The Durham Report has finally come out. As expected, we are getting dueling reactions from the news media. While Fox News describes it as devasting, the other cable news channels (CNN and MSNBC) are dismissing it as a flop. Here is my take. (I have read the executive summary (pp 7-19) but not yet the entire report.
While no new indictments have been issued and no recommendations for reform within the DOJ and FBI have been made (since they are supposedly already put in place), the report is daming as to the FBI and its operation called Crossfire Hurricane. As we basically already knew (except for CNN and MSNBC), the FBI used unverified and ultimately false information alleging that former President Trump (then-candidate Trump) was working with the Russians to win the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. Relying on the now-discredited Steele Report (which was ultimately commissioned and paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign), the FBI obtained a FISA court order to conduct electronic surveillance on Carter Page, who was working for the Trump campaign. The FBI alleged (incorrectly) that Page was a conduit to the Russians.
According to the Durham Report, the FBI disregarded virtually every accepted practice of verifying sources of information and rushing to judgment in an effort to destroy Trump, in a manner quite the opposite from how they conducted the Hillary Clinton email investigation. People like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok came in for particular criticism, as well they should have.
The FBI top leadership acted in a manner antithetical to how any law enforcement agency in a democracy should act. What these people attempted to do was use their positions as top FBI officials to sway the outcome of a presidential election. Yes, I am disappointed that the Durham investigation didn't result in more successful prosecutions (2 acquittals and one guilty plea by FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith). That said, the news media can pooh-pooh this all they want. CNN and MSNBC can trot out their disgraced "legal analysts" (McCabe and Strzok), to criticize Durham all they want. They both are an embarrassment to these so-called news outlets. Every time they appear on these networks speaks volumes about the credibility of CNN and MSNBC. Nothing they say can change the fact that McCabe and Strzok were fired from the FBI. They are disgraced former FBI agents. (Strzok is now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University-an embarrassment for that institution as well.)
If reforms have been instituted within the FBI to prevent future scandals of this nature, that is a welcome development. However, what is also needed is a change of culture in the FBI. For too long, they have believed that they are superior to other law enforcement agencies and that they can do things their law enforcement counterparts cannot do.
The lesson of the Durham Report is that law enforcement should never be weaponized for political purposes. That is precisely what happened here.
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