The Durham Report has been released and it begins with Special Counsel John Durham explaining why his report is a flop.
Durham wrote at the beginning of his report:
In conducting this research, we had to take into account US criminal law, the
Constitutional protections our system provides for individuals and the heavy burden placed on government to prove every element of a crime “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Moreover, the law does not always make a person’s poor judgment, even horribly poor judgment, in isolation, a crime. Nor does the law penalize any inappropriate or unethical conduct that political campaigns might engage in for tactical advantage, without violating any particular federal criminal law.
Finally, in almost all cases, the government is required to prove a person’s actual criminal intent, not mere negligence or recklessness, before that person’s fellow citizens can legally declare him or her guilty of a crime. In many cases, the Office’s adherence to these principles explains why conduct deserving of censure or disciplinary action has not led to criminal prosecution by the Office.
There are also reasons why the Bureau should and has exercised particular care when investigating politically charged and high-profile issues such as this one. First, juries can bring strong views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political issues, and those views can in turn affect the probability of conviction, regardless of the strength of the actual evidence and despite the best efforts of a court. an honest and
impartial jury. Second, even if prosecutors believe they can get a conviction, there are some cases where it is inadvisable to spend government time and resources pursuing criminal prosecutions, especially when it would create the appearance – even if it is unfounded – that the government seeks to criminalize the conduct of political opponents or to sanction the activities of a specific political party or campaign. At the same time, prosecutors should not shy away from prosecuting legitimate cases solely because of the popularity of the accused or the controversial nature of the government’s case.
The Durham report reads like a conspiracy theory. There are a lot of moral judgments about things Durham thinks the FBI should have done or could have done, but the bottom line is that Durham didn’t find anything criminal.
Trump hoped the Durham report would reveal that he was the victim of a large-scale intelligence community conspiracy, but there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by the FBI in investigating the former president.
The report is an opinion that Republicans will throw themselves into, but it delivered nothing of what Trump and the GOP promised.
