LETTER: Durham report turns up nothing
Debra Saunders’ Sunday commentary about the Durham report was a remarkable exercise in selective data presentation in order for her to arrive at her conclusions that the FBI was a secret cabal of lefties out to get Donald Trump and that no evidence was found to link Trump and the Russian election influence campaign in 2016.
What she failed to mention was that John Durham spent four years and $6 million investigating alleged FBI criminal activity. The result was two indictments that resulted in two acquittals and one guilty plea for an offense so minor that the sentence was 400 hours of community service and no jail time. In short, this investigation was a big “nothing burger.”
The notion that the FBI is a left-leaning organization is laughable. No law enforcement organization is left wing. Chris Wray, the FBI Director, was appointed by Donald Trump. Wray reported to Bill Barr, who was not shy about shutting down a DOJ investigation into Trump for the same crimes for which Michael Cohen went to prison. Are Wray and Barr secret lefties?
This is the same FBI that, a week before the 2016 election, made public the fact it was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and possibly costing her the election. These are certainly not the actions of a left-leaning bureau.
I think the FBI simply made mistakes. Its agents and officials are human beings. If there is any benefit to this report, it is in identifying procedures that may need tweaking.
As for the Trump-Russia connection, the Mueller investigation conclusively established that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, passed confidential Trump polling data to the Russians. While this is not a crime it does raise the question: Why? I can think of no explanation that is both innocent and plausible.