rights of those they used to try and get to him.
Durham concludes “that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.” Talk about an understatement. The second major takeaway is that almost no one is paid for what Durham shows is arguably a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels to make a criminal conspiracy case against political foes based on opposition research passed along by the dirtiest of tricksters, the Hillary Clinton campaign and its surrogates, and using the most awesome national security apparatus in history, and a winning media — all to invalidate the votes of tens of millions of Americans and halt a genuine transfer of power.
We the People got three lousy false statements cases, only one of them against the government official and a low level one at that, and a handful of referrals. The absolute best you can say is that Durham didn’t bring these cases, despite demonstrating in stark detail their merits, because he knew that a Deep State-aligned jury in DC or Virginia would never convict, as the false statement cases he brought illustrated.
This should be unacceptable to the American people and calls into question whether such cases should be pulled out of these venues. The third major takeaway is that Durham’s own report seems to have been deficient. He let people who should have been compelled to interview skate, and omitted from his own report much that should have been pursued. Amazingly, he never spoke with some of the most significant participants in overseers of, or obfuscators about, this conspiracy.
Here’s a non-complete list of people who declined to interview with Durham, yet he never subpoenaed or who it appears he never even considered asking to interview: Peter Strzok, Bill Prestap, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Kevin Clinesmith, Rodney Joffee, Mard Elias, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko. Last but not least, there’s Barack Obama himself, the Commander-in-Chief, who was overseeing all of these individuals in the national security apparatus and their co-conspirators when all of this was put into motion.
What’s more, the Special Counsel did not probe the DNC hack central to the broader Russian interference charge linked to Trump-Russia collusion. He didn’t probe the Mueller Special Counsel, which itself should have known and almost certainly did know what Durham found from the start — that this whole thing was a baseless conspiracy theory, and the investigators did everything they could to avoid reaching that conclusion.
He did not probe the mysterious Professor Joseph Massoud or other Clinton-linked dossiers that circulated, or informants Stefan Halper’s dubious deeds at Cambridge, as far as we can tell. Every aspect of Russiagate from its origins to the closing of this report is a national disgrace, in effect, rewarding the systemic rot, corruption and weaponization of the very critical institutions in which we can least afford it. And as I’ve said from the start, because no one pays, it guarantees even more egregious scandals to come.
Durham report on alleged Trump-Russia collusion falls short
The FBI should never have launched a full investigation into collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, according to special counsel John Durham in a report compiled over three years and released on May 15. In the report, Durham wrote, “We conclude that the [Justice] Department and FBI failed to uphold their
Tuesday
My House subcommittee testimony on censorship laundering
A subcommittee of the House’s Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on May 11 called “Censorship Laundering: How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Enables the Silencing of Dissent.” Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) said the hearing would examine possible government overreach in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that could be used to monitor
May 16
Will lawsuits finally hold Biden censorship regime accountable?
Recent lawsuits shine a light on actions by the Biden administration and private companies to allegedly censor Americans. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency’s (CISA) efforts to fight COVID-19 misinformation have raised concerns about government overreach. Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten says the latest lawsuit could expose Big Tech’s attempts to quiet political and
May 9
TikTok killer RESTRICT Act is too broad for its own good
Calls for banning TikTok seem to be one of few items Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days. And now comes the RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) that’s making its way through Congress. Also known as the TikTok ban, the Act gives power to the U.S.
May 2
Is Jack Teixeira a leaker or a whistleblower?
After they received a briefing on the classified documents leaked by U.S. airman Jack Teixeira, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed their concern about whether intelligence agencies are capable of preventing another leak. “I certainly wasn’t satisfied with any plans they have in place to prevent this from happening in the future,” Intelligence Committee
Apr 25
more +
Stories each side is underreporting
Ex-chief priest of Sri Mariamman Temple jailed for repeatedly pawning temple jewellery for over S$2 million
7 sources | 17% from the left
B.C.’s minimum wage to be highest among provinces starting June 1
19 sources | 0% from the right
Latest Stories
U.S. Marshals Service
US Marshals find 225 missing kids as young as 6 months in massive operation
Watch 1:53
30 mins ago
Reuters
Proposed rare earths mine raises environmental concerns in Nebraska
Watch 4:49
2 hrs ago
AP
Congress to debate, vote on debt ceiling deal before US default: May 30 rundown
Watch 6:22
3 hrs ago
Getty Images
The EU is close to regulating AI. What about us?
Watch 4:02
Yesterday
AP
Biden, McCarthy strike deal to avoid default. Now it’s up to Congress.
Read
Yesterday
Popular Opinions
In addition to the facts, we believe it’s vital to hear perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum.
Montana’s TikTok ban will be nearly impossible to enforce
1 hr ago
David Pakman
Sen. Tim Scott can move America past race-based politics
Friday
Star Parker
NAACP is right to warn Black people to avoid DeSantis’ Florida
Friday
Dr. Rashad Richey
DeSantis is right to oppose government subsidies for Disney
Thursday
Timothy Carney
Latest Opinions
In addition to the facts, we believe it’s vital to hear perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum. We hope these different voices will help you reach your own conclusions.
The opinions published in this section are solely those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of Straight Arrow News.
Ruben Navarrette
Columnist, host & authorStar Parker
Founder & President, Center for Urban Renewal and EducationWeekly Voices
Monday
David Pakman
Host of The David Pakman ShowLarry Lindsey
President & CEO, The Lindsey GroupTuesday
Ruben Navarrette
Columnist, host & authorBen Weingarten
Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute FellowWednesday
Adrienne Lawrence
Legal commentatorNewt Gingrich
Former House Speaker; Chairman of Gingrich 360Thursday
Jordan Reid
Author; Founding Editor, Ramshackle GlamRobert Doar
President, American Enterprise InstituteOther AEI Contributors
John Fortier
Katherine Zimmerman
Timothy Carney
Matthew Continetti
Friday
Dr. Rashad Richey
National TV Political Analyst, Talk Radio Host, Univ. Prof.Star Parker
Founder & President, Center for Urban Renewal and EducationPolitics
Biden, McCarthy strike deal to avoid default. Now it’s up to Congress.
Yesterday
Trump workers moved boxes day before FBI arrived seeking classified documents
CPAC treasurer resigns, accuses chairman of mismanaging funds
Getty Images
U.S.
US Marshals find 225 missing kids as young as 6 months in massive operation
30 mins ago
Congress to debate, vote on debt ceiling deal before US default: May 30 rundown
Biden, McCarthy strike deal to avoid default. Now it’s up to Congress.
AP Images
International
US, South Korea reach secret deal to send cluster munitions to Ukraine: report
Thursday
China sinks largest US Navy vessel and carrier group in war game simulations
Ukraine, Russia both have reasons to lie about Bakhmut
Telegram: PMC Wagner Group
Tech
The EU is close to regulating AI. What about us?
Yesterday
Ford gets access to Tesla charging tech in surprise deal
Twitter has approved 83% of censorship requests under Elon Musk: report
Getty Images