Long out of office, ex-President Donald Trump is still obsessing over the imaginary crimes that he thinks were perpetrated against him in the course of the Russia investigation. Before leaving power, Trump era Attorney General Bill Barr appointed federal prosecutor John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, and although one case has emerged in which ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith was discovered to have altered an email and received one year of probation, Durham has not produced a comprehensive report laying out findings of the criminal activity that Trump is sure took place.
On Friday, Trump issued the following terse statement:
‘Where’s Durham? Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report?’
Trump’s obsession over this topic seems pathological — and, considering the short length of his remarks, he sure does seem like he misses his Twitter account. He lost the account after he helped incite the January rioting at the Capitol through the platform.
This is a real statement released tonight by former President Trump in its entirety pic.twitter.com/gB61je1mg9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2021
In the past, Trump has alleged that even Barack Obama was complicit in the supposed criminal targeting of the Trump campaign and its associates as part of the Russia investigation. Trump has openly floated the jailing of Obama and ex-Vice President-turned President Joe Biden, insisting that they inflicted criminal harm against him. These claims constitute little more than paranoia — there was no “spying” on the Trump campaign, as Trump has claimed, and there was no systematic “deep state” conspiracy to topple his team. Federal authorities conducted judicially-supervised surveillance of ex-Trump adviser Carter Page after he was no longer affiliated with Trump.
"If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would've been in jail a long time ago, & I'm talking with 50-year sentences…people should be going to jail for this stuff…this was all Obama. This was all Biden": Trump suggests Obama & Biden should be in prison pic.twitter.com/MOwPvpYRu4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020
Trump has claimed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was illegal, which is incorrect. He has claimed that he was totally exonerated at the end of that investigation, which is also incorrect. He has also claimed that the Russia investigation has constituted the biggest political scandal in American history — bigger, apparently, than slavery, presidential assassinations, a civil war, two world wars (one of which involved a major attack by a foreign power on the U.S.), and much more. Trump’s past insistence that he is the victim of, in his words, the “greatest political scandal in the history of the United States” is just laughable. His self-obsession is boundless.
