Special Counsel John Durham Exonerates Donald Trump of “Russiagate”

[RVonse]

"Durham’s long awaited Justice Department report concludes that the FBI investigation was politically motivated and that the FBI should never have investigated Trump...In other words the FBI’s creation of a false narrative in order to severely influence an election is “devastating to the FBI,” but there is no accountability for the FBI criminals....
Russiagate was an organized plot to destroy the President of the United States who was disapproved by the ruling establishment.

Even CNN’s Jake Tapper, who I regard as among the most corrupt of the presstitutes, said that Durham’s report was “devastating to the FBI” and “does exonerate Donald Trump.” Well, has Tapper apologized for hyping the fake narrative?

No real American believes one word about the failed impeachment charges, the false narrative “insurrection” charges, the Documentgate charges,” the false narrative NY prosecution charges, or the false rape charge." excerpts from: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/20...durham-exonerates-donald-trump-of-russiagate/

So there are a lot of Trump haters out there and I get that. At this point I would not favor him being a leading candidate myself.

But what I still don't get is how even the most serious Trump hater can see this stuff and still believe our government is clean? Because when it comes to freedom and democracy, the means can not justify the ends. Simply because if the DOJ is profoundly this corrupt, rule of law no longer matters and it is only a matter of time that your own ox will be getting gored.

And while we are talking about our obvious and profound loss of democracy...how does January 6th get to be worse than our own government conspiring to remove a duly elected president? Could it even be possible that the aforementioned was a significant cause for the latter?

 

[laughing dog]

The report is at odds with a Justice Department's special investigator report.

I find it incredible that anyone could think that n armed insurrection incited by the then sitting President (and losing candidate) is somehow not worse than a FBI investigation of anyone for any reason. WTF?

Paul Craig Roberts has a long history of being incredibly wrong and a first class douche.

Finally, it is beyond ironic that a Trump supporter and defender worries about whether our government is "clean".

 

[RVonse]

The report is at odds with a Justice Department's special investigator report.

What is different?

 

[laughing dog]

The current

The report is at odds with a Justice Department's special investigator report.

What is different?

The conclusions.

BTW, Mr Durham was appointed by a Trump appointee (Mr Barr) to investigate the investigation of his boss. Any whiff of uncleanliness?

 

[RVonse]

I find it incredible that anyone could think that n armed insurrection incited by the then sitting President (and losing candidate) is somehow not worse than a FBI investigation of anyone for any reason. WTF?

It is worse because:

1) The former was a significant cause for the latter.
2) January 6th was not an insurrection it was at most a riot. The people were not even armed but even if they had been armed, how would taking 1 federal building overthrow the entire government?
3) January 6th was out in the daylight for everyone to see.

 

[laughing dog]

I find it incredible that anyone could think that n armed insurrection incited by the then sitting President (and losing candidate) is somehow not worse than a FBI investigation of anyone for any reason. WTF?

It is worse because:

1) The former was a significant cause for the latter.
2) January 6th was not an insurrection it was at most a riot. The people were not even armed but even if they had been armed, how would taking 1 federal building overthrow the entire government?
3) January 6th was out in the daylight for everyone to see.

Wrong on all counts. Your first conclusion is delusional - the insurrection was about Trump losing.
Your second conclusion is laughable. People involved in the attack have been found guilty of insurrection. The purpose of the gathering was to overturn a legitimate election.

Yes, Jan 6 was in daylight but cannot see it was an insurrection. Besides, Russia gate investigation was not secret, so your last conclusion is false.

Here is a tip to avoid mistakes - do not take anything Paul Craig Roberts as valid.

 

[RVonse]

The current

The report is at odds with a Justice Department's special investigator report.

What is different?

The conclusions.

What conclusions were different? When a liberal media outlet (like CNN) actually agrees and is quoted by Roberts it certainly seems to support my OP is indeed true.

But I would be willing to look at anything else different you may actually cite.

 

[RVonse]

I find it incredible that anyone could think that n armed insurrection incited by the then sitting President (and losing candidate) is somehow not worse than a FBI investigation of anyone for any reason. WTF?

It is worse because:

1) The former was a significant cause for the latter.
2) January 6th was not an insurrection it was at most a riot. The people were not even armed but even if they had been armed, how would taking 1 federal building overthrow the entire government?
3) January 6th was out in the daylight for everyone to see.

Your first conclusion is delusional - the insurrection was about Trump losing.

Half of the population will say it was an insurrection and the other half will say there were FBI plants to try to make it look like an insurrection. With a corrupt DOJ that is more than possible to imagine.

But in any case the hypocrisy is impossible to be ignored. Because it is perfectly fine for one half to be ridiculed for their FBI plant conspiracy theories. Yet the other half can not even be corrected for their error regarding their incorrect Russia Russia conspiracy theories regarding Trump.

