The Durham investigation into allegations former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election has only further entrenched U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s belief in federal overreach and leftist witch hunts.
The investigation findings released Tuesday by Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into alleged connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
“The conclusion of the Durham investigation and release of his report confirms what we have known all along — ‘Trump-Russia Collusion’ was a lie from the very beginning,” Hageman said in a Wednesday morning press release. “It was a Democrat-initiated attempt to influence an election, led by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, that was enabled by a partisan FBI leadership team.”
Backers’ Response
Trump and his supporters found the report to be a vindication against claims he colluded with Russia to win his election.
“The Durham Report spells out in great detail the Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people,” Trump said on social media. “This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like ‘stuffing’ the ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge impact on the Election.”
Durham, a Trump appointee, concluded that the FBI was guilty of “confirmation bias” and a “lack of analytical rigor."
His report states that the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence” to launch the “crossfire hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia, but used a different standard when weighing concerns about alleged election interference regarding Clinton’s campaign.
Hageman, who has endorsed Trump's 2024 campaign and was endorsed by him in her 2022 campaign, said that, “not only did this sham cost the DOJ and FBI their reputations, it also cost the taxpayers millions of dollars for an investigation.”
Durham also found there was nothing prosecutable regarding Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Although Durham did not recommend filing any additional charges against individuals as some conservatives had hoped or changes to how the FBI does its investigations, he strongly criticized the agency’s behavior.
Trump had teased the Durham report for many months, promising it would uncover a politically motivated “deep state” conspiracy. The report also was largely absent of any new bombshell revelations.
Weaponized?
Hageman believes the Durham Report is proof that the federal government was weaponized to block Trump’s reelection. Durham also alleges that some people involved in the investigation had “a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump.”
“There should have been no FISA surveillance, no ‘crossfire hurricane’ investigation and no special counsel,” Hageman said. “The lack of probable cause, accuracy of examining information and objectivity by the FBI is criminal, and those who willfully advanced the lies exposed by the Durham report should face criminal prosecution.”
In 2020, an FBI lawyer pleaded guilty to doctoring an email during preparations for a wiretap renewal during the Russia investigation. Durham’s other prior two prosecutions – against a Clinton campaign lawyer and the primary source for the Trump-Russia dossier – ended with acquittals.
The new findings come in contrast to the 2019 Justice Department inspector general investigation into the FBI’s Russia probe, which identified problems with the investigation but determined there was sufficient justification to open the inquiry.
Hageman, a member of the Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, said she is dedicated to ending the abuses of power by the federal government by “protecting whistleblowers who have been intimidated and coerced by their superiors at their agencies, and prosecuting those bad actors that have damaged this country through their partisan political actions.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has announced that he has reached out to the Department of Justice to have Durham testify for the committee next week.
Contact Leo Wolfson at Leo@CowboyStateDaily.com
