OPINION:
The obvious is no surprise, and neither are its consequences. That’s the takeaway from the summary of special counsel John Durham’s four-year investigation into the FBI’s allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian mischief-makers.
Americans of sound mind had already reached the same conclusion: The agency was bent on proving a scheme that didn’t happen. Rather than showing contrition, however, top law enforcement officials are storming back.
Mr. Durham’s 300-odd-page final report on the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, released Monday, found there was no real basis for opening the inquiry into supposed Trump-Russia.
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities,” Mr. Durham wrote, “we conclude that the [Justice] Department and FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
Absent “any actual evidence of collusion,” FBI officials nevertheless pushed forward with their investigation of the Trump campaign, weaponizing rumors of Trump-Russia connections contained in the so-called Steele dossier to obtain court authorization to spy on Trump associates.
In contrast, evidence of election interference on the part of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was suppressed. The reason for the disparity is obvious: Partisans among FBI leadership backed Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. They wanted her to win the presidency, and they took steps to derail Mr. Trump’s presidency when he prevailed.
The culprits behind the plot against Mr. Trump have long since fled the agency. Then-Director James Comey, for one, wrote a book defending his role in the anti-Trump scheme, comically titled “A Higher Loyalty,” and selling it to sympatico ideologues. Others landed lucrative roles as commentators on Democratic-allied TV channels. Punishment fell only to a few lesser figures.
While still occupying the White House, President Barack Obama was briefed on the Clinton campaign’s plot against Hillary’s Republican opponent by erstwhile CIA Director John Brennan. Worship of the Democratic godhead’s reputation has only intensified. Even Joe Biden himself as vice president recommended charging Trump adviser Michael Flynn with criminal violation of the Logan Act, Oval Office records suggest. The Flynn prosecution initiated an unwarranted legal siege against Trump supporters that has yet to subside.
Moreover, quislings of the Obama-Biden era still in positions of power have manned the battlements at the Department of Justice and fired back. On the same day Mr. Durham dropped his scathing “Crossfire Hurricane” summary, the IRS yanked the “entire investigative team” from its investigation of the tax-fraud case against President Biden’s son Hunter, according to the New York Post.
The move was reportedly ordered by the Justice Department as retribution against an anonymous whistleblower who has charged that the younger Mr. Biden is receiving “preferential treatment” regarding his legal troubles. The whistleblower’s attorneys wrote in a letter to Congress that “this move is clearly retaliatory and may also constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry.”
Only the naive would view the convergence of such events as coincidence. Democrats are mobilized to fight to the death, politically speaking, in defense of their power, now invested in the Biden administration.
Their culpability for “Crossfire Hurricane” is simply spinning up another storm.
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