 

[ZiprHead]

Half of the population will say it was an insurrection and the other half will say there were FBI plants to try to make it look like an insurrection. With a corrupt DOJ that is more than possible to imagine.

It was Trump's DOJ at the time.

 

[Ford]

Half of the population will say it was an insurrection and the other half will say there were FBI plants to try to make it look like an insurrection. With a corrupt DOJ that is more than possible to imagine.

It was Trump's DOJ at the time.

To be fair, Bill Barr is (and has always been) pretty damned corrupt.

However, he has also been very effective at sweeping his own employers' corruption under the carpet.

At the end of the day, the much-touted Durham Investigation has turned out to be a dud. Which may have been the point after all. Barr took the Muller Report, nerfed it, said "nothing to see here" and promptly appointed Durham to "investigate" the investigators.

Ostensibly it was to find and "root out" all the corruption, but what it really turned out to be was Durham saying "my boss (Barr) disagreed with the investigation into his boss (Trump) and I concur!" To carry the sweeping analogy a little further, this was the last push of the dirt into the dust pan and into the garbage. "Yep, we've looked into it. Nothing to see here. Move along."

I just find it hilarious that the right is still pretending that this was the "blockbuster" they'd been promised. Or to put it another way:

 

[laughing dog]

I find it incredible that anyone could think that n armed insurrection incited by the then sitting President (and losing candidate) is somehow not worse than a FBI investigation of anyone for any reason. WTF?

It is worse because:

1) The former was a significant cause for the latter.
2) January 6th was not an insurrection it was at most a riot. The people were not even armed but even if they had been armed, how would taking 1 federal building overthrow the entire government?
3) January 6th was out in the daylight for everyone to see.

Your first conclusion is delusional - the insurrection was about Trump losing.

Half of the population will say it was an insurrection and the other half will say there were FBI plants to try to make it look like an insurrection.

Provide some evidence to support your claim, because it appears deranged to me.

With a corrupt DOJ that is more than possible to imagine.

The same DOJ that appointed Durham ?

But in any case the hypocrisy is impossible to be ignored. Because it is perfectly fine for one half to be ridiculed for their FBI plant conspiracy theories. Yet the other half can not even be corrected for their error regarding their incorrect Russia Russia conspiracy theories regarding Trump.

You are shifting the goalposts.

But I am curious - what causes an inveterate Trump supporter to all of a sudden become concerned about corruption in government?

 

[laughing dog]

The current

The report is at odds with a Justice Department's special investigator report.

What is different?

The conclusions.

What conclusions were different? When a liberal media outlet (like CNN) actually agrees and is quoted by Roberts it certainly seems to support my OP is indeed true.

According to your guru - Paul Craig Roberts - CNN are presstitutes. Which means you cannot trust them at all.

But I would be willing to look at anything else different you may actually cite.

Here are two reviews - The Crossfire Hurricane Report Inconvenient Findings

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s long-awaited report on the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation is finally out, and notwithstanding furious efforts from all quarters to claim otherwise, it fails to neatly validate anyone’s favored political narrative. Contra the hopes of Donald Trump’s more ardent admirers, it fails to turn up anything resembling a Deep State cabal within the FBI plotting against the president, or deliberate abuse of surveillance authorities for political ends. Yet it also paints a bleak picture of the Bureau’s vaunted vetting process for warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), documenting a host of material omissions or misrepresentations in the government’s case for wiretapping erstwhile Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, whose privacy was invaded for nearly a year on disturbingly thin grounds. Though it does not describe an investigation motivated by political bias, it is a textbook account of confirmation bias that should raise disturbing questions about the adequacy of the FISA process—and not just in this investigation.

and
  Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation[

The Inspector General stated that the review did not find evidence that "political bias or improper motivation influenced" the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.[3] It was also determined that the opening of the overall investigation "was in compliance" with policies set by the FBI and the Department of Justice.[13] Likewise, the review did not produce evidence that "political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations" of George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Carter Page, who were either associated or formerly associated with Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[14]

 

[barbos]

It was Trump's DOJ at the time.

It never was. Trump have never had a "team"

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, it is incredible, how the Trump campaign has a secret meeting with Kremlin related peeps, Trump did a number of things to Putin's benefit more so than the US's during his presidency, Trump's positions on Russia apparated from no where after Manafort gets into his campaign, Manafort gave Kremlin linked peeps campaign info, Trump campaign peeps were being noticed while we were monitoring foreign peeps, and Trump fires the head of the FBI after he refuses to stop looking into the very briefly Secretary of State.

