The Weaponized Durham "Investigation"

 

Here's a case "Gym" Jordan can tee up for his "Weaponization of the Federal Government" submoron subcommittee, though in the Malignant Loser's regime, when they weaponized the Federal Government, they often ended up firing the weapon at themselves:

Egged on by Mr. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr set out in 2019 to dig into their shared theory that the Russia investigation likely stemmed from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. To lead the inquiry, Mr. Barr turned to a hard-nosed prosecutor named John H. Durham, and later granted him special counsel status to carry on after Mr. Trump left office.

But after almost four years — far longer than the Russia investigation itself — Mr. Durham’s work is coming to an end without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.

Moreover, a monthslong review by The New York Times found that the main thrust of the Durham inquiry was marked by some of the very same flaws — including a strained justification for opening it and its role in fueling partisan conspiracy theories that would never be charged in court — that Trump allies claim characterized the Russia investigation.

Interviews by The Times with more than a dozen current and former officials have revealed an array of previously unreported episodes that show how the Durham inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes as it went unsuccessfully down one path after another even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading narrative of its progress. (our emphasis)

Some key points noted in the article (our emphasis):

-- Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham never disclosed that their inquiry expanded in the fall of 2019, based on a tip from Italian officials, to include a criminal investigation into suspicious financial dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the tip and how they handled the investigation remain unclear, but Mr. Durham brought no charges over it.

-- Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is a favorite target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursuing the emails even after a judge twice rejected his request for access to them. The emails yielded no evidence that Mr. Durham has cited in any case he pursued.

-- There were deeper internal fractures on the Durham team than previously known. The publicly unexplained resignation in 2020 of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. A year later, two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy, and one left the team in protest of Mr. Durham’s decision to proceed anyway. (A jury swiftly acquitted the lawyer.) ...

The Times report confirms what many clearly saw as a politically- weaponized effort to discredit the Russia-Trump collusion investigation and the investigators, and to try to implicate Hillary Clinton in a conspiracy to invent a Trump/Russia connection, all at the behest of the corrupt Russian tool, the Malignant Loser.  But the effort, built on a lie as so many things Trump, turned out as an embarrassing bust, further tarnishing the already foul tenure and reputation of Attorney General "Low" Barr and his poodle Durham.  Not only did the "investigation" not produce the results intended, but it actually turned up potential evidence of more financial crimes by the Malignant Loser (did he ever engage in anything legal?).  But when news of a "criminal investigation" leaked out, Barr and Durham left the impression that it involved Hillary Clinton or the investigators, not the Malignant Loser!

Among the many questions raised by the Times report for the Justice Department is what were the "suspicious financial dealings" the Italians tipped Barr and Durham on, what investigation was conducted, and why were no charges brought?   The answer to that last question could involve a coverup and obstruction of justice should evidence of the Malignant Loser's "suspicious financial dealings" have been ignored or suppressed.  Given how Barr was, and still is, engaged in a full scale effort to whitewash the Malignant Loser's involvement with Russia -- including his infamous narrative- setting memo in advance of the Mueller report -- it's no leap at all to imagine that a coverup indeed took place.

Get to work, Gym Jordan DOJ!