While the majority of Republicans did not storm the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, they have been made to incessantly answer for the thought crimes and alleged dangers that exist on their fringes.
Not so on the Left—the initial purveyors of election conspiracies—where large swaths of supporters still believe former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election and few of their snake oil salesmen have had to face accountability for their own tall tales.
The tides may finally be turning, though, as this week a special investigation into Russiagate produced a report that is pretty damning of all involved with pushing the narrative.
The report is authored by Special Counsel John Durham and it concludes that the FBI never possessed any evidence that warranted what became its full-fledged investigation into Trump, his campaign, and multiple former-staffers. The 300-plus page document concludes that the agency used ““raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” to the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia.
It only gets worse from there.
Someone pinch me, am I dreaming or did Jake Tapper actually say this about the Durham report just now on CNN? 😳pic.twitter.com/T7AhRuIji4
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 15, 2023
"Russia collusion was the lie of the century, and it was brought to you by US intelligence agencies and the Clinton Campaign. pic.twitter.com/SPLA5gB99w
— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) May 15, 2023
The investigation goes on to say the FBI used a “different standard” when weighing concerns about potential election interference in approaching the Trump campaign vs. that of Hillary Clinton’s. Durham reports that the agency also received intelligence from a trusted source claiming the Clinton campaign planned to vilify Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the explicit purpose of distracting the public from her own private email server scandal.
However, unlike the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation into Trump’s activities, the FBI never so much as opened an inquiry into this report. In fact, in response to a purported plan to target the Clinton campaign by foreign operatives, the FBI provided defensive briefings for Clinton and her staff.
Read that again if you need to.
Durham also says that “at least on the part of certain personnel intimately involved in the matter” there was “a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump.” Ya think?
So in summary, the FBI offered to pay $1 million to back up the information in the Steele Dossier that was completely fabricated (our nation is…not sending our best to these agencies). As a refresher on that document, CNN reports its, “central allegations, that Trump conspired with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election and that Russia had compromising information on him, were given a veneer of credibility because they originated from a retired British spy, Christopher Steele, who had a solid reputation.”
It has since been debunked. CNN also reports Trump opponents, “paid for the research, funneled information to Steele’s sources, and then urged the FBI to investigate Trump’s connections to Russia.”
Summary of the Durham report :
“The President of the United States was falsely accused of being a foreign agent of Russia and framed for treason by the FBI, the Justice Department, and the American media, and no one will be held accountable.”
— Anish Koka, MD (@anish_koka) May 15, 2023
But to be clear, the FBI was more than willing to play ball, meeting with a lawyer from the Clinton campaign on the matter in the Fall of 2016. Even though they were not able to corroborate the stories in this document, it was still used to obtain search warrants against an American citizen via the sketchy and secretive FISA court system.
The author of this debunked 2016 Hillary Clinton lie is currently sitting inside of the White House as President Biden’s National Security Advisor. https://t.co/wwesyOvJSZ
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) May 15, 2023
And the mainstream media and intelligence community were off to the races from there. Russiagate became the Bible. If you pushed back on it you were mocked, called a Trump simp, or accused of working for Putin yourself.
.@CJR was right, the mainstream media's Trump-Russia collusion hoax destroyed Americans' trust in the media.
Here’s an embarrassing recap of some of their wildest conspiracy theories. pic.twitter.com/ncYT9YmDJE
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) February 1, 2023
My regret lies in not calling more bullshit than I did. It was so much worse and more fabricated than I imagined, but glad I at least expressed skepticism throughout.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) May 16, 2023
So basically we saw our taxpayer funded “intelligence community” create an entire witch hunt out of thin air, and in doing so, they attempted to undermine a democratically-elected president. The scale of this kind of corruption within our system is unfathomable. Watergate looks like chump change in comparison.
And yet the odds that there will be any real comeuppance are slim to none. Despite his findings, Durham does not even recommend charges for those involved or wholesale changes within the agency. My dude, what?
Some have floated the idea of a new position within the agency for a “nonpartisan” FBI lawyer or agent who could oversee “politically sensitive investigations.” Sure Jan, I’m sure that will clean the FBI right up.
480 interviews
1 million documents reviewed
7 search warrants
190 subpoenas
4 years
$6.5 million dollars
Hiring one more guy who will FINALLY keep the FBI honest?#Priceless#DurhamReport— Terry Kibbe (@tkibbe) May 15, 2023
Sen. Mike Lee has at least called for some action to reform the FBI, but I think we all know it’s somewhat futile.
🧵 1. The politicization of the FBI represents a clear and present danger to our democratic principles, and it is imperative that we address this issue with the urgency it demands.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) May 15, 2023
5. Thus, it falls to the United States Congress to step in where the FBI has faltered. The need for comprehensive legislative reform is clear, starting with the secret surveillance of Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) May 15, 2023
7. The basic safeguards of government failed. State power was politically weaponized and used to discredit an elected president on false premises.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) May 15, 2023
Andrew McCabe, who led the FBI during this time? He’s not sorry. Not one bit. In fact, he says he stands by his work.
McCabe vs. the Durham report: "We knew at the beginning this was never a legitimate investigation … And I stand by the investigative decisions that we made to open the investigation" into Russia collusion. pic.twitter.com/Rs7jFrMBwr
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 16, 2023
Few in the media will cop to their role in spreading actual disinformation, and the vast majority of the Left will probably continue to believe that Russia stole our election, fueling their support for a proxy war with Ukraine that is currently bleeding the US of our resources and risking nuclear war. You think all those Instagram flags popped up on Mommy Wine Culture pages because these people are intimately familiar with the geopolitics of this conflict and have meaningfully taken a stand? No. Per usual, the Military-Industrial-Complex needs a compelling narrative to continue convincing people that their wars are just and moral. They’ve achieved that, this go around, by making Ukraine vs. Russia a metaphor for Democrats vs Trump, hence the virtue signaling flag emojis.
This is the kind of attack on our democracy that our system truly cannot withstand. If our taxes go to paying the salaries of people like this we’re done for. These people worked overtime to basically frame American citizens and even a president simply because they would not accept the outcomes of democracy. And they’ve continued using those lies to drag us into yet another foreign conflict.
The lack of trust in our institutions, and in the mainstream media, which has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for government actors: all warranted. And those institutions will continue to crumble as Americans increasingly become aware of these kinds of sinister actions going down behind the scenes.
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