So that was a whole lot of nothing
Here’s all you need to know about the ultimate failure of the “Durham probe” that Donald Trump and Bill Barr cooked up, and who no one outside the right wing echo chamber will still be talking about two weeks from now: it resulted in zero criminal indictments.
The original Trump-Russia probe resulted in criminal indictments against six people from Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, including his campaign chairman and campaign vice chairman. The probe served as proof that Trump’s campaign was a criminal operation literally run by criminals.
Then there’s the Durham probe, which spent years investigating everyone who carried out the Trump-Russia probe. The Durham probe didn’t manage to land a criminal conviction against anybody. John Durham actually went as far as putting two innocent people on trial, in a desperate attempt at trying to make something happen. But in both instances the jury just ended up laughing at Durham’s charges. If anything it’s Durham who should end up criminally charged.
All this Durham probe did was fully exonerate the people who were investigating Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign, which if anything gives even greater legitimacy to all the criminal convictions that the Trump-Russia probe racked up against Trump’s campaign.
But the bottom line is that nothing – and I mean nothing – came from any of this. Trump, his House Republican apologists, and Fox News will desperately try to spin this Durham loss into some kind of win. They have to try to save face on this somehow. But there is literally not one person in this country whose mind will be changed by any of it. The Durham probe was crafted as a Trump-Republican talking point that ultimately won over zero people who weren’t already on board with Trump and the Republicans to begin with. And when it comes to talking points, that’s the definition of failure.
