Revisionist Media Responds to the Durham Report

For seven years, Donald Trump has insisted time and time again that federal agencies conspired with Democrats to stop him from being elected, and then to derail his presidency, and ultimately to stop him from winning another election. The Durham Report might not be the smoking gun that many of his supporters had hoped for, but it clearly states – with evidence – that there were, indeed, efforts in all these areas.

That the long-awaited report would lead to sniping and spin was never in doubt. But it seems a grand-scale dismissal of the more than 300-page tome detailing the FBI’s numerous missteps in its investigation into the now-debunked Russiagate affair is underway and, with this Fourth Estate effort, an exposition of the more egregious bias is quite overdue.

Snipes and Snarks

Dismissal and debunking are once more the name of the game. The alleged paper of record, The New York Times – in its digital edition - devoted one single story to a report four years in the making. Here’s the editorial line in the second paragraph:

“Mr. Durham’s 306-page report revealed little substantial new information about the inquiry, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations accusing the bureau of politically motivated misconduct that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies suggested Mr. Durham would uncover.”

Yes, indeed. It was all dreamed up by an angry man and his angry friends.

ABC News also went for the outright dismissal. Its lead story subtitle reads: “Despite Trump's expectations, the probe failed to produce any major convictions.” As the savvy reader knows, the vast majority of news consumers never make it past the headline and subtitle. Leftist outlets appear to be relying on a self-imposed willful ignorance to drive their narrative home.

Not only did ABC attempt to disregard the findings of the probe but also issued a slanted admonishment against the very existence of such an investigation. The article read:

“Some legal experts expressed concerns about the cases brought by Durham, arguing that they would discourage future potential FBI sources from bringing information forward for fear they could be targeted for prosecution.”

But the case was not brought forward by “FBI sources.” It was opposition research, paid for in part by the Hillary Clinton campaign in an effort to stop Trump from winning the 2016 election. The admonishment is as absent of fact as it is of shame.

Who Drank the Kool-Aid?

CNN – a constant political thorn in former President Donald Trump’s side -- was quick to pooh-pooh the investigation as a whole, stating, “Four years later, Durham’s investigation yielded one minor conviction, two losses at trial and a probe that fell short of the lofty goals set by the former president … Durham only secured one conviction: the guilty plea of a low-level FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, who avoided jail after admitting to doctoring an email about a surveillance warrant. Durham’s other two prosecutions – against a Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer and the primary source for the Trump-Russia dossier – ended with embarrassing acquittals,” the outlet summarized.

There were a few nuggets of acknowledgment from the “most trusted name in news.” Most notably, a piece by Stephen Collinson, who did at least cover the basics and provide an analysis of the damage done to the FBI’s reputation. However, the article was titled “Trump weaponizes FBI-Russia report he demanded to keep fighting the election that never ends,” which may provide some indication of what the thesis eventually concluded.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (now a CNN contributor) dismissed the whole report as a “political errand” at the behest of Trump. “Look, the fact is, we knew what the Russians were doing and had done in an effort to help Donald Trump,” McCabe insisted.

Such a condemnation was, sadly, to be anticipated. Let’s consider the roller-coaster coverage CNN provided during the Trump years. From espousing almost every falsehood in the Steele dossier (the document that started the whole Russian collusion debacle) to granting the then-president’s nefarious motivations, the outlet was a wrecking ball to the idea of journalistic impartiality. In 2018, the editorial team ran the following under the guise of political commentary:

“Trump also expected the FBI director to serve as the presidential fixer and prove to the first lady the falsehood of the ‘pee pee’ tape mentioned in the Steele dossier, the alleged encounter between Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. [FBI Director James] Comey had sworn an oath to support and defend the US Constitution, not the President. This is what separates a democracy from an organized crime syndicate, or better yet, cults.

“Trump is a dangerous cult leader who will destroy democracy if we allow him. It is incumbent upon us to resist drinking the orange Kool-Aid.”

Hardly an impartial follower of facts. Yes, it was classified as “commentary,” but it is up to the editors to determine what goes up on the webpage. Apparently, this passed the sniff test.

Also from 2018, courtesy of CNN’s editor-at-large, “President Donald Trump has long been obsessed with the idea that the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election is really nothing more than a political scheme to rob him of the credit he so rightly deserves for winning that race. Over the last 24 hours, however, that obsession has been tuned up a notch, with Trump unleashing a series of bitter tweets attacking even his own top advisers and agencies for their alleged complicity in this narrative.”

But the narrative was just that: a narrative, a story woven to promote the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “kompromat”* on a presidential contender, and that Trump was in the pocket of the Russians and couldn’t be trusted to act in America’s interests.

Did Durham Vindicate Trump?

For the media or the denizens of the DC Swamp to admit as much would be to grant Trump vindication, and it seems that despite all that has been done to him as both a person and a president, the sullying of his reputation was fair game in the political world. But in the real world, where voters of all stripes have their own sense of what is fair and just, 45 may have just won a significant political victory.

*Kompromat: A Russian term meaning “compromising material.”