What has not be concluded was that Trump openly colluded with the Kremlin. That proof has not come to light, though the is an interpreter for the Putin/Trump tete a tete that probably knows a lot more about the relationship than the rest of the world. What we do know is that Trump's actions were odd, his campaign people were in odd circles, and nations like Israel no longer trusted him with intel. While Trump has not been proven to have some level of collusion, he sure the fuck hasn't been exonerated!

So the conclusions are two general ideas.
1) Trump was so fucking stupid and manipulatable he couldn't be trusted to be President.
2) Trump conspired with a foreign nation for his own interests.

And as noted before, I'm uncomfortable with either one of these things.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Investigators from former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation told a judge that Trump political adviser Roger Stone orchestrated hundreds of fake Facebook accounts and bloggers to run a political influence scheme on social media in 2016, according to court documents from the Mueller investigation unsealed on Tuesday.

The disclosure came as the Justice Department on Tuesday made public dozens of search warrants from its investigation into Stone, after CNN and other news organizations sued for access to the files.

Stone's assistant, interviewed voluntarily by former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators, said that, as part of his work for Stone, he bought "a couple hundred fake Facebook accounts" and that bloggers working for Stone sought to build what looked like real Facebook accounts to push information about the 2016 Russian hack of the Democrats, a search warrant unsealed on Tuesday stated.

In 2016, Stone had wanted to push WikiLeaks content online that could help then-candidate Donald Trump, including content from stolen emails from accounts belonging to John Podesta, the then-campaign chairman of Trump's rival Hillary Clinton, the warrant alleged. The warrant that mentioned the fake accounts sought data from Facebook for three accounts, two of which were registered to the handle "rogerstone."

At least one of the suspected Stone accounts was used from October 2016 to March 2017 to buy advertisements to push stories related to Russia and WikiLeaks, according to the warrant. Some social media messages from the accounts rebutted that the Russians were behind the online pseudonym Guccifer 2.0, which the US intelligence community has said was operated by Russian intelligence to disseminate hacked materials aimed at damaging Clinton's campaign.

Link

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Trump personally crafted son's misleading account of Russia meeting – report

Trump reportedly dictated statement – which gave distorted version of Trump Tower encounter – aboard Air Force One on return from G20 summit

www.theguardian.com

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Link

Manafort had accepted a plea deal in the case in September 2018, admitting to money laundering, tax fraud and illegal foreign lobbying connected to his years working for Ukrainian politicians. Manafort also admitted lying to investigators and under oath before a grand jury about his contact with a Russian associate during the 2016 campaign, breaking the plea agreement.

Last week, he was sentenced in Virginia to 47 months in prison for financial fraud convictions. In D.C., Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to 73 months, with 30 months to be served concurrently with his Virginia sentence. Manafort, who turns 70 next month, will serve seven-and-a-half years in prison minus the almost nine months he has already been incarcerated. Manafort also was ordered to pay $24.8 million in restitution and a $50,000 fine in the Virginia case. This was the first case from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to go to trial.

President Trump could pardon Manafort for his federal crimes, thus sparing him from serving both sentences. However, immediately after the sentence Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., charged Manafort with 16 counts related to mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. The most serious charge carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in state prison and would not be eligible for a presidential pardon.

Wednesday, Manafort told the court “I am sorry for what I’ve done. Let me be very clear, I accept the responsibility for the acts that caused me to be here today,” he said.

Emphasis added.

 

[RVonse]

But I am curious - what causes an inveterate Trump supporter to all of a sudden become concerned about corruption in government?

it is one thing for an elected official to be found corrupt. The people still have the option to vote them out of office. But organized corruption with unelected government authorities is much more of a concern IMO.

 

[RVonse]

Yeah, it is incredible, how the Trump campaign has a secret meeting with Kremlin related peeps, Trump did a number of things to Putin's benefit more so than the US's during his presidency, Trump's positions on Russia apparated from no where after Manafort gets into his campaign, Manafort gave Kremlin linked peeps campaign info, Trump campaign peeps were being noticed while we were monitoring foreign peeps, and Trump fires the head of the FBI after he refuses to stop looking into the very briefly Secretary of State.

What has not be concluded was that Trump openly colluded with the Kremlin. That proof has not come to light, though the is an interpreter for the Putin/Trump tete a tete that probably knows a lot more about the relationship than the rest of the world. What we do know is that Trump's actions were odd, his campaign people were in odd circles, and nations like Israel no longer trusted him with intel. While Trump has not been proven to have some level of collusion, he sure the fuck hasn't been exonerated!

So the conclusions are two general ideas.
1) Trump was so fucking stupid and manipulatable he couldn't be trusted to be President.
2) Trump conspired with a foreign nation for his own interests.

And as noted before, I'm uncomfortable with either one of these things.

Consider also adding:
3) The POTUS has no real control over organized entrenched corruption of the federal government.