During a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, top Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.) systematically dismantled false narratives associated with the years-long investigative work of John Durham, who served as a special counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice investigating the origins of the Russia investigation.
In objective terms, Durham’s work was largely a wasteful bust. He never proved any political conspiracy to undercut Trump and his political ambitions with the Russia scandal, just like Donald’s own sweeping lawsuit making similar allegations in Florida court resulted in little more than massive financial penalties incurred by the ex-president and a lawyer of his, Alina Habba. “Mr. Durham, your report reads like a defense of the Trump campaign and an attack on Hillary Clinton, because that’s exactly what it is,” Nadler said, eventually adding: “That’s why you’re here today. Because the Chairman and his colleagues need someone, anyone, to deflect from the mounting evidence of Trump’s misconduct.”
The chairman of the House Judiciary panel in this Congress is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Nadler subsequently got into questioning Durham about some of the specifics of his years of work. Nadler’s questions pointed out some of the perceptible failures of the lengthy probe, including that Durham’s team brought only two limited cases to trial — and in both cases, juries acquitted the defendants of all counts. “And you lost all the cases you brought to trial, correct?” Nadler asked. Durham acknowledged it was accurate.
Nadler then got into even more specifics, asking Durham to acknowledge whether it was accurate that origin points for the Russia investigation remained, in fact, undisputed in the factual record. Nadler specifically got Durham to acknowledge that his investigation uncovered nothing to dispute that former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos blabbed to a diplomatic figure about at least potential Russia ties. “So this fantasy that some MAGA Republicans have created where the investigation was started for any reason other than a Trump campaign operative bragging to Australian intelligence assets about Russian dirt… is not true,” the New York Democrat observed.
