John Durham Investigation Ends

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

Kudos to the sub-forum. It took an astonishingly long time for accusations of racism to enter this thread. Maybe things are improving slightly?

[BIGDADDYFROMCINCINNATI]

(05-17-2023, 07:39 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Spot on. Selective memory by liberals. Probably believes the Hunter Biden laptop is RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION. It was confirmed by 51 experts it was 100% before the final 2020 debate.

So explain to us why Paul Manafort was charged and convicted and how that should not have allowed a FISA court to allow the investigations.  Also, explain the numerous arrests and convictions of Russian operatives for interfering in the 2016 election. 

[Dill]

(05-17-2023, 08:19 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: The FBI received Russian intelligence analysis in July 2016 alleging that Clinton’s campaign cooked up a scheme to divert attention away from “her use of a private email server,” the Durham report stated.
The alleged scheme, dubbed the “Clinton Plan,” showed that the Clinton campaign “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump “by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee,” the Durham report reads.. . . 
In contrast to the speed at which the FBI opened a full investigation into Trump “on raw, uncorroborated information,” the FBI “never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” Durham wrote.
Durham concluded that Crossfire Hurricane “reflected a noticeable departure” for how the bureau handled cases to Clinton, and said the FBI began their investigation of Trump without appearing “to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement.”
He also found that the FBI had a “predisposition to investigate Trump,” and did not move with “considerable caution,” as it did with cases related to Clinton..
..................................
What we had was a highly respected, esteemed and supposedly of the highest integrity agency of the United States showing favoritism and bias toward a preferred candidate while at the same time showing reckless indifference toward another candidate that members of that agency were found to have personal bias against.  Wanna restate where the outrage should be, once more?

Sunset, before we join this "outrage" bandwagon,* let's compare the WSJ editorial with the Durham Report itself;
at least let me raise some questions about the "findings" cited in the editorial before you make up your mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/1e5f7553-2f27-4adc-b7a5-21e5d3ffd50a.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_1

1. The "Disparate Treatment of Candidates Trump and Clinton," as discussed on pp. 68-98 of the Report, does not SHOW that the Clinton campaign "had approved a . . . plan to stir up scandal against Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians hacking of the DNC."  The purported "plan" turned up in intel on Russia gathered by the CIA, and they could not corroborate it or determine if it was disinformation (81-82). Durham interviewed Clinton campaign members who could not recall the formulation of such a plan, including Hilary, who thought the allegations "ridiculous" but understood that the FBI had to "go down every rabbit hole" (89)  I.e., her campaign was apparently cooperating in its own investigation rather than crying "witch hunt" and obstructing. The worry about the "Clinton Plan" was that they could have funneled disinformation to the FBI which could have influenced its actions. 1st paragraph on page 98 grudgingly admits there was not "sufficient" evidence to prove this "beyond a reasonable doubt." Indeed, since Durham could not produce ANY evidence that it might have occurred. 

Because some members of the Clinton campaign did attempt to tie Trump to Putin and the DNC hack (which, as footnote 393 on page 82 reminds us is a perfectly legal campaign tactic), Durham et al. simply INFER that there must have been a Clinton Plan because the actions of people like Sussman were "consistent" with such a plan. That there actually was a plan is never "shown" as the WSJ editorial claims.

2. This reasoning to the existence of a "Clinton Plan" is, on analogy, similar to what the FBI was doing with the concept of "collusion" in trying to understand why so many in the Trump campaign made or elicited so many Russian contacts. But with this difference--on the Trump side there WAS evidence of something. Remember no one in the Clinton campaign was trying to contact and work with Russian operatives, or already doing so. No meeting between Chelsea and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on the Trump campaign. No Clinton campaign manager with debts to Russian Oligarchs, No National Security advisor lying about clandestine meetings with Russian officials, No Roger Stone claiming contact with Guccifer 2.0 (believed by our CIA to be a Russian intel officer), etc.

When a DNC hack followed Trump's public request for the Russians to find Hilary's missing emails, and Papadopolous' claims about Russian possession of Wikileaks documents (as tipped to us by the Australian government) were corroborated when the dump came--THAT quickly triggered Crossfire Hurricane. 

IT SHOULD HAVE. NOTHING COMPARABLE TO THIS ON THE CLINTON SIDE.  Hence the difference in "caution" and "a predisposition to investigate Trump" at a time when our intel had already established that the Russians were interfering with our election. 

