The Durham Report shows that there was indeed a witch hunt
President Donald Trump
Purely Political, By James Buckley
Who would have thought that an off-the-cuff statement by Donald Trump during a televised debate with Hillary Clinton during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election would have led to an ugly and convoluted set of circumstances that resulted in the dissembling of the Trump presidency?
But it apparently did.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’ll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump quipped during that televised debate. And that’s what set everything in motion.
Hard to believe, but there was a large group of Democratic operatives just waiting to unload on Mr. Trump at the first opportunity, and this proved to be that opportunity.
The first incident in this tangled web of accusations and falsehoods began with, according to Special Counsel John Durham’s report, “comments reportedly made in a tavern on May 6, 2016, by George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign.”
Upon receipt of this “unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI (specifically Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) swiftly opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately.”
Agent Strzok was already on record as referring to Mr. Trump as “loathsome,” “an idiot,” “someone who should lose to Clinton 100,000,000 to 0,” and a person who “we’ll stop from becoming President.”
Durham’s report details how the director of the CIA briefed President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and others that there was evidence the Hillary Clinton campaign was planning “to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.”
Within days, the FBI launched its Trump campaign probe Crossfire Hurricane and opened full investigations on four members of the Trump campaign team: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.
Hillary’s team, meanwhile, had its Steele Dossier, put together by ex-Brit counterintelligence officer Christopher Steele, at the ready.
Mr. Steele’s main source of what turned out to have been Russian disinformation was Igor Danchenko, a man identified as an associate of two FBI counterintelligence subjects and who had previous contact with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers.
Another of Mr. Steele’s sources was a man named Charles Dolan, a Virginia-based public relations professional “who had previously held multiple positions and roles in the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party.” Mr. Dolan was known to have maintained relationships with several key Russian government officials, including Dimitry Peskov, the powerful press secretary of the Russian presidential administration.
“…during the relevant time period,” the report continues, “Dolan maintained a business relationship with Olga Galkina, a childhood friend of Danchenko, who, according to Danchenko, was a key source for many of the allegations contained in the Steele Reports. In fact, when Galkina was interviewed by the FBI in August 2017, she admitted to providing Dolan with information that would later appear in the Steele Reports.”
Nevertheless, and though the FBI was aware of Dolan and his connections with the Democrat Party, no agent ever interviewed him.
Can you say Ray Epps?
In other words, the Hillary Clinton campaign used unverified and uncorroborated Russian disinformation as its instrument to smear Donald Trump with the charge of collusion with Russia.
And the FBI didn’t bother to follow up on a lead that could have exonerated the president.
Everything Trump supporters suspected at first and then understood instinctively was all in fact, accurate.
That, right from the start, the efforts to prevent Donald Trump from ever getting elected and afterward the effort to remove him was indeed a “Witch Hunt.”
That presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign really was “bugged,” just as Mr. Trump had charged.
That there was no “collusion” between President Donald Trump, or any of his associates, relatives, pals, or acquaintances with Russia or President Putin.
That the “Steele Dossier” was a load of rubbish, or as President Biden called the very real Hunter Biden laptop (knowing he was lying), “garbage.”
That FBI Director James Comey had it in for President Trump and skirted FBI protocols and procedures to pursue a case against President Trump.
That FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page really were out to make sure Mr. Trump would not be elected president.
That the Steele Dossier used as evidence to initiate FISA court searches was bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.
That the first impeachment effort against President Trump was a sham, perpetrated by the Hillary campaign and pursued by FBI agents at the top of the food chain. The second impeachment attempt was simply political madness.
There’s more, much more, and the conclusion of the 306-page report (all of which I just finished reading) is that the FBI failed in its stated goal of maintaining “fidelity, bravery and integrity” during its assigned duties.
“Given the foregoing,” the report concludes, “and viewing the facts in a light most favorable to the Crossfire Hurricane investigators … 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.”
Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators “repeatedly ignore(d) or explain(ed) away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign … had conspired with Russia…. It appeared that … there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent. An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes.
“Unfortunately, it did not.”
As it stands, none of the perpetrators of this colossal anti-democratic scheme — Hillary Clinton, Christopher Steele, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Susan Rice and other co-conspirators in the press and the media — will pay any price, or endure any hardship or penalty for their lies, false charges and fake “investigations.”
Democracies, particularly our Constitutional Republic, seem ill-equipped to handle these kinds of seditious acts by its most powerful actors. When an outsider — and Donald J. Trump was the most outside-the-mainstream winning candidate for the presidency in U.S. history — beats a seasoned insider like Hillary Clinton, such an event sends seismic shockwaves throughout the governmental apparatus.
Mr. Trump’s victory, it seems, threatened the livelihood of every living bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
So they got rid of him the easiest way they know how: by fabricating the Big Lie — that Trump was a Russian plant — and telling it often enough that people would begin to believe it. And, with the ongoing help of a pliable media all during the Trump presidency, the lie wormed its way into the national psyche.
Establishment operatives then successfully managed to corrupt the voting process in favor of its chosen candidate in 2020 (Joe Biden).
They won.
Maybe even by colluding with China, which dutifully introduced a virus that ravaged their nation and ours, all in the pursuit of re-establishing what they considered “normalcy.”
Hey, it’s just a theory, but who knows what to believe anymore?
James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com. Readers are invited to visit jimb.substack.com, where Jim’s Journals are on file. He also invites people to subscribe to Jim’s Journal.
