Trump Responds After Damning Durham Report Released: 'Must Be a Heavy Price to Pay'
Former President Donald Trump reacted to Special Counsel John Durham’s report concerning the Department of Justice’s and the FBI’s criminal investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign, saying there must be accountability.
Agreed.
The FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane in July 2016 to look into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia during the contest with the thinnest of predicates and ultimately based on misinformation created by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham’s report, released by the DOJ Monday, said.
“Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities,” the report added.
Durham had been investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia probe since May 2019.
Trump reacted favorably to the report’s conclusions.
“I, and much more importantly, the American public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats — started by [former FBI Director James] Comey,” the 45th president told Fox News. “There must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country through this.”
Trump argued that “the national security implications of what they did are very grave.”
“It turned out to be a giant and very dangerous hoax,” he said.
The House Intelligence Committee, under the leadership of then Chairman Devin Nunes, discovered by subpoenaing bank records in 2017 and 2018 that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the creation of the Steele dossier.
The FBI and the DOJ used that unsubstantiated document to obtain FISA warrants to spy on members of Trump’s campaign.
“This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by [Donald] Trump’s political opponents,” Durham’s report said.
“The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them, even when at about the same time the Director of the FBI and others learned of significant and potentially contrary intelligence,” the report added.
Durham’s reference is to Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Then-President Trump fired Comey in May 2017. McCabe was also fired in March 2018 following a DOJ Inspector General’s report that he had leaked information to the media in the fall of 2016 and then lied about it to federal agents on multiple occasions.
Durham indicted three people during his investigation: former Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, Democratic political operative Igor Danchenko in November 2021 and former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020, Fox reported.
Sussmann and Danchenko were found not guilty in their trials, which both took place in the Democrat-dominated Washington, D.C. area.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty in August 2020 to changing information on a FISA warrant application. He received 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service, Politico reported.
It’s no small irony that the DOJ strong-armed people associated with the Trump campaign — like George Papadopoulos, Lt. Gen. (retired) Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort — to plead guilty, mostly to process crimes, when the campaign had not engaged in wrongdoing.
Thankfully, Trump pardoned them all.
While on the other hand, the Democrats, the Clinton campaign, and members of the DOJ and FBI all engaged in wrongdoing and got off scot-free.
Many lost or were forced out of their jobs — like Comey, McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former DOJ official Bruce Ohr, to name some — but save some community service for Clinesmith, none were held to account.
At least Durham has now provided an official report chronicling the DOJ’s and FBI’s wrongdoing, which can be pointed to whenever any want to falsely claim it’s just stuff Trump made up.
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