A Bad Week for the FBI
A Bad Week for the FBI
The Durham Report was just the beginning for the Bureau's terrible, horrible, very bad, no good week.
It’s been a bad week for the FBI.
It started on Monday, when the Durham Report dropped. Six years and six million dollars spent, and what did we get? Two failed prosecutions, confirmation of what we already knew, and no further recommendations except “follow the rules”.
You know, the rules that were ignored in the first place? Yeah, those rules. They’re being followed now, we promise. Pinky swear, even!
I feel so much better now. Don’t you?
In case you’ve been living under a rock this week, you can read it here and here, and probably a dozen other places, too. Be warned, it’s 316 single-spaced pages of tedium, minutiae and legalistic bureaucratese, so it’s not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, it’s been very popular, so you can just read Ben Whedon’s and Natalia Mittelstadt’s “Top Ten Takes” from JustTheNews.com or follow Techno Fog’s Twitter thread for the highlights.
Here’s what I’ve taken from it: the “Russian collusion” story was crap from the outset—a desperate campaign trick cooked up by Hillary Inc. to try to distract voters from her (legitimately bad, probably unlawful) email scandal. The entire story of RussiaRussiaRussia was built on faked “op-ed” research paid for by Her campaign, with the idea being to feed it not just to the press but to the Feds. People who knew better, whose job and duty was to nip it in the bud, decided to push it, for what looks like personal and/or political reasons. Who was in on it? Basically everybody at the top of Justice, the intelligence apparatus, and the White House, up to and including Obama and Biden. Despite knowing it was all crap, and with no good evidence, the FBI rushed to investigate and called it Crossfire Hurricane. At the same time, four separate investigations into Hillary & Bill, including her email shenanigans, just faded away. The mainstream media were involved, and actively promoted the crap narrative.
The New York Post didn’t mince any words: “Durham proves that Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election” headlined an article that concludes by reminding us that “A June 2018 inspector general report exposed top FBI agents’ venomously anti-Trump messages and machinations.”
And of course, it didn’t stop there:
“But that report did nothing to curb the FBI’s power to meddle in the 2020 presidential election by playing “hide and seek” with the Hunter Biden laptop that could have demolished Joe Biden’s presidential chances.”
But they’re going to follow the rules now. Pinky swear!
At least when other nations’s agents saw it was crap, they walked away and refused to have anything to do with the corrupt mess. So, there is that.
To give Durham his due, the Report lays out a timeline for the entire scandalous mess in excruciating detail. Thanks to this Report, we now know exactly who knew what, and when they knew it.
As Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch said: “Obama knew. Clinton knew. Biden knew. Comey knew. Brennan knew. McCabe knew. Strzok knew. Clapper knew. Schiff knew. FBI knew. DOJ knew. They all knew Trump was innocent but they smeared and spied on him. Worse than Watergate. Trump is a crime victim!”
Yep, everybody knew, from the top down. So, “What did Obama know, and when did he know it?”
Basically everything, from at least August 3rd onward.
“On August 3, 2016 within days of receiving the Clinton Plan intelligence, Director Brennan met with the President, Vice President and other senior Administration officials, including but not limited to the Attorney General (who participated remotely) and the FBI Director, in the White House Situation Room to discuss Russian election interference efforts. According to Brennan's handwritten notes and his recollections from the meeting, he briefed on relevant intelligence known to date on Russian election interference, including the Clinton Plan intelligence. Specifically, Director Brennan's declassified handwritten notes reflect that he briefed the meeting's participants regarding the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her [campaign] advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services." (p. 85 of the Durham Report)
Even Adam Schiff4brains knew—but he’s STILL denying it!
The report’s conclusions are filled with damning statements like
“we conclude that the Department (of Justice) and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities” (p. 17)
“FBI personnel working on that same FISA application displayed, at best, a cavalier attitude towards accuracy and completeness. FBI personnel also repeatedly disregarded important requirements when they continued to seek renewals of that FISA surveillance while acknowledging - both then and in hindsight - that they did not genuinely believe there was probable cause” (p.17)
Furthermore, “certain personnel disregarded significant exculpatory information that should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination,” (p.18) while
“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.” (p.18)
So much for the FBI’s old guiding principles of "Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity," eh?
