National Security Opinion

FBI’s Response to Durham Report Proves Trump, Critics Were Right

Kathleen J. Anderson   |  

May 16, 2023

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The long-awaited Durham Report has dropped, and just as roughly 75 million Americans expected, the FBI executed a politically motivated investigation against the former President of the United States at the behest of his political rival.

This scenario sounds more like something that would occur in a third-world country than the “freest” nation in the world. 

In typical fashion, the strongarm of this political prosecution has issued a mealy-mouthed statement abdicating any actual culpability and daring to say we should all be thankful they exist in the first place. So the Federal Bureau of Investigation strikes again, proving that they can’t be trusted and telling us to trust them anyway.

Before we dig in, this is their response:

Not Working For You

The over 300-page Durham Report extensively laid out all the ways in which the Russia collusion allegations against former President Donald Trump were perpetuated on faulty at best and blatant manufactured tips at worst. But my favorite nuggets focus exclusively on the FBI.

The report, in no uncertain terms, said that the FBI’s investigation:

“failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

My that is scathing; our government’s premier law enforcement arm didn’t adhere to their own standards in what was sold as the most critical investigation of our time, against the leader of the free world.

The report goes on to say that FBI employees:

“displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities.”

RELATED: GOP Sen. Hawley Demands Prosecution of Democrats, Hillary Clinton After Durham Report Reveals FBI Used False Intelligence to Launch Trump-Russia Probe

This statement is a tame way of saying that the FBI was too inept to execute an investigation of this magnitude. However, most of us would argue this “lack of rigor” was intentional.

The pièce de résistance comes next:

“Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

So not only did the FBI waste taxpayer dollars and man-hours on a political witch hunt, they did so at the behest of the subject’s political opponents. So, what say you, FBI?

Whatever, We Don’t Care

The FBI’s statement, as seen above, was equal parts insulting as it was bold.

It begins:

“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.”

Essentially the FBI opens up by saying yeah, we know we got caught weaponizing our institution, we’ve made some adjustments, and you should ignore this silly report.

They continue:

“Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in this report could have been prevented.”

RELATED: Report: Former CIA Director John Brennan Admits the Hunter Biden ‘Russian Disinformation’ Letter Was ‘All Political’

I wonder if that statement is a sufficient apology for Donald Trump and his staff, who were harassed and had their lives and reputation dragged through the mud over false allegations shoddily investigated by the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country.

And here is my favorite part:

“This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”

To me, this reads like the FBI telling me that a report detailing their lack of judgment, slapdash investigation, and political bias should justify their existence. Now that is rich.

Unified Response

Understandably those on the right, particularly ones running for President or flirting with the idea of running, issued statements of outrage.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote:

“It reminds us of the need to clean house at these agencies, as they’ve never been held accountable for this egregious abuse of power.”

Dark horse candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Fox News:

“The next President needs to shut down the FBI. This is a corrupt institution that has repeatedly revealed itself to be politicized.”

RELATED: Elon Musk Tells Tucker Carlson the US Government Had ‘Full Access’ to Americans’ Twitter Accounts, Private Messages

And this morning, Nikki Haley added to the mix:

“The Durham Report is damning evidence of the rot in our government. No party, no politician should weaponize government to go after political opponents. There must be consequences, or this will never end.”

All valid points, but the hope that anything will come from this report, I fear, is futile. The FBI has continually proved they can’t be trusted throughout history – first in persecuting those on the left and now on their mobilized attacks on those on the right.

And we can’t forget about the subject target of the phony investigation. He was uncharacteristically laconic in his reply:

No accountability, plenty of consequences

Congressman Matt Gaetz had the best response to the report so far:

“This report is an insufficient consequence for the malfeasance and corruption that we have seen here. It was an operation from beginning to end to fuse political opposition research from the DNC and the Clinton campaign with this intelligence process and criminal process.”

Mr. Gaetz goes on his statement to rightly claim that if this sort of action had happened at the behest of Republicans, there would’ve been indictments. However, Mr. Durham does point out that the efforts of the FBI have had negative repercussions:

“As the more complete record now shows, there are specific areas of Crossfire Hurricane activity in which the FBI badly underperformed and failed, not only in its duties to the public, but also in preventing the severe reputational harm that has befallen the FBI as a consequence of Crossfire Hurricane.”

The truth is the FBI meddled in an election, helped weaken our ability to engage effectively with our international partners, including Ukraine and our adversary Russia, and destroyed the lives of Americans – not just Donald Trump. So while the FBI tells you not to worry, they fixed everything, and that you need them, just remember – if they can do this to a man like Donald Trump – they can do it to you.