John Durham’s failed investigation comes with a hefty price tag The special counsel appointed to review the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign has so far cost taxpayers more than $6.5 million. The tale of the tape is brutal: Two trials Zero convictions One provocative resignation Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to Durham in his Russia investigation, quietly resigned from the U.S. Justice Department probe -- at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said. A largely meaningless guilty plea from an obscure figure A $6.5 million price tag By any fair measure, this is the most misguided and inconsequential special counsel investigation in the modern history of American law enforcement. The original investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, led by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, led to a series of striking findings: The former president’s political operation in 2016 sought, embraced, capitalized on, and lied about Russian assistance — and then took steps to obstruct the investigation into the foreign interference. The Trump White House wasn’t pleased with the conclusions, but the Justice Department’s inspector general conducted a lengthy probe of the Mueller investigation, and not surprisingly, the IG’s office found nothing improper. This, of course, only outraged Trump further, so then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped a federal prosecutor — U.S. Attorney John Durham — to conduct his own investigation into the investigation. That was more than three years ago. At this point, Durham’s investigation into the Russia scandal investigation has lasted longer than Mueller’s original probe of the Russia scandal. After an extended period of apparent inactivity, the prosecutor last year indicted cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly having lied to the FBI. The case proved to be baseless; Sussmann was acquitted; and one of the jurors publicly mocked Durham’s team for having taken the case to trial. Five months later, Durham and his team also tried to prosecute Russian analyst Igor Danchenko. That failed too, bringing the probe to an apparent, ignominious end.
There is a degree of irony to the circumstances: For years, Team Trump insisted that the Russia scandal was pointless but the Durham investigation was real. It now appears these Republicans had it exactly backward: The Russia scandal was real, and the Durham investigation was pointless
in the Ukraine thread folks are saying tens of billions of dollars is really nothing, but here $6.5M, which might buy you a studio on the UES, is suddenly a lot of money.
Tens of billions of dollars to wreck a geopolitical enemy and reshape the West's security ... money well spent. Millions to conduct a political payback investigation that everyone knew would go nowhere ... not money well spent.
Deflect.....Deflect.....Deflect. Don't like the facts, change the question, you have the gop playbook down.......kudos!!
Yeah, I don't care about $6 million in federal spending. That can buy a toilet under a federal contract. I think it was worth it to give Trumpers the peace of mind that there really was no secret conspiracy to make up a Russian collision allegation to ruin Trump.
That’s my thinking as well. Often if you humor the MAGA conspiracy theory machine it’ll end up exposing itself as ridiculous. The goal is always to create a cloud of mystery in the air that they can point at any say is an alien space ship. But if you give people binoculars it’s easy to see it’s just a spotlight from a strip club. (There was a debunked UFO sighting in Vegas I’m referencing with that analogy fyi) The 6.5 mil out of the DOJ’s budget is money well spent to both expose the stupidity of the conspiracy theories and validate that the Russia investigation was well founded and should have led to Republicans impeaching him so they’d not have that noose around their electoral neck. When it was found out that Don Jr. was meeting with reps from the Kremlin, and there was a letter of intent to build Trump Tower Moscow, etc. the Republicans would have been smart to turn on him and make that as big of a deal as it would have been had Obama had those type of ties to Iran. But nope… and here we are.
It's sad to say but $6.5 million isn't really that much in government spending and while Durham was agressive at times in general his investigation appeared professional. Just a side not but the Mueller investigation actually made money for the government from fines and penalties levied from convictions.
Do you think that conclusion is the consensus in that community? Have they all found "peace of mind"?
Nope. They’ve moved in to the next thing. At the minimum though they’ve been given their investigation. They will still claim that things are being covered up and such but can’t factually claim no investigation was done.
They'll still call the Russian collusion theory a hoax, of course, but they'd be more angry and more disillusioned than they are if Durham was never even allowed to poke around.
I don’t know if sure if Durham has shut down his investigation but it does ent appear like there is much more coming out of it.
those ignorant f-cks will certainly not have “peace of mind” that there was no secret conspiracy to fabricate a Russian collusion allegation to wreck Trump. those idiots like @basso don’t care about facts or the Durham investigation. They will simply say durham was bought, or Durham was incompetent, or they simply disbelieve anything but their assumption that Trump is lord and any allegation against trump is pure fabrication.
