So the guy who said he believed the investigation should have never been opened PRIOR to being appointed Special Counsel accuses the FBI of confirmation bias. Got it.
Yes, there is a difference between what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and suspicion. A special prosecutor's final report shouldn't rely on suspicion which may or may not be true. If the report does rely on the suspicion and it chooses the most favorable position to the politician that was seeking the information, I think it is reasonable to call it an opinion piece.
For investigative journalism on this, they can read the series of articles by the Columbia Journalism Review that you posted earlier this year that was mostly left un-replied. Written by a former NYT/Propublica reporter and with over 2 hrs worth of detailed reporting, it goes over what transpired long ago and what the media (and the American people) desperately wants to forget. I'm not sure many people have the time nor inclination for introspection. The Mueller and Durham findings share striking parallels in partisan reaction. Opposition paints the report with it's failures (generally fair) but buries truths by grabbing emotional headlines of 'failures' the report or prosecutor did not intend to reach. The same leash people gave to Mueller despite not grabbing convictions many of us wanted was not extended to Durham. The relative ease in how the media and certain positioned agents wanted this to happen should give everyone pause or at least an extra pass at an article/story they've read from their trusted news institution. Takes more time...We don't have any of it... If anyone should be thanked for their patience, it's you.
The Mueller Report was substantially different in few aspects. 1. The Mueller report actually broke new ground with detailed information that hadn’t been wildly known before regarding Trump’s attempts to curry favor with Russians. 2. It did actually lead to several indictments and convictions. 3. The biggest difference was that it went to great lengths not to express opinions and Mueller to the frustration of many of those on the left wouldn’t offer an opinion regarding prosecuting Trump. Durham spend a lot of time expressing opinions including in their key findings. Their explanation that some things aren’t prosecutable or illegal but still wrong is in contrast to Mueller’s dry laying out of facts without drawing his own conclusions. Also that mueller didn’t reach a conclusion regarding prosecuting the Trump wasn’t whether he felt the evidence was strong enough but that DOJ policy prevented him from doing so. Durham was under no restriction and tried to prosecute.
Thanks ChatGPT! I did initially write up how Durham pointed out how rotten fruit was used to extend the Carter Page wiretaps and that Klinesmith went out of his way to further those wiretaps when the judge ordered they bring harder evidence to continue them, but I figured people would be trigger happy to point out whatever inane detail that happened six+ years ago over sources everyone admits is either "lazy reporting" or suspect. There's a better use for that 2+ hours of time and energy. Maybe break the CJR reports in dumps or before sleeping? Would save a lot of inane back and forth or wild accusations of "Russian propagandist" (not you but you might know who...)
I guess since I’m just an AI I don’t quite follow all that you’re saying here and it doesn’t seemed specifically targeted to my post. So yes Durham does point out problems With the DOJ regarding that they were sloppy and too eager at times. Those issues had already been known with knew policies following the IG report. That isn’t the same as the Mueller report that brought to light of information that hadn’t been known before.
You have completely missed the point or didn't read my reply at all. It was about newspaper, not the content of his OP. But whatever, moving on.
If you've been following the past few pages, that's not what the op/eds are claiming. The genesis of the Russian collusion story required heavy lifting by the media at the Clinton campaign's behest and FBI involvement was pressured at every step of the way to deliver results even when there were exculpatory evidence to the contrary. I'm not going to go into Mueller replies other than the results he achieved relied on that initial flawed premise and institutional bias heavily swayed by the Hilary campaign, both were objectives the Durham report was commissioned to uncover. Just because you flip in hindsight that "it's fixed now" or the media knows better that the Steele Dossier was bunk pushed by the Clinton campaign doesn't diminish the fact the it took the Durham investigation to address those flaws you claimed are fixed (it's not). It appears reflexive and circular from the apologists in this very topic focused on discussing Durham findings and even debate whether the investigation is a waste of time. You conceded that the media is lazy but never really bothered to follow through on how they got suckered into this. You rely on the Mueller report to paper over your doubts and reflexively dismiss op/ep pieces saying otherwise, a blanket dismissal with zero follow through on their claims. Furthermore you suckered me into explaining more info your knee jerk reply to vindicate past assertions rather than reading that article that meticulously broke down failures that led to the biggest media gaslight since the claim of Iraq making nuclear weapons. Despite the media pivot after the fact, Mueller didn't find the smoking gun..Get over it. Ask how that happened.
