For the past several years, the MAGA faction of the reactionary Right has waited with bated breath for the results of an investigation by Special Counsel John Durham into the FBI’s probe of former President Trump’s ties to Russia. To hear the Right tell it, the Durham Report was going to expose the “Deep State,” how it had it in for Donald Trump and undermined our free and fair elections, and the report would lead to countless criminal prosecutions, we were promised.
Instead, the report, which came out this week, turns out to be a 300-page demerit for the FBI for not thoroughly vetting information with sufficient “analytical rigor.”
That’s it.
The report’s underwhelming nature was certainly not for lack of trying. Previously, Durham tried his hand at prosecuting alleged offenders, but his efforts yielded a single guilty plea, from Kevin Clinesmith, a low level FBI lawyer. Clinesmith was sentenced to one year of probation and 400 hours of community service for altering an email to an FBI agent and downplaying Trump campaign advisor Carter Page’s past relationship with the CIA. Meanwhile, the two times the Special Counsel went to court, he lost; both Igor Danchencko and Michael Sussman were charged by Durham with lying to the FBI, and both were found not guilty.
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As for the four-year long investigation, carried out at taxpayer expense, it did not produce any significant new information. The flaws of the Steele Dossier, which was used to procure a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant, have been known for quite some time. Other criticisms of the FBI in the report just repeat the findings of a 2019 Inspector General report, which also criticized the Trump-Russia probe, and in response to which the FBI has already implemented changes.
In fact, even Durham acknowledges that the FBI did have enough information to launch a preliminary review of Trump’s ties to Russia. Those findings are consistent with the Mueller Report, which did not specifically conclude that Trump collaborated with Russians but did show several links between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Durham also acknowledges that it was known that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers, and that Trump publicly asked Russia to produce emails by his opponent in the 2016 election, Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, thinking they would be politically damaging.
That’s why the report doesn’t clear Trump. The former President’s actions may not have risen to the level of secret collusion, but only because his words were stated in public, making it a hazy First Amendment issue.
In other words, the report was a dud, fodder for Right wing blogs and cable news channels, but nothing of true national interest. It amounts to a strongly worded negative performance review.
Still, expect Trumpian TV pundits and the former President himself to make a mountain out of this molehill. Congressman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has already promised to use Durham’s report to show that the government is being weaponized against Trump and his allies. Jordan has tried many stunts to get his weaponization claims to take hold outside Donald Trump’s strongest circles of support, though thus far, they’ve all fallen flat due to lack of solid evidence.
Unfortunately for Jordan, Durham’s report isn’t likely to change that.
Indeed, while the Right claims that the Biden Administration and DOJ brass have been interfering in investigations, the real headline here is that they have not: Durham specifically thanked Attorney General Merrick Garland for allowing his investigation to continue unimpeded. Garland did not redact, summarize, or preempt Durham’s report—all of which Bill Barr did when it came to the Mueller report.
Still, there is a cost to this Special Counsel Report. The result will be that the FBI is less likely to investigate corruption from politicians seeking the presidency and those who may be compromised by foreign entities. Durham is correct that the FBI did a terrible job when it came to allegations of collusion between Trump and Russia, but we are now in danger of the powerful and most corrupt on both sides of the political spectrum not receiving the scrutiny they deserve, and grassroots activists bearing the full weight of the federal government.
If Trump returns to the White House, he is likely to gut the Bureau and fill it with loyalists who will key in on his perceived political enemies. If that happens, there is nothing to stop future Democrats and Republicans from doing the same. In the worst case scenario, this could send us down the road of recreating the old FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.
All of which is to say, the findings of the Durham report may be negligible, but its impact will be significant.
Dr. Jason Nichols is an award winning senior lecturer in the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland College Park and was the longtime editor-in-chief of Words Beats & Life: The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.