Wednesday during a contentious session on Capitol Hill, special counsel John Durham responded more effectively than many House Democrats.
Durham testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding an extensive report he produced earlier this spring that detailed his findings regarding the origins of the alleged “Trump-Russia collusion” claim, which was officially referred to as “Crossfire Hurricane” by the FBI.
At one point, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) questioned Durham, causing the conversation to become contentious.
SCHIFF: “You also sought to get the Inspector General to change his conclusion…”
DURHAM: “If you wanna go there, we asked the Inspector General to take a look at the intelligence…”
SCHIFF: “You thought it was appropriate for you to intervene…?!”
DURHAM: “[Your] premise isn’t right.”
SCHIFF: "You also sought to get the Inspector General to change his conclusion…"
DURHAM: "If you wanna go there, we asked the Inspector General to take a look at the intelligence…"
SCHIFF: "You thought it was appropriate for you to intervene…?!"
DURHAM: "[Your] premise… pic.twitter.com/BxiMscgkd5
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 21, 2023
Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a fellow Democrat on the panel, and Durham engaged in another heated argument after the special counsel stated that the evidence he uncovered exonerated then-President Donald Trump of any “collusion” allegations and criticized the FBI for initiating an investigation without a solid basis.
“I’ve tried to follow your report. Mr. Donald Trump, Jr. would’ve called it a nothing burger. You got no convictions, you got nothing! It was all set up to hurt the Mueller report – which was correct and was redacted – to hurt the Bidens and to help Trump,” Cohen said.
“And you were a part of it. You have a good reputation. You had a good reputation, that’s why the two Democrats supported you. But the longer you hold onto Mr. Barr and this report that Mr. Barr gave you as special counsel, your reputation will be damaged, as everybody’s reputation who gets involved with Donald Trump is damaged,” he lectured.
“He’s damaged goods, there’s no good dealing with him cause you will end up on the bottom of a pyre,” Cohen added.
In response, Durham said: “Yeah, my concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect, my family, and my Lord, and I’m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them, sir!” Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) then authorized Durham to continue.
“Well said, God bless you,” Jordan responded.
Schiff frequently asserted that he possessed evidence that the former president had conspired with Russia to undermine the 2016 presidential election during his administration and afterward. However, numerous investigations into the claims yielded no such evidence. Due to the false allegations, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) removed Schiff from the Intelligence Committee.
Durham discovered that the FBI began investigating Trump prior to the 2016 presidential election using “uncorroborated intelligence” and that agents failed to maintain “strict fidelity to the law” throughout the investigation.
The Daily Caller highlighted several significant Hillary Clinton report revelations.
The report noted that the FBI received intelligence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign approved “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” specifically one that involved “tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee” to distract the public from her email scandals. It notes that President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey were personally briefed on Clinton’s scheme, known as the “Clinton Plan” in the report, by CIA Director John Brennan, who recorded mentioning the plan in his handwritten notes.
The “Clinton Plan” was obtained by the FBI while it was relying on the “Steele Dossier,” a discredited report of lurid allegations of Trump’s personal sexual activity, which the FBI knew was being funded and promoted by the Clinton campaign, according to the report. Durham quotes information from a meeting between the Dossier’s author, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and FBI agents, as well as texts between FBI officials, to demonstrate that the agents knew the evidence was connected to Clinton.