here's another goddamned op-ed. I should note that the WSJ like other major media outlets pays people to write op-ed pieces for them. This one is by Kim Strassel, a notorious right-winger. enjoy. https://www.wsj.com/articles/durham...elligence-c4db4462?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s Durham on Comey’s Culpability The report shows FBI headquarters ignored all the rules in the Trump-Russia probe. By Kimberley A. Strassel May 18, 2023 at 6:30 pm ET The Federal Bureau of Investigation received some shocking intelligence in 2018, suggesting the Russians might have compromised Christopher Steele’s sources even before the opposition researcher began feeding his infamous dossier to the FBI. Just as shocking was the edict that came next. According to special counsel John Durham’s report, the team reviewing the intelligence was told in a meeting with a top member of the Trump-Russia collusion probe to “be careful” because “issues relating to Steele were under intense scrutiny.” Dina Corsi, the deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, then ordered that findings be reported only “orally.” One FBI lawyer told the Durham team it was “the most inappropriate operational or professional statement” he’d ever heard at the FBI and that he was so “appalled,” he walked off the review. The lawyer didn’t know exactly who’d given the order but said Ms. Corsi was “speaking for FBI leadership.” Readers won’t find many direct quotes in the report from former Director James Comey or former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe—both refused to cooperate with Mr. Durham. Mr. Comey has publicly distanced himself from events, honing his mastery of “I don’t recall.” The Durham report gives the lie to this claim, which in turn explains what went wrong. The Trump probe was run by the “seventh floor”—by two men who were thrilled to be playing political kingmakers, and who broke all the rules. The roots of the collusion investigation were planted in early April 2016, when Mr. Comey requested from underlings “relevant information pertaining to any Presidential candidate.” (He was already deep in the Hillary Clinton email probe.) The report says that he was then briefed that the New York field office was looking at recently named Trump adviser Carter Page. It wasn’t “concerned about Page” so much as the “Russians reaching out” to him. Yet the Page case and “ones like it” became a “top priority for Director Comey.” When the FBI got wind in July 2016 of a conversation between another Trump adviser and an Australian diplomat, Mr. McCabe ordered FBI agent Peter Strzok to skip all preliminary steps and launch a full counterintelligence investigation. Similarly, when the FBI received separate information from a Clinton attorney claiming a secret Trump server communicating with Russia, FBI leadership intervened to order a full probe, even though both cyber agents and Chicago-based agents were skeptical. One agent explained: “people on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.” McCabe would tell an inspector general that Mr. Comey “was getting daily briefings on this stuff.” Compare this with Mr. Comey’s later interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier in which he suggested he was only vaguely aware of details. All this was then centralized in FBI headquarters. Line agents early on wanted to interview Mr. Page—a step agents said made only “too much sense” and the Durham report says would likely have put the whole issue to rest. They were “prohibited” by Messrs. Comey and McCabe, who remained fixated on getting a secret surveillance warrant on Mr. Page. The attorney prepping that application recalled “being constantly pressured” by “management” to push it through—being told that Mr. Comey “wants to know what’s going on,” while Mr. McCabe exhorted to “get this going.” When a deputy assistant attorney general raised concerns with the application’s reliance on Mr. Steele—given his work as a Clinton oppo researcher—supporters of the warrant went straight to Messrs. Comey and McCabe, who said to move ahead “despite his concerns.” The Durham report is littered with agents recalling their frustration that they were “excluded from the flow of information and decision-making process” and steamrolled when they objected to unjustified inquiries. One agent was told in 2017 that his primary job was renewing the Page surveillance application. Yet his team didn’t believe Mr. Page to be a “threat” and thought the investigation a “dry hole.” When he told his superior, he was “ignored and directed to continue.” That supervisor told the Durham team it wasn’t “normal” and she “did not know why the 7th floor was so involved,” but felt her boss, counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, was “not in charge and had to get approvals” from the brass. Mr. Priestap told Durham investigators that it drove him “insane” that his own underlings—Mr. Strzok and Lisa Page—went “around him to the 7th floor” whenever he disagreed with their approach. In 2018, as mistakes began to come to light, that seventh floor ordered a review team to stop writing things on paper. Some are responding to the Durham report with calls to dismantle the FBI. But the report shows the rank and file doing exactly what the FBI is supposed to do—question, verify. The fault rests with an arrogant leadership that discarded the usual layers of oversight—a seventh floor that took charge with no regard for rules, little care for the truth, and no accountability from above. Appeared in the May 19, 2023, print edition as 'Durham on Comey’s Culpability'.
Yawn…. Where’s the outrage for how Clinton’s email server investigation was out in the open during the campaign? How about when Comey made his exclamation weeks before the election, The Obama admin and his DOJ went to lengths to keep Trump’s investigation out of sight. We now know Russia preferred Trump and we know Trump’s campaign shared information with Kremlin backed associates. Seems like the investigation was appropriate
Are you saying Kim Strassel isn’t a conservative? Here’s an Op-Ed from echoing the 2020 stolen claims: https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvesting-the-2020-election-11605221974
