OPINION:
CNN’s host of “The Lead,” Jake Tapper, acknowledged the long-awaited Durham report of Justice Department and FBI actions regarding the whole Russia collusion, Russia collusion, Russia collusion narrative does indeed, “to a degree,” “exonerate Donald Trump.”
And that’s even more astonishing than the Durham report findings.
The headline from MSNBC: “Durham report, long-awaited by Trump supporters, fails to deliver on hype.”
The headline from CBS: “Durham report criticizes FBI’s investigation of Trump campaign.”
The headline from Fox: “Bombshell Durham report confirms FBI, Justice Department had these radical motives.”
What’s the truth? Which way to believe? More Fox. Less MSNBC.
Tapper headed in the right direction.
“[T]he years-long investigation is over,” Tapper said, as Breitbart reported. “And John Durham, the special counsel investigating whether there was any misconduct by the FBI in the Trump-Russia investigation just released his findings. For years … Trump and his supporters pinned their hopes on the investigation … arguing it would exonerate him from any hint of improper behavior regarding the Russian government’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.”
And did it. Boy, did it.
“[T]he report is now here. It has dropped, and it might not have produced everything of what some Republicans hoped for,” Tapper said. “It is, regardless, devastating to the FBI and to a degree, it does exonerate Donald Trump.”
It actually does more than that.
It shows the FBI is a political weapon of the political world — worthy of disbanding.
It shows the FBI knew almost immediately that the whole Russia collusion messaging against Trump had come straight from political Team Hillary Clinton’s playbooks. And that the leading Democrat politicians knew, too.
It showed how the media put its collective anti-Trump bias before its supposed watchdog-of-the-people mission and ran with the innuendos, whispers, rumors, drummed-up accusations and fabrications of Russia collusion. You think The New York Times is going to give back its Pulitzer? How about The Washington Post?
Durham confirmed that the FBI knew the dossier that gave the media the racy anti-Trump headlines was bunk — bought and paid by Clinton rats — and that the FBI failed to tell others it was bunk. That’s called coverup. And when the FBI then obtained FISA warrants under these false circumstances — that’s called egregious coverup. The stuff of Stasi.
Heads should roll at the FBI.
“Special counsel John Durham concludes FBI never should have launched full Trump-Russia probe,” CNN wrote in its headline.
CNN.
It’s so bad that even Tapper and his CNN cronies have to admit it.
Durham, in his 300-plus page report, wrote that the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence” for its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of Trump — of Russia collusion — of nonstop, ever-drumming, endless and vicious anti-Trump, Russia collusion narrative. Simultaneously, the FBI failed to exert the same level of investigative pressure toward Clinton’s campaign over so-called Russia election interference, Durham found.
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, 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,” Durham wrote.
Moreover, “at least on the part of certain personnel intimately involved in the matter, [there was] a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump.”
That’s called a witch hunt.
Once again, Trump proves correct.
The disappointment is the report stopped short of calling for “wholesale changes” at the FBI, specifically in how its agents and officials and directors deal with politically tainted matters.
“The answer is not the creation of new rules,” Durham wrote, “but a renewed fidelity to the old.”
Well, you can’t have justice without accountability.
You can’t return to “fidelity to the old” without getting rid of “the old” that facilitated the unfaithfulness in the first place.
This is where Congress comes in; this is where Congress should act.
If Americans can’t trust their federal law enforcement and investigative agencies to act in manners that protect the Constitution, then these agencies must be shattered and disposed of — or at the very least, reorganized at leadership levels.
A Justice Department that isn’t just is a threat against American citizens. And nobody knows that better these days than Trump.
Even mainstream media can’t deny that.
Trump was the target of a witch hunt and the bigger questions now, heading into 2024’s elections, are these: Who’s next? What’s next?
Americans deserve better. Only by punishing the liars will Americans get the ’better’ they deserve.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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