3. Regarding the "Defensive briefing" given the Clinton campaign in Jan. 2016 and the decision not to give the Trump campaign one in July/August, Durham rejects the worry of both the CIA and FBI that they could not know whom to trust in the Trump campaign, given the apparent eagerness of so many in that campaign to work with the Russians for "dirt" on Hilary (72-72). They did not want to tip off Russians that they were investigating campaigns. That doesn't look like evidence of "bias" to me, but an avoidance based on genuine concern that the people briefed might be already working with the Russians. How could they rule out Trump himself?

So just a question, Sunset: How would you handle briefing the Trump campaign under these circumstances, so as not to show favoritism and "bias"?  On what basis could you apply for Clinton wiretaps to show your even-handedness? Durham complains the FBI's application for FISA warrants was "thin," but his requests for Soros foundation emails were outright rejected by a judge, twice, as unwarranted; still he got them through his grand jury powers** and apparently found nothing.  

Still seems to me that "bias" against Trump supposedly exposed in this Report follows the usual GOP dismissal of Trump's own behavior and that of his campaign members, as if grounds for suspicion were always somehow equal between the two campaigns and only "bias" can explain the extra attention to Trump. Not very different from crying "double standard" when the FBI doesn't raid Biden's house because he returned classified documents unasked instead of hiding them, ignoring subpoenas and claiming he had a right to keep them, as Trump did.

Or if not, why not? That question is for anyone.

*I'm still on the outrage bandwagon about Trump's attempted coup, and the fact the he is the GOP frontrunner despite that, so it's not that I'm against outrage bandwagons per se.  
**lol "If GOP special counsels can get away with doing that to a politically active billionaire, imagine what they can do to the average citizen!" 

[Dill]

(05-18-2023, 01:23 PM)GMDino Wrote: Aye.  But, for example, when they say white supremacists/extreme right wingers are the biggest problem in the country suddenly a bunch of people who say they are NOT white supremacists have a problem with what the FBI and DOJ does.  Strange.

NOW they want to defund the agency/police.  Odd.

Careful. Pointing out the discrepancy is "REAL" racism. lol 

"Defund the FBI" because the Durham Report shows how it has been "weaponized." 
Not sure if that is projection or just rhetorical inversion. 

But the FBI was on the job for sure when Comey publicly announced he'd re-opened the Clinton email investigation just before the election.

Anyway, deserving as the FBI is of censure for carelessness and (though often understandable) rush to wiretap (via an investigator exhibiting
similar carelessness), this still seems part of a larger pattern of discrediting persons and institutions which turn their attention to Trump's erratic and apparently often illegal behavior.  

Limbaugh put that project front and center when he proclaimed "the four corners of deceit" were the "government, academia, science, and the media." https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/04/29/the_four_corners_of_deceit_prominent_liberal_social_psychologist_made_it_all_up/
"Defund the FBI" falls under the first, but you get nowhere without first addressing the last:

You've got to sell them on "fake news" before you can sell them on "witch hunts." 

So after the vast, expensive investigations of Whitewater and Benghazi which went on and on until they FINALLY found a political weapon unrelated to the original premises of the investigation, and after numerous Obama investigations that didn't go anywhere, we can raise our eyebrows a little when a four-years-in-the-making recap of the 2019 IG Report, which re-packages most of its "evidence" from that and the Mueller Report,  prompts people to tell us the shoe is FINALLY "on the other foot. How do you like it now?!?"

[Belsnickel]

(05-17-2023, 09:53 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Did you just use 'whataboutism' with me??

No. It was not an effort to diminish what you were saying, just more of a "welcome to the party" kind of thing. Also, see Dill's post.

(05-18-2023, 01:05 PM)Dill Wrote: Not speaking for Bels, but on my assumption about what he was referencing.

The FBI has long been questioned for its handling of leftist and civil rights protestors in the U.S., as well as foreign "terrorists," especially of the Muslim variety. 

It's possible that the carelessness now apparent in parts of the Trump campaign investigation are bringing to light a laxity which was always there in the FBI, but not revealed in depth until a party in power had the power to protect its own by investigating the investigators (with similar laxity).

This is pretty much spot on.

(05-18-2023, 01:45 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Kudos to the sub-forum. It took an astonishingly long time for accusations of racism to enter this thread. Maybe things are improving slightly?

To be fair, I referred to Trump's racism earlier on when calling out all of the other reasons people had to not vote for him prior to the whole Russian collusion debacle.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-18-2023, 07:47 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: To be fair, I referred to Trump's racism earlier on when calling out all of the other reasons people had to not vote for him prior to the whole Russian collusion debacle.

Why'd you have to ruin it for me?  

[Belsnickel]

(05-18-2023, 07:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Why'd you have to ruin it for me?  

I mean, it was just one thing in a long list of his character flaws. I can't really leave it out!