No. of Recommendations: 12
Final thoughts on The Durham Report:
1. After four years, almost 500 interviews, and after reviewing a million pages of documents, Durham concluded that the FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation instead of a full investigation in 2016.
2. Durham ignored the intelligence received by the FBI that George Papadopoulos informed Australian diplomats that the Trump campaign had received a communication from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. AKA, Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election and a valid reason for the FBI to open a full investigation rather than a preliminary investigation. Clinton wanted to know more -- and had a right to know more -- about being hacked after Trump publicly asked Russia to hack her computer and server.
3. The timeline established that Papadopoulos communicated with the Australians immediately after the DNC hack (and the John Podesta, other individuals, and DCCC hacks), rightly raising FBI concerns about Russia's intent to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.
4. Initially, the FBI was investigating Russia, not the Trump campaign, when it opened its inquiry but, as the email lady correctly observed, "With Trump, all roads lead to Russia."
5. Trump had endless ties to Russia: real estate deals, the Miss Universe Pageant, loans from Russian lenders, and pursuing the Trump Tower Moscow project while running for the presidency. Trump's own campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort, had lobbied for pro-Russian oligarchs and was handing over Trump campaign polling data information to Konstantin Kilimnik, and the Trump campaign was coordinating messaging with Wikileaks.
5a. Gee, for a campaign that had nothing to do with Russia (NO COLLUSION!!!), they were knee-deep in Russians.
6. Several Trump campaign officials had financial ties to Russia: Mike Flynn was paid by Russia Today; Carter Page had meetings with Russian intelligence officers; Trump Jr and Manafort met with Russians at Trump Tower; Papadopoulos worked to arrange a meeting with Putin.
7. The Steele Dossier WAS NOT the impetus for opening the Russia probe.
8. Nowhere did Durham state that the information inside the Steele Dossier was false; he wrote it was unconfirmed.
9. Mueller and the Director of National Intelligence confirmed some of the Steele Dossier: Russia did prefer Trump; Putin was working to influence the election in Trump's favor; Trump was vulnerable to possible Russian compromise as president.
10. While Mueller could find no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia (partially because he was blocked from certain inquiries by Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein), he did find that Trump benefitted from Russia's efforts against Hillary Clinton and for the Trump campaign. And he did suggest (but could not directly say so, again because the DOJ prevented him from doing so) Trump obstructed justice.
In the end, his report is a big fat nothing. No criminal activity, no indictments, scarcely any recommendations for action, just a waste of time and money. Jordan will try to get one last gasp out of the dead horse next week by bringing Durham before his committee but it'll be another face plant for Jordan.
Deservedly so.