In other words, what began as a Clinton campaign scheme to deflect attention from a legitimate investigation into Her mishandling of sensitive emails (server in a bathroom? Seriously?) became “part of a political effort to smear a political opponent and to use the resources of the federal government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies in support of a political objective.” (p. 81) This was done with the knowledge, if not active encouragement, of people at the very highest levels of our government.
Slinging mud at a political opponent, even made-up, fake mud, isn’t a crime. In some places, it’s practically an art form! However, if a campaign knowingly provides false information to the Feds—something the report appears to show, at least by my reading of it—that’s another issue altogether.
It’s almost an afterthought in the report that there was such a double standard applied between Her and Trump—Clinton’s actions were all but ignored, while Trump’s were exaggerated and confabulated to high heaven and low hell.
And Trump still won in 2016. Of course, John Brennen was back in 2020, getting people to sign that Russian Collusion letter. And the FBI did everything it could to cover up Hunter’s laptop. So, nothing much changed, did it?
As the NY Post reminds us: “Nothing has been done by Congress or federal courts to revoke the FBI’s prerogative to fix the 2024 election.“
Nothing yet, I suppose: yet being the operative word. If the Durham report did anything, it enraged the Right and made even some on the Left leery of what’s been going on. Considering everything that’s happened since 2016, there’s little doubt that the FBI has become as politicized as the Stazi ever was. Durham meticulously documented some seriously banana republic-level stuff here, that hasn’t really been addressed to anyone’s satisfaction. Yet.
There have been some who have been reluctant to take any concrete action until the Durham report was released. Well, it’s out now, and that waffling won’t work any more. At this point, the only questions left are about what needs to be done, and how to do it.
If it was just the Durham Report, it might not have been that bad of a week for the FBI. Yes, the pundits have been screaming about the report, but that’s nothing new. Yes, the Report will be mined for info (and articles too numerous to count) for weeks and months to come. Yes, some of the same players from 2016 were active in 2020. Yes, the FBI and DoJ have not exactly endeared themselves since then (labeling mothers yelling at school boards about what their kids are being taught ‘domestic terrorists’ comes to mind). And yes, there are those like John Nolte who are ready to burn the whole Bureau to the ground.
Thursday saw more fuel poured onto the FBI’s pyre from several sources. Early Thursday morning, the House Weaponization and Judiciary Committees released a new report detailing government abuse, misallocation of resources, and retaliation at the FBI. At a mere 78 pages, it’s not the tome the Durham Report is—but it didn’t take six years to compile! What it does do is conclude that:
“The FBI, under Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, is broken. The leadership at the FBI and Justice Department have weaponized federal law enforcement against everyday Americans, seeking to silence those who dare to have a different viewpoint.”
As a follow-up to this report, there was testimony before Congress from several whistleblowers, including one Special Agent and his family who were jerked around and left homeless by the FBI. Another reported that 11,000+ hours of Jan. 6th video footage wouldn’t be released because “it would expose undercover agents committing crimes inside the Capitol.” Of course, this contradicts FBI Director Wray’s testimony, which may come back to haunt him. Perhaps most ominous of all, the Weaponization hearing closed with the Agent’s testimony about what he would tell potential future whistleblowers:
Naturally, the Democrats on the Committee managed to embarrass themselves—but that’s so common it’s almost not even worth mentioning.
All in all, Thursday made the Bureau look very, very bad.
With perfidy this rampant and corruption this widespread, involving not only the FBI but (per the Durham Report) the White House, Justice Department and CIA, with the willing participation of the media, over several years, it’s clear that SOMETHING has to be done. Obviously, the FBI took most of the heat in the Durham report and Thursday’s testimonies and report. Together, this week has only fueled the recent cries to defund the FBI completely. It’s easy to see why some people believe that the FBI, as it now stands, is a “mortal threat” to our democracy.
Pinky swears notwithstanding, these last few years have only reinforced the opinion of many that the FBI has become little more than a political attack machine for the Democrats and their RINO partners in crime. By itself, the Durham Report might have been ignored. But, as part of a pattern of abuses stretching back for decades, through 2020, the January 6th not-insurrection, Domestic Terrorist Moms, 8000+ unjustified, warrant-less information searches in 2021 and 2022, etc., etc., etc…
That grinding sound you’re hearing? It’s J. Edgar Hoover rolling over in his grave over the week his Bureau just had.
Follow @DocContrarian on Twitter, Truth, GETTR and Gab. His book Beyond MAGA is now available on Amazon.