The Patriot Post® · Durham Tells Congress 'Bad Things' Aren't Always Crimes

One can sometimes only marvel at the timing of coinciding events. Hours ahead of Special Counsel John Durham’s closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee yesterday afternoon and a day before his public testimony today with the House Judiciary Committee, Hunter Biden reached a sweetheart plea deal with his dad’s “Justice” Department.

Could there be a more clear picture of two-tiered justice?

Durham’s testimony has been years in the making. He was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019 and tasked with investigating what Donald Trump called the “crime of the century” — the collusion between Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Barack Obama’s DOJ and FBI. In short, Clinton’s campaign paid for completely fabricated intelligence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia, which the FBI then used as the basis — and essentially the only evidence for — its investigation known as “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Durham released a devastating report in May, though because Clinton and Co. did such a thorough job of using cutouts and other methods to mask their own collusion, Durham was only able to secure a guilty plea from one minor player on a couple of minor charges.

And because the FBI released a statement saying basically, Yeah, we already fixed all the things he found wrong, the Leftmedia happily derides Durham’s report as “old news” and “nothing new.”

It proves that Trump and his defenders were right all along. Among the Durham report’s most damning conclusions, it said, “The FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.” In sum, the DOJ and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

Nothing to see here, say the media.

So, to Durham’s testimony. Yesterday’s hearing was behind closed doors, so we don’t know a lot of what was said. But a couple of Republicans did weigh in.

Mike Waltz said his biggest takeaway was this: “The extent to which everybody in the Obama administration knew. They all knew. They were all briefed and they let this happen.”

Darrell Issa sounded a similar note: “John Durham uncovered Hillary Clinton’s attempt to lie her way through the 2016 campaign — and how Obama, Biden, and Comey helped her do it.”

This morning, as part of his opening statement, Durham told the Judiciary Committee, “Our findings were sobering.” He explained, “Anybody who actually reads the report … would find that the problems identified in the report are not susceptible to overnight fixes.” Instead, he offered, “What is required is accountability.”

Watch Special Counsel John Durham’s full opening statement: pic.twitter.com/ktFEJJRI1P

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 21, 2023

Why accountability? Because it was far worse than saying “mistakes were made.” Durham explained: “Confirmation bias as alluded to has to do with the human tendency to accept things we already think are true and to reject anything else. In this instance, there are any number of significant red flags that were raised that were simply ignored.” He added, “If there was evidence inconsistent with the narrative, they didn’t pay attention to it, they didn’t explore it, they didn’t take the logical investigative steps that should have been taken.” In fact, “The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research such as the Steele dossier.” He added, “It did so even after the president of the United States, the FBI and CIA directors and others received briefings about intelligence suggesting there was a Clinton campaign plan underway to stir up a scandal tying Trump to Russia.”

There was clear political bias in favor of Clinton and against Trump. Rules and laws were disregarded.

That isn’t to say every FBI agent or employee is rotten, as Mark Alexander has argued before. Durham noted: “I have had any number of FBI agents who I’ve worked with over the years — some of them retired, some of them still in place — who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken. I take that seriously. These are good, hardworking people — the majority of the FBI.”

Arguably the most significant exchanges in the hearing today were attempts by more than one Democrat to discredit Durham for failing to win any convictions of a crime. As we noted above, however, Clinton and her hacks at the FBI didn’t necessarily commit crimes. When Durham thought he had clear evidence that they did, they were acquitted by rigged juries in Washington, DC.

As Durham himself put it, “There are lots of bad things people do that aren’t crimes.” He added later that it all comes down to integrity. Clinton, Obama, Comey, Brennan, and a host of deep state actors have no integrity. That doesn’t mean they didn’t thoroughly cover their tracks. It does mean they did a lot of wrong things and, for the most part, face no accountability whatsoever.

Finally, Durham succinctly rebuked the myriad attempts by Democrats to slander him and impugn his credibility. “My concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect, and my family, and my Lord,” he noted, “and I’m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them.”

(Updated)